Whether you are ending your week, starting your week or somewhere in between you can put these 7 tips to score more sales into play at any time.
Sales is such a mental game, and being able to tackle your day with an edge will assist you in big ways. Being able to plan and anticipate what is ahead in your selling week is massive when you can put that into play.
This week Hoopla invited me to present on a webinar about this topic and below is a synopsis of what I shared. If this causes you to review your day, plan better for next week, or re-focus on the revenue at hand, then we have done our job here.
FOCUS:
A professional sales position is typically entrepreneurial. That’s a great thing for those who want to create their own destiny – selling can be the greatest opportunity in the world for that. But along with an “entrepreneurial” approach comes many options, new ideas, and diversions which can slow you down from what your professional sales position is. In most cases, your total focus is “supposed to be” to identify probable new buyers, engage with them in ways that add value, qualify or disqualify, and bring the qualified opportunities forward -- ultimately to closure. What else are you DOING everyday?
Those in sales positions have a job that involves SELLING and closing business. This is what your 100% focus needs to be on.
Bottom line – anything you are doing today that does not involve the items I just mentioned is fluff – wow – I don’t mean to be harsh, but reality can be harsh sometimes. If you have co-workers or managers who side-track you from this, you need to learn ways to better protect your selling time and let everyone around you know (or remind them of) what your focus is.
COMPETE WITH YOURSELF:
I love sports like track and field because they teach you to compete with yourself. Being a part of a team can be great – being at or near the top of a sales leader board was where I wanted to be, AND the most important aspect of this to me was in improving my own numbers. I knew that if I improved 1% today I would often gain momentum on my team. For me though I think there is nothing better than finding your best and then beating it.
How many calls do I make before I reach someone and have a conversation?
There is an industry average I just saw on the AA-ISP website for inside sales professionals
In B2B after driving 15M dials for our clients last year, we found it takes 22 dials to have 1 single business conversation with the intended person you are calling. Website leads can be 12:1, cold calls to higher level can be 50:1, on average, 22:1. The best thing to do to learn what your contact rate is - test it! You can manually track on a piece of paper
Will I get that next meeting set up before I end my day?
(only YOU can inspire yourself to do this – your manager can’t – your partner can’t.)
SET MICRO GOALS
Goals can be BIG and INTIMIDATING. Set your big, hairy, audacious goals (BHAG, coined by Jim Collins in Built to Last) --- and THEN break them down into micro steps.
If I’m working to close one more deal by the end of the month, how can I break that down into manageable, do-able steps today, tomorrow, and the rest of the business days until the end of the month?
If I want to master a new sales tool – it take some bandwidth to do that. I can block my calendar for 10 minutes a day and make it happen.
Another example – I know I “should” update my profile online for a number of reasons, but I never make it happen – so I put 20 minutes on my calendar on Friday afternoon and I make that happen. Check it off the list.
TIP – keep a running list of tasks you need to do that lead to more sales open in Evernote or even on a notepad on your desk. Instead of stopping and doing something as soon as you think of it, “park” it in a note to do several tasks like this at once. This works well with personal tasks too –
WORK SMARTER, NOT HARDER
First let me say something about hard work. It takes hard work to make things happen. I have a video on my LinkedIn profile on how I am an overnight success, 12 years in the making. It take work and hard work to be successful – ask anyone who is. If they say they just got lucky, I’d say baloney.
And as you are putting in the “time” and hard work – see if there are ways to shortcut for the same result.
Example – if marketing and sales are doing any overlapping tasks when it comes to researching potential new buyers for you to work with, see how you can collaborate and perhaps marketing can automate some of that research for you or push it to you once it’s vetted a bit. That ONE smart step could eliminate hours of time from your schedule each week and allow you to have more conversations with potential buyers.
Smarter is looking at your messaging and finding more powerful words to replace the less powerful words – an example is for those who say in a voice mail or email, “so if you have a chance, please give me a call at…..”
Instead, you change that to the more powerful “Call me at ____ “ Simple. Elegant, and something that many sellers do not review.
APPS that HELP:
We use more than 35 apps to run Score More Sales. This is not a webinar about all of that, so instead I’ll just say that the analogy of being the very best seller you can be and THEN adding technology to the mix can make you unstoppable.
A few quick ideas –
Everyone knows about LinkedIn – great sales tool – and you may belong to up to 50 groups to learn about what your buyer’s world is like, and to stay sharp with sales ideas. But do you have the LinkedIn weekly emails going into a single folder in your Outlook or Gmail? Do this, and then set one time weekly to review. Better than no emails or daily emails where you’re constantly getting interrupted.
Alerts – Google Alerts or GageIn
Sales productivity dashboards like Hoopla
PRODUCTIVITY:
On my desk is a banner that says, “NEVER CONFUSE ACTIVITY with ACCOMPLISHMENT” – it’s so true. Selling is not about being busy, but accomplishing all of those tasks and steps that lead to new sales revenue.
What did you do today toward that end? What will you do tomorrow?
RECOMMIT:
Focus on the bigger picture – speaking of pictures – keep pictures of your goals at your desk – on the walls – everywhere to help you recommit each day on what you’re focusing on.
Are you working on the right activities?
Be honest with yourself.
Lori Richardson is recognized on Forbes as one of the "Top 30 Social Sales Influencers" worldwide. Lori speaks, writes, trains, and consults with inside sales teams in mid-sized companies. Subscribe to the award-winning blog for sales strategies, tactics, and tips. Increase Opportunities. Expand Your Pipeline. Close More Deals.
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