Asking For The Business – Sales Reminder#9

Did You Ask Them To Buy?

I remember my first sales job out of college. My employer provided me with excellent product training and methods for managing my territory. I was prepared to become the best sales representative the universe had ever seen! On several of my initial sales calls, I was accompanied by a senior salesman who was very successful. After about ninety days of selling, however, I was very disappointed by my performance. My numbers were flat and I was working all day! I spent weekends planning my sales calls. I was motivated and very focused on making my numbers.

I remember discussing this situation with my manager and he said to my surprise, remain patient, a few categories “of your numbers were rising”.  This didn’t satisfy me.  About a week after this conversation, I visited the home of the most experienced sales representative in the district. He patiently listened to me as I discussed my sales activities, number of calls per day, who I spoke to, what I said, why I said it, on and on!!! He sat there for about thirty minutes and then he said the magic words that changed my sales career, “Did you ask them to buy your products?” I was speechless! I sat there completely silent. I remember this salesman saying,  “if I worked as hard as you, I would double my income! We had a big laugh!

My initial sales training was product oriented. Don’t get me wrong, product knowledge is critical. I knew almost everything about my products and competitive products. I could pitch with the best of them and I worked like a sled dog!  I forgot the most important thing, Asking For The Business, Closing! After I remembered this my numbers increased within thirty days.

Closing Is A Continuous Process

I’ve come to realize that asking for the business is not one final act but begins with the initial contact with a prospect. I urge my sales teams to begin asking for the business in specific ways throughout the sales process. Remember, asking for a prospect’s business is not some mystical final and grand act. It is a continuous part of the sales process.

Your success in making the sales depends on the many things you’ve done throughout the process. Sales has established trust, verified needs, presented a viable solution, and justified the cost. Asking for the business is a natural part of the process. You are influencing the prospect to purchase from you. You are uniting all the elements of your sales process to demonstrate to the prospect that by purchasing your solution, their requirements will be completely addressed.

Buying decisions are rarely made just based on presented proof or a single rational reason. Most often a decision to purchase is a combination of emotion and rational factors. But be assured, most buyers do carefully weigh many factors before finalizing their decision. Be attentive during every interaction with your prospect. Learn to recognize buying signals. When you have discussions with your prospect about how your product can be used in their environment, take mental notes! Uses these conversations to get even tiniest commitment to move forward and purchase.

Don’t Relax!

At the end of a sales process it is common for last minute questions and outright objections to arise. Questions about pricing, configurations, training, support…are common. If getting the business requires additional resources, find the resources! If you need the technical support team to have a conversation with their technical organization, arrange it! If finance needs to be involved, don’t wait! Quickly neutralize any negative issues by asking for the support you need. I have taken sales from competitors who were confident they had won the day and relaxed. Actually, I urge you to continue a supportive sales process even after the contract is signed. Never disappear even after there has been a hand-off to the implementation team. Is it over when you are implementing the solution? NO! Keep reading.

Next edition: Implementing The Solution – Sales Reminder #10

Sales Obstacles – Ideas For Overcoming – Sales Reminder#8

You Will Face Sales Obstacles!

Every sales effort will likely encounter detours, stalls,  and obstacles. Salespeople knows this. Price, politics, economics, competition, consultants, an unwillingness to evaluate your product,  sun spots, the full moon,  “old ways of thinking” about business issues, reluctance to change, executive management being shielded from the problems and chaos your solution would help to solve, all seem to influence your prospect’s buying decision. OK, maybe sun spots and a full moon have no influence on the decision to purchase your product, but it can certainly seems like it at times!

Dealing with obstacles is crucial if you want your prospect to view you and your product as viable option.

Obstacles are normal! Every sale will have obstacles. A salesperson has responsibilities here. They must develop the skills to avoid, overcome, and even create obstacles for their competitors! The same obstacles of price, politics, economics, and competition are present in almost every selling situation and it is important to be aware. Listen, learn, and keep your antennas up!

