Ready for another tip on how to increase your sales in a tough economy?  Commit to excellence and focus on the power of one! 

The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to his or her commitment to excellence, regardless of his or her chosen field of endeavor.  Zig Ziglar’s quotation is important for all fields - but most specifically the field of sales!

Today’s economy has created a lot of easy excuses for the average performer to not take action.  Top performers continue to succeed in spite of the economy.  In our sales training courses, we see salespeople become a bit paralyzed as they look at ALL the activities they could be doing to make more sales.  Don’t let that ‘I’m overwhelmed’ feeling stop you.  Instead of thinking you need to do 20 things different today, start with just ONE MORE!

 Today, make the time for ONE more: 

1. Phone call.  Who do you want to connect with?  Take 5 minutes to prepare your objective, how you will engage them when they answer the phone, what you want to find out and the next step.  And then pick up the phone!  Be prepared to leave a great voicemail message if they don’t pick up.
2. Message.  What information can you send to someone as a follow-up?  Is there something you promised that you can get out today?  Send it by email or regular mail.
3. Note. Handwritten notes/cards are a powerful connection!   Select someone that you haven’t connected with in a while and send them a note.  Don’t make it about your company, product or service specifically.
4. Action item from your plan to achieve your goals.  You do have written goals don’t you?  Review them and find one action you can take today that will move you closer to achieving that goal. 
5. Question.  What information do you need from a client, prospect, or internal team member? Craft a good open-ended question and then ASK the question.  If you are in a meeting – with a client or internal team – ask one more question before ending the meeting.

For more ideas that you can do ONE more of – I have a free resource for you!  Timely Tips for Sales Managers is full of 52 tips to increase sales!  The free  tips can be downloaded for you to reference as you focus on achieving higher sales results.

Now that this post is written, I too will focus on the power of one and make one MORE phone call before lunch.

Are you committed to excellence?  If so, what ONE MORE action you will take today for a big pay off later?

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Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tags: consultative selling, focus, priorities, productivity, recession proof sales

Want to give EXTRA value to your customers in tough economic times?  Give great business gifts (free or low cost) now!  With cost cutting in most industries and everyone trying to do more with less, its refreshing to know that there are still easy and inexpensive ways to give value today.  And giving value today allows you to receive sales tomorrow.

Giving value to customers does not necessarily mean discounting your price, buying large gifts, or giving more of your product or service at no charge.  In the long run, giving value to the PERSON is more important than all of those things.

Three Extra Value gifts you can give:

Information.  With time pressure listed as one of the biggest stressors and constraints to further success, many people struggle with not enough time to keep up with the “latest”.  It could be the “latest” topic or information in:

1. their industry trends
2. what their competitors are doing
3. something that is unique and specific to them (hobbies, interests)
4. resources

Find useful information and send it them directly.  Books or links to articles, podcasts or forums that are helpful to them all work.  I sent a group of financial advisers I had worked with an ezine link for an expert on getting referrals in their industry.  Months later one of them wrote to me that they are still finding value in that expertise and getting more referrals for it.  They attributed the success to me, though all I did was make the “link” for them! 

You can send the information electronically or surprise them and send them a hard copy of an article in the mail! 

A caution on this tip is to make sure you verify the quailty of the information first to check the relevancy.  You don’t want to send them information that doesn’t fit and waste their time. 

Tools to help them do something better, quicker or easier. A client that liked photography commented on the price of PhotoShop.  I found an article about Paintnet - a free download that does many of the same things as PhotoShop – and sent it to him.  He was so happy when I sent him a note with the link!  

There are so many legal free-ware items available that can help people with nearly everything.  Do they like to travel?  Do they need to do something more efficient at work? 

Think about specific customers and what you know about them, do some research and send them the tool.  Whether it be an electronic link or a “concrete” tool. I had a client trainer that loved my scented markers but her company wouldn’t let her purchase them.  She was thrilled when I sent her a box of scented markers!

Time.  Don’t underestimate the value of your time and attention.  Getting time from customers might be tough, unless they find that time with you is valuable to them! 

