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An Open Sales Letter to Sales Executives & Leaders

Jamie Shanks
Jamie Shanks

Sales LetterDear Director of Sales and VP of Sales,

It’s me, one of your Senior Account Executives in Territory ABC. I joined the company with all the excitement in the world and to grow my career. Two promotions and pay raises later, though, there are a few things I have to get off my chest in this open sales letter.

I’m writing this letter to you to express how I feel about some of the things I’ve been observing over the last few years that I’ve been a part of the company.

The way we sell sucks! It no longer makes sense, and it just doesn’t work anymore. I can’t stand hearing our trainers on how to build relationships with prospects because the reality is we can’t even get people on the phone.

In short, the way we sell must change. I make over 75 cold calls/day and write dozens of e-mails to prospects. This is not working any more. If I’m lucky I’ll have a 5% contact rate. Even when I connect with people, they’re angry because I’m interrupting them. It’s all par for the course, but the situation is getting really bad out there. The way the quota is going up, I can’t possibly commit to meeting it if the way we sell continues. I think you are so far removed from this, or if you’re seeing it, you don’t know what to do. Either way, we’re stuck at status quo.

This letter is not about doom and gloom; it’s about the opportunity we have to start making a difference in our customers’ lives.

I recently lost a deal to Competitor XYZ, and the prospect was kind enough to tell me it’s because the sales rep there had connected with him online on LinkedIn. Sounds weird, but the sales rep was sharing content and differentiating himself from our company. This allowed him to get in the buyer’s mind a lot sooner and add value. We didn’t even have a chance to win. How could we? All we were doing is supplying a quote and dropping our price to look more attractive. We had no ability to add any value. Our strategy backfired.

The other sales rep was practicing Social Selling, and I’m starting to research it. I am starting to invest my personal time into this because the reality is that I don’t have faith that you’ll invest in me and my colleagues to make us successful.

We’re on a fine line between obscurity and opportunity. But these are both sides of the same coin. I trust that you’ll make the right decision. Otherwise, I can almost guarantee that there will be a flurry of departures from our once esteemed company.

Sincerely,

Me

The Bottom Line

Wouldn’t it be nice if your sales professionals talked to you with this much transparency? The truth is, they talk to us like this. And we’re happy to share our feedback with you. Get started with Social Selling today and take that leap of faith. It’s different. Not difficult. To learn more, download our 10 Steps to Building a Social Selling Machine for free or you can check out these blog posts about social selling. If you’d like talk about some real-world tactics to get you started, click on my calendar below to schedule a call.

Amar Sheth

CTA

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