Price

In most cases, a prospect wants to know the price of a what you have to offer long before you learn the details of their requirements. Unless your product or service has standard published pricing, remember to probe to get the details of what they really need before giving a final price. Don’t assume you know what a prospect needs before you ask questions. In many, if not most cases, price is not really the biggest issue if your prospect has pain.

Sales must show the prospect that their investment in your solution has an outstanding ROI and this outweighs the investment. Maybe you can show an outright cost savings with your solution. Maybe it’s a discussion within a range of pricing that a prospects agrees to. Don’t neglect to show the financial benefits your prospect will realize by purchasing your solution. It’s possible your solution will cost more than any other competitor’s price. In this case it’s important for your prospect to understand qualitative benefits of purchasing your solution and value added services. It’s possible funding to purchase your solution will come from multiple budgets. Find out how you product will be paid for.

Politics

It seems politics are involved in almost everything we do! With your prospects, there could be internal competition between management teams, divisions, departments, and individuals. Go figure! These internal politics can deeply influence buying decisions. You should become aware of  politics but not participate! It is essential for sales to align with the decision maker and  influencers of the decision, and remain in close contact and communication with them. The politics will become clearer if you do.

Politics can put the fire out of  your sales process. A salesperson must learn to navigate the unpredictable waters of politics.  Your goal is to remain unbiased with your comments, with all participants. Taking sides can kill your sale. Just continue checking where you are in your sales process and remember your goals. Remember the decision criteria the prospect has agreed to, be certain you speak with key people who will make the buying decision, not just people you are comfortable with, and keep their requirements and your solution in the forefront of all discussions.

On a personal note, I ask my sales teams to avoid conversations about government politics and religion as much as possible. These conversations with a new client can have explosive consequences.

Will You Make Me Successful?

Here’s a real life example of a sales obstacle I encountered. Seems familiar? I once sold large-scale business computer systems. There was always an incumbent supplier installed at the accounts I called-on.  The incumbent I targeted was always deeply entwined with the account. They owned the data center and almost everything associated with the computing environment – hardware, software, training, support, wiring, consulting, cooling systems, coffee cups, pencils… OK! A bit of an exaggeration but they truly seemed to own their accounts and the technical employees were quick to tell me they were a shop dedicated to this computer supplier. They had zero interest in what I had to offer. Even CTO’s were reluctant to evaluate me our approach. Big Obstacles! So how did I navigate these obstacles and sell my solutions? I took a step back and refocused.  After all, my platform performed just as well if not better; was based of open standards; and saved clients in the range of 37% or more annually! I realigned my sales effort. I focused on the CFO and Presidents of companies. Typically these professionals were looking for cost savings and efficiencies. 85% of my time was spent communicating with the CFO and President levels and about 15% at the technical and user levels. This was a complete reversal for me but this is how I overcame my obstacles and achieved my goals.  If you’re stuck, look for an executive level where there is strong motivation or even the  responsibility to take a look at what you have to offer.

Competitors

Your competitors will probably be just one of your greatest obstacles. Remember earlier I mentioned creating obstacles for your competitors? You can and you must do this! When I sold computer systems, there were features exclusive to my company. A feature we had that no other major competitor had at the time was Predictive Support. A process where our computer’s operating system would automatically check critical system components and performance parameters. If critical components failed to function at a predetermined level, a support technician from our company and our client company would be notified. Sometimes our technician would visit the customer site before our clients were aware of any issues.  When I mentioned this to an IT Director,  a hurdle was created for my competitor.  A simple obstacle my competitors could not easily leap. The idea of Predictive Support played over and over in my prospect’s mind! It gave him a real sense of comfort he couldn’t get from my competitors.

Sales must understand all aspects of their products and services and a maintain a good understanding of competitive offerings. Learn how to position your product against your competitors’.  If you have them, learn to create uniqueness and exclusives with your product. Deal with any questions raised by a competitor. If there are lingering doubts about your products/services your sale could encounter trouble. Never speak negatively about a competitor but do emphasize how your product will benefit the prospect. Be certain your prospect is comparing “apples to apples”. Typically, there is a significant difference between the pricing of  Enterprise Software implementations and Software As A Services (SaaS) solutions. Be certain your prospect really appreciates the differences if your’re selling SaaS.

