How many salespeople do you think regularly seek out tips about selling on websites, in magazines and books and newsletters? If the increasing number of available sources out there offers any indication, a whole lot of them.

What’s wrong with sales tips?

Many salespeople think that these tips are all they need to win. Read enough articles and books and digest enough of these tips, they think, and they’ll never lose another deal. For other sales folks, it’s that ever-elusive silver bullet that they seek. They scour book after book, website after website, anxious to unearth that single gem that will transform them into a winner.

Don’t get me wrong. I think that many of the hundreds of sales experts out there have something valuable to say. I certainly felt that way when I wrote How Winners Sell, in addition to dozens of articles aimed at helping salespeople sell more.

I’m not questioning the advice contained in the sales tips available today. Most of those tips make sense, and if used at the right time and in the right way, they can be quite effective. That’s not my problem.

Tactics alone won’t support consistent sales performance

This issue is that these self-paced sources of learning focus almost exclusively on tactics. Sales reps need tactics. Tactics are required to win. But tactics alone won’t get your people where they need to be. The more tactics a salesperson reads about in the form of tips, the further he or she gets from the real key to winning—developing and executing a strategy—a higher-level, overall plan to win. Your salespeople have to be able to zoom out to that higher level. Sales tips focus them on zooming in. Period.

If they don’t support the execution of a strategy to win, sales tips are high-fructose corn syrup—the empty calories of professional selling

Since many salespeople don’t have the knowledge and experience to determine what works and what doesn’t, and no one is providing them with a curriculum, or testing them on what they’ve learned and applied from these tips, they generally choose only the tips they perceive are easy to accomplish. And, if they try a tip once and it doesn’t work, they’ll likely reject it without giving themselves an opportunity to perfect that skill or technique. As a result, they aren’t even availing themselves of what might be the best tips for them and their circumstances.

It’s clear that the companies that have a formal, institutionalized sales methodology consistently sell more effectively than those that don’t. These are the facts. Jumping from tactic to tactic doesn’t win deals unless they are easy formulated to support the execution of a strategy and therefore integral to an overall plan.

So, if your salespeople swear by those valuable insights from their favorite sales experts, do your reps, your company, your customers, and yourself a favor. Integrate the best, most relevant tactics into a strategic, documented sales approach. It’s harder than trying tip after tip after tip. But you’ll be glad you did.

Dave Stein

Dave Stein is CEO and Founder of ES Research Group, Inc. ESR is an independent research, advisory, and consulting firm that focuses on sales training programs and the companies that provide them. Read more at Dave Stein’s blog and ESR’s website. Follow Dave on Twitter at @davestei.

For a better sales strategy, download this Salesforce.com ebook: