Reflecting on Microsoft's sales secrets, Dayton gives particular credit to the company's sales representatives' ability to tell Microsoft's story and get customers to buy into the company's vision. "At the time, our OEM group only consisted of about five people," he says, "so we all thought of ourselves as evangelists, sort of getting the word out. In no way was Microsoft the de facto standard yet, so we had to convince people that this was the case."

To provide the evidence customers needed, Dayton developed a simple Microsoft "story" that addressed the who, what, when, where, why and how of the OEM customers' key concerns. Each question was paired with important corresponding customer benefits to help move the sale forward.

"Being able to tell your company's story in a clear, compelling way will provide your customers with invaluable help in making their buying decision," Dayton says. "So if your prospect is concerned about doing business only with established vendors, and your company is the industry leader in the field, make that a part of telling who you are. Or maybe the customer has had trouble with an existing supplier's inability to deliver products on scheduled due dates. If so, focus your story around your company's 94 percent on-time delivery record. Other areas you might focus on include any competitive advantages your company offers (how) or the comparative features and benefits of a particular product (why)."

Dayton emphasizes that in telling your story you want to give customers every reason to buy your product and to make that decision as easy as possible. Admittedly for Microsoft, the unabashed industry leader in a fast-paced field, this may be quite simple. But Dayton argues that every competitive company has a compelling story to tell, even if the company's product is something low-tech, like ball bearings.

"If you go into a customer and say, 'We make the best ball bearings in the world,' just try to put yourself in the customer's position," Dayton says. "They're thinking, 'Well, who wouldn't say that? Is someone going to say that they build second-rate bearings? No. Everyone's going to say that.' So how much value does that offer in getting customers to buy your products? Very little. But if you say, 'XYZ independent engineering company says that in a fluid environment our bearings have .001 nanometer better tolerances than our nearest competitor,' or something equally compelling, then at least there's some credibility there. But typically sales organizations don't go that extra mile, emphasizing these pivotal points in describing who they are and what they do, and it costs them business."

Dayton argues that this ability – to see a sales situation through the customer's eyes – is crucial to becoming an effective, client-centered sales professional. Too often, he says, whether because of a lack of preparation, failure to concentrate on the business at hand, or a simple misunderstanding of the customer's needs, salespeople get lost in the sales process and fall out of sync with the customer's buying process.

"Most salespeople don't know where they are in the selling cycle," he says, "and so they wind up getting lost. They have sales that are stalled and they don't know why. If this is the case, typically the reason is that you have not verified that you have addressed all the customer's concerns before moving forward. So you've got a breakdown in communication where you feel like you've answered all the customer's concerns and don't understand why he or she isn't ready to make a decision. But the customer may still be worried about some other issue you've already moved beyond."

The solution, Dayton adds, is to retrace your steps in the sale and find out where you fell out of sync with the customer.

"Go back to the account," he says, "and verify that you have addressed all the customer's concerns about each step on the path of action you recommended. This way you can uncover whatever the stumbling blocks are, cover that ground again until both of you are satisfied and move the process forward. Selling is a lot like dancing; the two of you have to stay in step if you're going to get anywhere."

To ensure that you stay toe-to-toe with your dance partners, Dayton recommends closing every sales call by going back over the objectives you set for the meeting and verifying that the customer has received all the information he or she needs to move the sale forward. This simple act, he says, will communicate that you care about the customer's concerns, and help you expose and address any objections before trying to close the sale.

At Microsoft, Dayton says, the biggest problem facing the sales organization was getting salespeople up to speed on the technical side of the company's marketing story. To address this problem Dayton put together an in-house OEM training group charged with providing sales, product and industry skills to both new and veteran account managers. Unfortunately, he says, most salespeople have trouble analyzing their own sales efforts to identify problems. This is where the sales manager can step in and make a difference.

"The best way for sales managers to diagnose sales problems," Dayton says, "is to go out in the field with the salespeople and watch how they interact with customers. Most sales managers are good at assessing personality issues like 'John can't keep his mouth shut' or 'Jane is really disorganized,' which are superficial issues, but they don't have a deeper understanding of what's going on. Unless they get out on the sales calls they never will be able to move things forward for that team member. In the field the problem usually becomes apparent, whether the account rep isn't comfortable making product demonstrations, doesn't identify customers' key issues, or whatever. And then, once the problem is identified, the challenge becomes fixing the problem."

Dayton acknowledges that even at a top-flight sales organization like Microsoft, remedying salespeople's performance problems can be a formidable challenge.

"This is a tough issue," he says, "because you're dealing with people and with their different personalities. Typically the problems can be traced back to a lack of basic skills. Just like with a professional athlete, salespeople have to constantly work on the fundamentals. At Microsoft, for example, there were people whom we would give product demonstration training, yet they still couldn't use the product worth a darn when they were in front of a customer. They weren't comfortable going through a product demonstration, so they would always find some excuse to bring a product marketing guy or a support engineer with them.

"So you have to look at the problem honestly, without assuming that the sales rep has a certain base line of knowledge. Because people get defensive when you talk about basic skills, things you think they should know already. There are ego issues involved, and I've found that the easiest way to get around them is to present the basics, but in a more jivey way. So you acknowledge that you're covering fundamentals, and that the sales reps may already understand these things. That way, the rep or reps who don't know the material can absorb it without getting defensive or having their egos attacked." Once the new training is in place, however, the manager's job is not done. The next step, Dayton emphasizes, is to confirm that the training has stuck.

"When I was at Microsoft," he says, "we brought in many different outside training companies, but for the most part our people would get excited about it for a week and then go back to exactly what they were doing before. One of the things I've realized is that success isn't about getting people excited at a training program – it's about engineering change throughout an organization. And that's why after you've conducted a training session it is so important for the manager to go back out in the field with that rep and validate that the training has made a difference. Even at Microsoft we weren't very good at that, to be very honest. In my opinion we fell short on the validation side. But it's absolutely key if you want to make change permanent, and not just a matter of getting people pumped up for a week and then going back to doing things the same way as before." To Dayton, in addition to communicating a compelling marketing story and focusing on continuous improvement, Microsoft's sales force has been so successful because sales goals have always operated in lockstep with corporate goals. The sales organization always knew what was expected of it, and how those benchmarks related to an overall corporate vision.

"This should always be the case," Dayton says. "The sales function needs to support the corporate vision. For example, at Microsoft Bill had a vision of a PC on every desktop and Windows on every computer. As a company we were all united in the goal of engineering the highway that would bring Microsoft, and in fact the computer industry, to that place in time where that would become the state of the market. As salespeople our function was to put down specific sections of concrete on that highway. One section might have been moving a particular customer from DOS to a Windows shell, so that they were running the MS-DOS operating system with the Windows interface on top of that. Then the next step would be getting them to run Windows on their PC. And then the next step would be moving them to run Windows on their TV set, or some variant of Windows so that TV channels will be broadcast through the Internet.

"So we had short-term objectives that were aligned with the long-term strategic plan for the company, and which supported that vision. Too often with companies this isn't the case, and you have incentive plans guiding salespeople to do things at odds with or indifferent to corporate goals. And if that's the case you're just running around the barn with your eyes closed and tripping over the rake. One of Microsoft's great strengths is being responsive to its mistakes. If Microsoft announces a new program or initiative and the market balks, or the product flops, they go back to the drawing board and try something new. Too many companies are unable or unwilling to admit when they've made mistakes and learn from them. People in the industry sometimes joke that it takes Microsoft three versions of a product to get it right. This isn't always true, but regardless, Microsoft keeps working until they do get it right, and ultimately prevail in their markets."