Consultants

Often consultants are brought in by corporations to be neutral experts, the provider of the best advice for their client. From your perspective as a salesperson, consultants can facilitate or disrupt your sales process.  Because of the current world economic crisis, I suspect many consultants are very busy! Companies facing complex issues hire consultants to help them evaluate options and make solid recommendations. This could include your product!

Consultant might challenge your prospect’s conclusion that now is the time to purchase your product or service. It has happened to many a salesperson. This is what I recommend. Approach the consultants as you approached your prospect.You must understand the consultant’s role and educate the consultant regarding your company and solution. Try to gain their support but at least avoid alienating them! Try to discover their leanings, past experience, what they’ve recommended in the past, and areas of expertise. The web is a great place to do your research. I once encountered a “neutral” consultant who actually had a business partnership with my primary competitor. Most consultants are meticulous about their reputation however, and make every effort to serve their clients completely and ethically.

The  goal is to become a trusted resource for consultants  you frequently encounter. Even if there are multiple competitors vying for a sales opportunity, your professional and supportive relationship with the consultant will help to assure a fair evaluation of your solution.

As another sales reminder when you face big obstacles, be certain you know what you need to know about their buying process and how decisions are made. Review your qualification checklist to be certain you’ve not missed important data points.

Next Discussion: Asking For The Business – Sales Reminder #9

Formal Presentation? – Sales Reminder#7

When Is The Best Time For A Formal Presentation?

If you’ve read any of  my previous Sales Reminder posts, my next few statements will not surprise you.  You’ll know, by this point in the process, sales has thoroughly qualified the prospect, has a firm understanding of the solution to be delivered, and a solution has been identified to solve the prospect’s requirements that provides an excellent return on investment. Offering a formal presentation, product demonstration, or quote before developing a solid understanding of a prospect’s requirements, in hopes something will stick, can be real waste of time and energy. You will have nothing to base your sales process on when the going gets difficult if you have already made your best case and your potential prospect has not been qualified. Consistently closing business when this happens is nearly impossible.

A prospect will sometimes ask for a demo before they share or even know their requirements. I urge you to slow the sales process and gather as much information about their requirements before you launch a formal presentation and product demonstration. Prepare a requirements summary and share it with your sales team. Be certain you are ready for a formal presentation, product demonstration, or price quotation. Being too eager to close a sale can ruin a good sales process.

Make a formal presentation (i.e. detailed product, features, benefits…) only when the prospect requires it.  These presentations require time and resources to prepare. Sales should prepare one of these presentations only when it’ll have the impact of solidifying  their position and helps to eliminate competitive pressures.

Formal Presentations

If it’s important for you to prepare a formal product demonstration, here are some content and flow considerations:

• Develop an opening that reviews the outline and agenda for the demonstration, discuss the client’s requirements in light of the presentation/demo, describe the flow and get agreement before starting
• If your product is an enterprise software application with 10,000 features and 20 ways to accomplish each task, please keep it simple. Be certain your demo is tailored to your prospect’s requirements. Leave openings for the prospect to ask questions and answer each question. If you are not certain of  an answer, write the question down, find out the answer and send the answer to all of the participants as soon as possible. If you have a colleague presenting with you, and it’s non-disruptive for you to do so, have your colleague contact headquarters to get the answer immediately. Be certain your colleague can find the answer before they leave the room, otherwise provide the answer later.
• At the conclusion of the demo, solidly establish a mutual next action and gain the prospect’s commitment to move forward

It is imperative to master a basic product presentation/demo, learn all important features of the demo. If you are demonstrating software and there are inactive links, never click on them! After you’ve mastered the basic demo, the flow should be customized for each prospect. Highlight features that relate to their priority of needs.

