程阳：顶级彩票销售的十一条军规

 

Should Lottery Field Representatives Be Expected to Sell?

 

A few months ago, I made a prospecting telephone call to pitch sales training to a lottery. I had sent an email to the prospect outlining in brief the features and benefits of my training programs and how a more highly skilled sales team would bring in millions more dollars in revenue.

 

I called to follow-up the email and got right through to the prospect – a good sign! That, unfortunately was as good as it got. The prospect did not recall seeing my email and did not know who I was, or why I was calling.

 

I stumbled around and gave some background as I had done in the email. The prospect did not seem impressed and tossed out a few objections that I responded to effectively. Well, I thought my responses were effective. Finally, as the ping pong match of objections and responses made my prospect weary, I was told, “our people in the field don’t sell”, which I took to mean that people who aren’t expected to sell don’t need sales training.

 

Fair enough, so we ended the call with that, and me choosing to live to sell another day.

 

When I left the publishing business and went into the consulting and training business, most of my work was with Pepsi-Cola, Ace Hardware and Anheuser- Busch. Working with lotteries was not on my business radar. Then one day, I got a call from former coworker who had left the publishing business and became marketing director for a lottery.

 

She told me that lotteries have sales staffs and that would be a good market for me to pursue. I must admit I was blank when she suggested that. My response was, “What do they sell?” My thinking was that lottery sold itself and had no competition. Was I ever naïve!

 

I quickly learned that lottery field sales people have plenty to sell. They sell better game placement of take advantage of the impulse nature of instant games. They sell jackpot awareness as jackpots drive online sales. They compete with other consumer products for the attention and share of wallets of shoppers.

 

Simply put, lottery field representatives should be executing a simple strategy:

 

• Get more people to play lottery

 

• Get current players to play more often

 

• Attract players to higher average price points

 

• Get players to buy more games per purchase occasion

 

To do these things, a field representative must sell. Lottery field representatives and the lottery sales department owes it to the state and to retailers to sell what drives sales.

 

Can a lottery field representative really impact sales at retail? Consider:

 

• A lottery rep sold a retailer the idea to have clerks ask for the sale when the Powerball jackpot was $245 million. Conventional wisdom is that large jackpots sell themselves. The store that asked for the sale at $245 million had a sales increase of 97 to 131 percent over sales for four similar jackpots in prior months. Asking for the sale doubled sales during a big jackpot, but it took the lottery sales rep to sell the idea to the retailer.

 

• Eight sales representatives in a state moved tickets onto the front counter in stores with tickets displayed behind the counter. Sales jumped 44 to 95 percent. It took the effort of those sales reps selling to the retailers to make those sales happen.

 

• Another group of lottery reps sold retailers on moving the display of tickets from a position past the point of sale (register) to ahead of the traffic flow. The position ahead of the register gives shoppers a chance to study the games on display and make a decision. If the display is past the register, potential players would have to get back in line, or ask for a specific game without seeing the game display. For the stores that were sold the move, sales increased from 65 to 300 percent for the quarter. Some of those sales calls involved selling the retailer to move candy or energy drinks to make room for lottery.

 

• Lottery sales reps sold in secondary displays of tickets next to the primary register in stores. This, too, involved selling the idea of putting lottery where other items were already in place. Sales for lottery increased 20 to 61 percent and added thousands of dollars to the bottom line of the stores.

 

When lottery field representatives sell, lottery sales and profits climb. When lottery field representatives put on a sales hat and embrace the strategies of increasing the player base, frequency of play, average game price and number of games per purchase, they think differently when they enter a store.

 

How do they look at a store in a different way? The effective sales rep looks at the store to see what customers are buying. Not just what lottery games, but what other products are being purchased? What would you buy in the store, and why?

 

Sales reps want to know who the core customer of the store is and what are their buying habits? When do they shop the store and what are they looking to buy? Answer those questions, and the sales representative can do a better job of selling display and merchandising ideas that make sense for the individual store.

 

What does it take for a field representative to be a top-performing sales representative? There is no real “natural born sales person”. These traits can be developed and encouraged in partnership with management:

 

Curiosity.

 

Successful sales people have a drive to learn, especially to learn about the business of the customer. They also are looking for new sales approaches, new data on sales performance and ideas to put to work in stores. They are also always seeking the “why” behind results.

 

Trustworthy.

 

Top sales performers have earned the trust of their customers and their bosses. Relationships built on trust lead to great partnerships and business growth.

 

Learns from the past.

 

There is a saying that some people don’t have 15 years experience – they have one year of experience 15 times. The implication is that they have not learned and grown from their experiences. Top performers are always learning and growing from their successes and failures. They document results and have a clear idea as to what works and what doesn’t, as well as why things happen.

 

Thinks strategically.

 

There is a purpose behind their actions and efforts. Each sales call has a goal that is related to an overall strategy for territory growth. The strategy is to achieve the rep’s goals.

 

Goal-Oriented.

 

Top performers have a clear vision for their territory and goals to achieve at each store. Each store goal is a building block to achieve the overall sales goal for the territory, which in turn contributes to achievement of the state sales goal.

 

Optimistic.

 

Top sales people are eternal optimists. They expect a positive result on every call and create an energy that breeds success. The focus is on success, not failure.

 

Enthusiasm.

 

Coupled with optimism is enthusiasm. It is said that nothing great is ever achieved without enthusiasm, and that is true in sales. Top performers know the difference they are making with customers and are excited about it.

 

Disciplined, yet flexible.

 

Each day, top performers have a plan and follow the plan with managed discipline to control time and resources. They do not fall victim to the tyranny of the urgent things that always crop up, but are able to be flexible while managing multiple priorities.

 

Do what needs to be done.

 

They work harder and smarter. The day starts early and ends with preparation for the next day. There is a clear expectation of what needs to be done on each call. Results are always measured, notes are kept and management is kept informed of activities in the field.

 

Take risks.

 

If you continue to do the same things, why expect a different result? Successful sales people step out of their comfort zones and try different things. They try different sales approaches, different display options and make cold calls. They are always seeking new ideas and giving them a try. They have a large network of contacts and reach out to others to discover innovation in an effort to achieve potential.

 

Set ambitious goals and take action.

 

Top performers have goals, and most critically, they take action to achieve the goals. Too often, organizations fall into the trap of setting goals that in reality are nothing more than predictions based on past trends. Goals need to be based on potential. The plan needs to be a course of action that will deliver results to meet the goals that have been set. Sales people can make that happen when the expectation is there from management.

 

Most lotteries are in the process of ending their fiscal year and finishing plans for FY2014. I encourage lotteries to make FY2014 the year your plan outlines a strategy and the budget provides the resources to implement that strategy.

 

Brian Harris, who originated the concept of category management, said, “I cannot think of an opportunity that will return a bigger ROI than improved execution.” Part of your strategy must be to have your people in the field selling better execution at retail.