Your Salespeople Aren’t Salespeople Yet — And That’s Fixable

For years, we’ve called the people in our charter departments “salespeople.”

I’m beginning to think that’s a little unfair.

Not unfair to the company.

Unfair to them.

Because if we’re honest, very little of what many charter salespeople do each day looks like what the rest of the business world would call selling.

They answer the phone.

They gather trip details.

They build quotes.

They revise quotes.

They send confirmations.

They answer emails.

They move information from one place to another.

Then, somewhere in the middle of all that, we tell them they need to follow up more, build stronger relationships and close more business.

The problem isn’t that we have bad salespeople.

The problem is that we’ve built a process that turns salespeople into highly trained order processors, then wonder why they don’t have time to sell.

If we want to change that, the answer isn’t another sales seminar.

It’s giving them their job back.

Stop Measuring the Wrong Work

For decades, we’ve treated quote production as the primary responsibility of the sales department.

A request comes in.

A quote goes out.

Then another.

Then another.

We’ve become incredibly good at measuring how efficiently we process requests.

But processing requests isn’t selling.

Typing information into software isn’t selling.

Copying details from an email into a booking system isn’t selling.

Generating confirmations isn’t selling.

Those things have to happen, but they aren’t where your company creates value.

Every minute a salesperson spends doing work technology can perform is another minute they aren’t talking to customers, understanding their needs or building confidence in your company.

The real opportunity isn’t simply generating quotes faster.

It’s reclaiming the hours that quoting has consumed for decades.

Don’t Use Automation to Process More Quotes

This is where I think many operators miss the point.

If automation simply allows your team to produce twice as many quotes tomorrow as they did yesterday, we’ve solved the wrong problem.

The goal isn’t to create faster order processors.

The goal is to create salespeople.

So if technology gives your team back four, five or six hours each day, the real question becomes:

What should they do with that time?

Most people answer:

“Make more phone calls.”

I think the opportunity is much bigger than that.

Engineer the Customer Experience

Most charter companies haven’t intentionally designed a buying experience.

They’ve designed a quoting process.

Those are very different things.

Imagine someone booking transportation for a wedding.

Now imagine someone arranging recurring airport transfers for a corporate client.

Now think about a university athletic department that books transportation throughout the year.

Should those customers all have the same experience?

Of course not.

They have different questions.

Different timelines.

Different expectations.

Different decision-making processes.

Yet many companies leave those experiences to individual salespeople to figure out.

That’s a missed opportunity.

Management should decide what a great buying experience looks like for each type of customer.

When should a wedding customer receive educational information?

When should deposits be collected?

When should someone personally pick up the phone?

When should payment reminders be sent?

When should final itineraries be requested from a university?

What communication should happen automatically, and where does a salesperson add the most value?

Those decisions shouldn’t live in the heads of your best employees.

They should become part of the way your company operates.

Think about McDonald’s.

People don’t return because every employee is exceptional.

They return because the company intentionally engineered an experience that is predictable and repeatable.

No matter who takes your order, you know roughly what to expect.

Charter companies should be thinking the same way.

Not, “How does Susan handle wedding customers?”

But, “How does our company handle wedding customers?”

That’s a very different mindset.

Technology Executes the Process. People Build the Relationship.

This is where I think many conversations about AI miss the point.

The goal isn’t to automate salespeople.

The goal is to automate your operating discipline.

For the first time, operators can decide what an exceptional customer experience looks like, then use technology to execute the predictable parts of that experience consistently.

At TBN, that’s exactly how we’ve approached it.

Korin wasn’t designed just to answer questions.

It was designed to do work.

Paste an email into Korin.

Upload a spreadsheet containing an athletic department’s entire season.

Import recurring airport transfers.

Instead of manually creating every quote and booking, Korin can build much of that work in minutes.

Now combine that with our Online Booking Widget, where many customers can build their own quotes using your real-time pricing.

Then layer in automated communication.

Wedding customers can receive information that’s relevant to weddings.

Corporate clients can receive communication tailored to recurring transportation.

Universities can move through a completely different workflow.

Payment reminders can be sent automatically.

Final itinerary requests can be triggered at the right time.

Driver information can be delivered without someone remembering to send it.

Now imagine your salesperson arriving at work.

Instead of wondering what they forgot yesterday, their dashboard already tells them.

These customers need a phone call.

These customers haven’t submitted their itinerary.

These payments need attention.

These automated communications have already been sent.

The process is simply working.

The salesperson isn’t trying to remember every next step.

They’re focusing on the exceptions.

The conversations.

The relationships.

The places where human judgment creates value.

Technology executes the process.

People build the relationship.

That’s the future.

Measure What Actually Matters

This also requires management to rethink success.

One of the most misunderstood metrics in sales is close rate.

Close rate sounds impressive.

Until you ask one more question.

Closed…

At what rate?

A salesperson can have an outstanding close rate while quietly destroying your margins.

If they discount every opportunity to win business, they may hit every revenue goal you’ve given them while making the company less profitable.

Closing business isn’t the objective.

Closing profitable business is.

That means measuring more than quote volume and close rate.

Measure realized pricing.

Measure average discount.

Measure gross margin.

Measure pipeline health.

Measure follow-up activity.

Measure how much time your salespeople actually spend talking to customers instead of processing transactions.

People naturally focus on what management measures.

If all you measure is quote production, don’t be surprised when everyone becomes excellent at producing quotes.

Give Salespeople Their Job Back

Recently, I asked a group of operators how much time their sales teams actually have available each day for proactive follow-up.

The answer was remarkably consistent.

About an hour.

Maybe an hour and a half.

The rest of the day is consumed by processing work.

That isn’t a motivation problem.

It’s a math problem.

When six or seven hours disappear into data entry and quote production, there isn’t much time left for selling.

Technology changes that equation.

Not because it replaces people.

Because it removes the work that never required a salesperson in the first place.

For years, operators have wanted their teams to spend more time selling and less time processing paperwork.

The desire was never the problem.

The tools were.

Today, that’s changing.

The future of charter sales isn’t about building quotes faster.

It’s about intentionally designing a customer experience that is repeatable, scalable and consistently delivered regardless of which employee happens to answer the phone.

Technology should execute the process.

People should build the relationship.

When we finally get that balance right, our salespeople can stop acting like order processors.

And finally become what we’ve been calling them all along.

Salespeople.

#TBNDrives #TheFutureIsHere