Develop Reference Accounts

Every salesperson should have as their goal to create a reference account with each sale. A reference account is one where the customer is very willing to, from time-to-time, have prospects contact them to discuss your product, service, corporate culture, and their satisfaction working with you. Do not drive your customer crazy with these requests!

Another effective method is to develop a reference account where on site visits are allowed. During a site visit, a prospect can see a customer’s facility, see your product or service in action, and discuss their satisfaction with your solution.  Visits like this can be very effective but must be executed carefully.  This activity should be the high-point of your selling efforts for this prospect. If properly planned and conducted, a customer visit can move you rapidly to closing the sale. Mismanaged, and the process could end quickly!

If you are a person who likes to control every detail, be certain to wear lots of antiperspirant if you organize a site visit! One of the major issues with a site visit is control. Your account must be pleased with their purchase, you, your company, your support, and everything else about your company. Be certain they will not disrupt your visit, and will give you the time and attention they committed to you. Even with all of this in place, it is possible your account might make inadvertent or detrimental comments. Most of the time this will not kill your deal.

I’ve used site visits to huge sales advantage especially when selling enterprise computer hardware, software, marketing, and networking solutions. Products that touch nearly every aspect of an account’s business. Prospects had the opportunity to speak with work groups throughout the account. Usually the sales process was nearly completed at that point! I urge you to judge the potential benefits for conducting site visits and decide whether the risks are justified.

Mini Proposals & Preliminary Presentations

Sometimes offering an unsolicited mini-proposal or an informal presentation can quickly move the sales process forward. This can be a proposal or presentation that lays out several alternative approaches and solutions.  The response to this activity by the prospect should be to give you  directions for a final proposal or presentation. You will know what the prospects considers to be the best solution for them and how to craft your solution.

In conclusion, Solution Presentations should include:

• An opening that sets mutual expectations
• A body that addresses the client’s or prospect’s priority of needs
• A conclusion that shows your solutions addresses the requirement and moves to next steps

WRITE your objectives and internalize them.  Be certain to consider your audience when you prepare. Be certain of the basics, does my presentation technology work (laptop, projector…),  do I have the most recent presentation/demo version, do I have the proper facilities available. Plan for the commitment you want to obtain at the presentation, and plan for next step actions.

Next edition: Sales Obstacles – Ideas For Overcoming – Sales Reminder#8

Using Surveys To Build Accounts? – Sales Reminder#6

Account Surveys For Selling?

This approach might seem a little odd to you, but imagine this scenario. You’re a computer solutions sale representative and you learn of a technology pain point at major global food distribution and grocery chain in your territory. You’ve developed an OK relationship at the company but have never been able to replace or co-exist with their incumbent technology partner.  You offer a variety of technology solutions, some identical to the incumbent, and some exclusive to your company.

A small brave team at the food distributor’s headquarters location has gotten high-level permission to remedy the pain point, and if they find a good solution, funding will be made available. You, the sales representative, are aware that this team is looking for a comprehensive solution, and, they might select your product if you can show how it’ll solve this enterprise dilemma. You also know there are no consultants involved, no requirements document has been developed, and all corporate managers may not know about, or even agree on how to solve the problem. You also know the incumbent will need to develop a custom solution to solve the problem, an approach that could be more expensive than your solution. There is loyalty to the incumbent by this corporation and their relationship is positive.

Making this sale will allow you to achieve your quota results many times over. This is an international company and a global roll-out will require a year or more and you have visions of blasting your quota numbers for at least the next couple years or more. You’ll become a member of the Achiever Club! Ummmm!

What would you do as a first step? I’ll tell you what I did to win this sales opportunity. I don’t recommend this as a regular course of business, but in this case, it was very effective. I was able to complete the sales cycle in less than three months. Having warm relationships at the prospect account was helpful to getting this agreement but was not absolutely necessary.

How Was It Done?

