By Darryl Gee

Since you are selling indirectly, your customers are the Owners, Managers and Salespeople who sell your products and services. However indirect customers are different from traditional retail customers, who will typically be end users. These customers are your business partners. Your success is tied to theirs and vice versa. In most cases they will not see you as a salesperson nor themselves as a customer. They will view you as their partner who is an expert on your products and services.

By its nature indirect sales requires that the Indirect Account Executive, win by helping others to win. Since you are not directly making sales, you have to depend on others to make sales for you. The basic model for indirect sales success is:

Build Relationships, Reward Their Success, Provide Sales Expertise, and Build Their Product Knowledge.Build Relationships:

Relationship is friendship! In most of your doors it will be easy to befriend the owners, managers and salespeople. Simply use the skills you learned on the playground as a kid. Seek out what you have in common. Do they have children, did they just move to the area, did they just get married, do they ride motorcycles, do they play tennis, etc …

Once you find out what you have in common – talk about it. Ask them questions to get them talking about themselves. People love talking about themselves. Exploit this fact by asking questions and focusing the conversation on them. You’ll be surprised at how effective this will be. At this point your objective is to come across as friendly and genuinely nice. If they view you as friendly and they like you they will be more likely to sell your product.

Reward Their Success:

In indirect often times we feel like we are buying the business. In the wireless business we often run monthly contests and incentives. This is a very effective way to drive the sales. Just make sure that whatever you are spending you get a return on your investment. Ensure that the dollars you are spending drive the behaviors and product sales you desire.

Provide recognition by recognizing outstanding performance with a simple certificate. You can do this monthly and annually. Reward sales success above a minimum or at preset targets with gift cards. I like gift cards because they allow the recipients to make their own buying decision. If you work for a company that has a Presidents Club for Indirect Doors, motivate sales by providing updates on their standings.

The key to rewards and recognition is tracking and communication. To get the biggest bang for your buck you need to provide sales results and standings regularly. If not your contest or incentive will feel like a crap shoot to your doors. For example, by providing weekly results during a monthly contest you give your doors a chance to adjust and improve.

Provide Sales Expertise:

During your visits to your doors one of the best ways to set yourself apart from other Indirect Sales Reps is to Provide Sales Expertise. Most Indirect Reps will focus on product knowledge. This is a contradiction to how end users shop. People don’t buy from the person who can best explain all the features and every facet of a product. If that was the case all salespeople would do is provide facts.

We buy from the person who helps us best understand the value of a product. We buy from the person who helps us to see ourselves using the product. We buy from the person who can best overcome our objections. We buy from the person who pushes us to go ahead and buy, when we are hesitant and unsure.

By providing sales expertise and showing salespeople how to sell your products and services you indirectly are driving the sell of your product. By making a salesperson a ‘better salesperson,’ sales of your products and services will grow.

Establishing yourself as a sales expert builds your credibility and makes you an authority on sales. If you don’t feel like a retail sales expert two books to help you are ‘Retail Magic’ by Richard Fenton & Andrea Waltz and ‘No Thanks I’M Just Looking’ by Harry J. Friedman.

Build Their Product Knowledge:

Most Indirect sales people are good at training on their product. Its best to take a systematic approach to product training. Your priority will usually be to (1)launch new products and ( 2) reinforce knowledge of existing products.

When launching a new product it’s a good idea to tie the launch to an incentive. This will focus attention on the new product. A great tool to use is a simple one page explanation of the new product. Use it to go over the details of the product with sales reps. Present it as a train the trainer document with Owners and Managers. Partner the one pager with a quiz to encourage retention.

For existing products Create a simple overview and use it to train new sales reps. This overview should be 1 to 2 pages. For existing and seasoned sales reps train on a cycle. For example if you have 4 product groups and you make two visits per month, focus on two groups during your 1st visit and the other two during your second visit. Partner your training with a quiz for added impact. You can also add levels for each training and increase the intensity and detail on higher levels. Training in this way ensures consistency of knowledge throughout your territory.

In a competitive indirect environment your product may be competing with many other similar products. To stand out from the crowd requires setting yourself and your products and services apart. Conduct yourself as your customers business partner and remember these basic steps to growing your indirect sales:

Build Relationships, Reward Their Success, Provide Sales Expertise, and Build Their Product Knowledge.

About the Author: Darryl Gee has 12 years of combined sales and management experience, with 7 years in the Wireless industry. He is currently a Sprint Indirect Acount Executive and has been a Retail Store Manager and District Leader for AT&T Wireless and Verizon Wireless. Email: geedarryl@yahoo.com.

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