Most people value someone taking an interest in them, asking some great open ended questions that aren’t directly tied to what you sell and then having the opportunity to talk.  The questions might be about the current status of their company, the security of their job, the effect of the economy on people they know.  If you are trusted, you may find you will hear about challenges, fears and “new” news because they want to talk to SOMEone about it. 

Demonstrate restraint and don’t jump into “selling” them something right then and really listen. The perceived value of your relationship will increase.

Customers want value – even when they do not have budgets to support it.  They also want sales people to pay attention to THEM – not just when there is a sale at stake.  The type of attention they want is going to be very different depending on the person.  The closer you match what you give to what is important to them (because it still is about What’s in it for THEM?) the more VALUable the gift.

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Filed Under: Sales Productivity
Tags: consultative selling, maximize sales productivity, productivity, recession proof sales, Sales, Sales Productivity, sales success, Sales Tips, WIIFT

Maximizing productivity is a key objective for sales people and sales managers. Time and money is spent on CRMs, planners, Blackberries, and more technology. And, when used appropriately, technology can help us with efficiency. Yet there is more…we also need to squeeze the most out of every contact and discussion we have. We need to continuously advance the sale WITH each prospect.

An effective sales discussion starts before contact. It starts with preparation that includes identifying:

• Who, what, why and when for this contact.
• Potential objections that may be raised.
• The decision needed at the end of the contact. Some sales are closed in one discussion, many are not, and the decision might be to schedule a next meeting, introduce you to someone else in the company, provide you information or specs, etc. We need to know what our decision at the “close” of this discussions should be.

After preparation we can maximize the actual discussion with the person by using the acronym WIIFT for specific steps and a road map. WIIFT is a 5 step sales process AND a philosophy of focusing on What’s in it for Them through the discussion.

Wait. Pause and mentally prepare before contact. Review the notes you made, think about this person and company and the value you can possibly provide them. And then…

Initiate the contact. Help the person break pre-occupation by asking them open ended questions that draw them into conversation. Connect with the person before jumping directly into your product information or your business questions. Put the spotlight on them by asking about their job, their history with the company, their interests (look for clues on this one). This step might take 2 minutes or 20, pay attention to time and move the discussion to business when appropriate.

• Tell me how you ended up in this role…
• How is your day going?

And then move the discussion into business…

Investigate. Use additional open-ended questions to allow them to discuss and clarify:

• What their objectives are
• What is happening now
• What are the risks of doing nothing
• What are the rewards of taking action

The gaps between these areas is your opportunity. Use great listening skills by summarizing what you hear, taking notes, and helping them clarify their responses. Once gaps are identified and clarified, you can move to explaining how you can help them.

Facilitate a discussion where you use your expertise to educate them on how what you do/have can eliminate the gaps discovered in your investigation. The more closely you match what you do to THEM, their situation, their needs and opportuntiies, the higher the perceived value (and the less they want to wait to get what you have).
Use YOU transition statements from WHAT you have to the WIIFT (what’s in it for them).

• Our service provides ongoing technical support and in YOUR situation that means that YOU will not have 2 a.m. phone calls from your users.
• We have 20 years of experience which means that YOU will be able to use proven processes that help YOU reach your goals quicker.

To facilitate means to “make it easy” for someone else. As you share your information make it easy for them to see how what you have fits with them…involve them, let them be a part of discovering how this fits with their situation, the value they see, make it a discussion versus a “pitch”.

Collaborate. Beyond consultative selling – collaborative selling is working with someone else to accomplish something. Ask what type of objections or obstacles they foresee in moving forward. Then work through the objections WITH them as a problem solver. Finally, ask for a decision and the next step to close the discussion (and the sale).

Following a sales system brings efficiency and consistency to each discussion. It allows us to keep moving the process forward and using “face” time most productively. Then we can use our technology to capture the order, schedule the next appointment and report to our managers. Productivity will increase as we maximize every discussion.

What do you do to maximize your sales discussions?

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Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tags: Collaborative Selling, collaborative+selling, consultative selling, maximize sales productivity, recession proof sales, sales process, skills, WIIFT