My goal was to draw key executives into a discussion about the problem and share their opinions and ideas about solving it.  A hard sales push didn’t seem to be the obvious strategy, and doing this could alert the incumbent, other competitors, and prolong my sales effort. Being consultative was the call of the day!  I decided to offer an unbiased survey, an analysis of the problem to the prospect. This survey, really an internal audit, would be at my expense and be directed by a subject matter expert at my company. This expert consultant was not a member of our sales organization and it was entirely possible a product other than mine could have been recommended.

The evaluation team agreed to the process but insisted the evaluation to be completely unbiased. So my mandate was to create a survey designed to gather and analyze the insights of various corporate executives and department heads. This process required a close mutual effort between me and the prospect.  Having the support of my prospect’s internal team was absolutely essential! This process is not possible for a salesperson to conduct without this level of prospect support. Don’t even try it.

Another important ingredient was to have a subject matter expert available at my company who was willing to participate as a neutral evaluator of the collected responses, and who would present the conclusions. This expert remained in the background during the fact gathering stage and had excellent credentials (shared with the evaluation team).

In reality, I knew it was possible for the survey findings to point to a solution other than mine, but I also knew our product could be a solid approach for the prospect before beginning the survey.  I was reasonably certain before beginning this process that our product would completely solve and delight the evaluation team and their enterprise. Before you try this, do your homework!

Why A Survey?

I think a good survey can accomplish many things for sales:

• Discover the critical issues at an account and collect feedback about the issues from many corporate levels
• The process bonds you and your company with the prospect
• This process yields interactions with top managers around the issues in a non-sales way
• Qualification is very deep and is likely to reveal additional sales opportunities. You might consider finding additional business partners!
• This process will reveal decision criteria of top managers across the corporation
• Your credibility and the credibility of your company will be greatly enhanced
• The process demonstrates your company’s commitment to solving their issues, not just selling them something
• Your cost justification for the solution will be better understood by you and the prospect

Again, this is not the usual sales process! If you decide to try the survey method, be certain your survey is designed to gather information that points to appropriate solutions.  A survey without a high-level managerial commitment by your company, and a high-level managerial commitment by the prospect, will doom the effort and waste your valuable time and energy.

When the prospect’s decision makers commit to the survey, you can offer to conduct it using in-person interviews, my selected method, or using a combination of in-person and electronic surveys. Work with your prospect champions to evaluate the best survey methods and to create relevant questions and list of interviewees. Your subject matter expert will be able to supply several important areas to probe. WRITE your objectives and plan your interviews. Know in advance where you are headed! Most of my interview sessions lasted less than thirty minutes. One memorable session lasted almost an hour and was fun, very insightful, and included several key department heads!

I assured each interviewee their responses would remain anonymous and asked for complete candor. During the interviews I asked open-ended questions, “what if “, “what is”, “what should happen”, “what happens with their current process”… to reveal issues and gauge their feelings about the problem and methods for solving them. I let them know their responses would be measured and the results shared with them and their management team. Their names would not appear nor could they be identified.

The Result?

The survey helped me to quickly discover their major issues, their desired situation, willingness to act, levels of frustration, pain points, and all without direct selling. I was there to learn.

In the end, I interviewed approximately fifteen high-level managers. I had support at my company to evaluate the survey results. I helped to prepare a report with fabulous graphics that revealed, at a glance, management’s feeling about the issues, methods they’d like to use for solving them, and their willingness to act. At that point, I had the information needed to make the prospect an offer that was difficult for them to refuse. I told them our subject matter expert would be an important participant with the global roll-out  project plan and implementation. The prospect’s evaluation team quickly gravitated to my expert and his team. The entire process required about eight weeks.

Of course there are more details but hopefully this gives you a high-level view of using surveys to build new accounts and generated a few ideas. Consider conducting a survey in the future.  For the right prospect, this could be the perfect approach!

Next edition: Formal Presentation? – Sales Reminder#7

 

Establishing Credibility – Sales Reminder#5

Establishing Sales Credibility

No matter the stage of a business, start-up or a Global 1000 giant, establishing credibility with a prospective customer is vital to the sales process.  When establishing credibility, remember to:

• Fully communicate all aspects of your company, it’s deliverables, support services, credentials of your key team members who’ll be involved with their account, experience of your team, professional affiliations relevant to the prospect, client list… Do this in clear terms the prospect will understand and appreciate
• Map your ability to deliver based on the prospect’s  priority of needs
• Work to quickly establish a feeling of confidence with the prospect. Be certain to conceptually sell (the mental picture), your company will not fail to deliver the desired results
• Keep TLA’s to a minimum unless your prospect also uses and understands the exact same terms (TLA’s are three letter acronyms)

In many cases, it’s the sales person who presents the real face of a company, even when selling is done over the phone.  A website ans social media marketing can be important for communicating a company’s capabilities, thought leadership, and expertise, but it’s the sales team that’s most likely to create high-value new accounts.  A salesperson must learn all aspects of their products, services, and resources, and present these in a manner that answers a prospects needs based on their priorities. A salesperson must look professional. This varies by region, industry, and company. Conform to your company’s standards and not necessarily the standard for your region. This is the foundation for establishing credibility with a prospect.

Capabilities Presentation For Building Credibility

There are a number of ways to build credibility with a prospective customer. Early on in the sales process, I often urge salespeople to organize a Capabilities Presentation. I’ve done this for software, hardware, marketing, and service solutions. This is one more qualifier. If a prospect will not schedule this presentation, it could mean there is no broad support for your solution. Prospects will generally schedule a presentation to learn about a mission critical solution or to learn about a unique approach to an ongoing problem they’re facing. If your contact is unwilling or unable to schedule this type of  presentation, or attract the attention of an internal evaluation team, perhaps a contact at a different level in their organization would be a more appropriate starting point.

A Capabilities Presentation is usually the first opportunity for sales to gather together key people who’ll likely influence the decision to purchase your solution. Sometimes, a prospect will arrange several smaller informal presentations for specific internal groups to become familiar with you, your company, and product. No matter how it happens, the Capabilities Presentation must persuade your prospect that you, your company, and your product are solid, reasonably proven, and will address their priority of needs. In other words, you are credible.

The presentation should offer the prospect opportunities to ask questions and even converse among themselves.  HINT! Pay attention to the conversation dynamics.  Never talk over or interrupt a prospect! Don’t use the style of many TV journalists of interrupting before an answer is given to a question! Yuck! It’s important to correct a prospect’s misconception about your product with facts, but never become argumentative or interrupt a question or comment. It is OK to provoke and challenge a prospect to some extent but be careful. I recall an IT professional once saying, “we are an XXX shop”. I challenged him that he was actually the information services operations for a major health care organization, and “provoked” him to consider additional solutions to support his organization. He became silent and listened. Oh yes, we did make a sale and this IT profession became a real supporter.

Capabilities Presentation:

• Should be logical and easy to follow
• Convey the strengths of your company. Discuss your unique or exclusive features. Create hurdles for the competition
• Present product benefits and show how these benefits will support the prospect. Discuss configuration and personalization options
• Discuss market success (if possible). Start-ups will not have many of these but don’t despair!  Hewlett-Packard was once a start-up!
• Show how you’ll support the prospect from a technical, end user, administrative, global,… perspectives
• Assure the communications are two-way!

The Goal?

The goal for this presentation is to gain agreement with the prospect to proceed with your account strategy from this moment all the way through product purchase and deployment. Ask for next steps and let them know you will be following-up with a general summary of the meeting and will include a couple of summary slides as reminders. Ask  for permission to do this step.

If the prospect has a group coordinator, get to know this person. Let the coordinator know who you are and what you’ll be doing at their company. Let them know you’ll occasionally copy them on communications sent to members of the evaluation team. Even ask them to keep an email folder of your materials to help the evaluation team remain organized with the latest materials.

Relationships And Meeting Dynamics Are Important

Developing relationships with members of the evaluation team is basic. For each participant, it’s appropriate to collect names, titles, email addresses, and phone numbers, role at the company, interest in your solution, and role in the decision. Assure their evaluation team you will not bombard them with requests and materials. Ask if there is a team leader you can send follow-up information to for distribution or would they prefer to be updated individually. You will soon learn who the key contacts are and who the decision maker is. Knowing these people, and developing an understanding of their goals, wins, and objectives is important to moving the sales process forward. Listen and watch the team dynamics!

Communicate with the key individuals in the terms they understand. Technical buyers want to understand security, performance, capacity…User Buyers want to understand how easy it’ll be to use your solution all day long…Administrative Buyers will want to understand how to manage user permissions, reporting… and so on.

A Capabilities Presentation can be a valuable step in the sales process. This type of presentation can help to quickly build creditability with the prospect. It’s an excellent way to demonstrate your ability to support all of your prospect’s buying influences and create hurdles for your competitors. Give it a try!

Next edition: Using Surveys To Build Accounts? – Sales Reminder#6

Time Management, Self Organization, Discipline – Sales Reminder#4

Sales Time Management

You’ve heard it many times, how salespeople use their time is a good indicator of how successful they will be. Energy is the other key ingredient.  There are only so many hours in a day to move sales initiatives forward.  At any given moment, most sales people have multiple, concurrent sales activities underway. In a typical sales pipeline, several sales are nearing completion while other opportunities are just being qualified.

Most sales VP’s have (should have?) a goal of developing a sales pipeline that is three to five times their quota. For instance, a sales organization with a $1,000,000 quota should strive to create a qualified pipeline of  $3,000,000 to about $5,000,000 as their stretch goal. These pipeline levels help to assure at least a 100% quota attainment level. Building a qualified pipeline to these levels requires a tremendous effort by the marketing and sales organizations.

If daily activities interfere with a salesperson’s time and produce few sales results, these activities must be eliminated.  Ask your colleagues not to copy you on emails that have very little or nothing to do with helping to build a robust pipeline or close sales. I know, for political reasons, this can be difficult but try it anyway! If meetings are not really critical for building a pipeline or achieving quota goals, try to skip these sessions.

Truly effective salespersons must be able to use their sales time, set goals, and plan for resource utilization. If a parrot were sitting on my shoulders it would repeat back to me these words, “hours of lost selling time can make it nearly impossible to achieve sales goals”.  OK! I’ll stop preaching!

Just know, time + energy is a sales person’s best resource.  If these elements are not being used properly, negative issues will probably result.

A salesperson’s goal is to maximize return on effort.  The principles for organizing time and activities are the same as every other principle I’ve stated: Gather Information About The Requirement, Analyze and Organize The Response, Prioritize Effort, Plan Next Steps, Schedule Next Action, and then Implement. In this case to Implement is The Sales Activity.

Gather Information

• Using your sales process, assure everything is being done to win the business

Analyze and Organize

• Understand how you spend your time and do your best to eliminate non-productive activities

Prioritize Effort

• List key goals to be accomplished that day to move your sales activities forward

Plan Next Steps & Schedule Next Action

• Keep your CRM ticklers up to date. Do these tasks daily, weekly, monthly… Don’t get sloppy or rely on  memory for sales activity steps and for follow-up activities. I promise, you will forget something important, and forgetting something important can cost you sales and much more!

Implement The Sales Activity – Ask Questions – Self Manage?

• What is the best use of my time at this very moment?
• What tasks will yield the best return on time invested?
• At this very moment am I being efficient and effective with my use of time, energy and resources?

Ask for references?

• After the sale is made and the account is up to speed, asking for reference is the next essential step!

Remember, as the fiscal year progresses, sales will not be asked about the number of emails they answered or meetings they attended. Umm, somehow these things are forgotten especially during the fourth quarter. Sales will probably be asked about projected results. This is my guess!

CRM solutions go a long way in helping to manage daily, weekly, and monthly activities.  Without fail, develop the discipline to use these tools to manage time and for staying organized.

Next edition: Establishing Creditability – Sales Reminder#5