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Don't Just Go Through The Motions
It's easy to do your job by mindlessly going through the motions. You see the customers with whom you are comfortable, quote the products they ask you about, grumble about the paperwork, and complain about price competition.
That's easy. Unfortunately, it's also a prescription for eventual failure. The world is changing too rapidly today to do your job "mindlessly." Your customers are changing, products and vendors are changing and adapting, and new competitors and technologies are springing up. If you go through your job mindlessly, you'll soon be outdated and ineffectual.
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TOP SHELF TIP NO. 13
"Most people give up just when they're about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown."
Ross Perot, American businessman | |
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So on one hand, you have the need to improve your productivity to keep up with the pressures on your company, and, on the other, you have the temptation to get into a rut, and go about your job "mindlessly."
The most effective strategy to battle these double temptations is to Think A Lot.
Today and tomorrow, Promotional Consultant Today will look at three of the most important things you should think about to be dramatically increase your sales.
Think About Each Sales Call
Your face-to-face contact with your customer is the one part of your job that sets you apart from everyone else in your company. It is that aspect of what you do by which you bring value to your company.
If you honestly think about it, you'll probably observe that everything else you do can be done by other people in your company. Someone else can accept orders, train end-users, check on back-orders, etc.
The only thing you do that no one else in your company does is call on your customers face-to-face. So, your eyeball-to-eyeball interactions with your customers are probably the most important part of your job.
Yet, most observers estimate that the average salesperson spends only about 30 percent of his time face-to-face with his customers.
Put those two facts together, and you have the sobering conclusion that you spend very little of your time doing that thing that is the most important aspect of your job.
That being the case, doesn't it stand to reason that you ought to invest some time and energy planning for those rare moments when you're face-to-face with your customers?
Ask yourself these questions, and think about the answers, before every sales call:
* What do I want to accomplish?
* What forces are working on my customer that may influence his behavior today?
* What value am I bringing him today?
* Exactly what am I going to ask, say, or communicate?
* What can I do to understand him better?
* What can I do to deepen the relationship?
Going through this disciplined approach to "thinking about your sales calls" will be the single most effective thing you can do to improve your productivity.
Think About Continuously Improving Yourself
First, commit yourself to the challenge of continuous improvement. Be discontent with the level of proficiency you have obtained. Be discontent with your results. Think about everything you do and examine ways to improve and wring more value out of it.
Challenge and question everything you do. Is this the best way to write up a quote? Should you be visiting this account, or would the other one hold more potential? Should you really be spending your time promoting this product, or is another one more important? Should you really be lunching with this customer or should you invest that time in another? Is this the best way to file your old quotes, keep track of customer contacts, and file product literature?
It was during one of these introspective "continuous improvement" thinking sessions, that I developed one of the strategies that proved most effective for me. Early in my tenure as a salesperson, my manager told me that most salespeople don't make it a point to present a product or product line at each sales call. So he encouraged me to always have a product or product line to present on every sales call. I thought he knew more than I did, so I followed his advice.
Then the thought occurred to me, as I was questioning everything that I did, that if it was a good idea to present one product, it may be twice as good an idea to offer two or more. By doing so, I could multiply the number of sales presentations I made in roughly the same amount of face-to-face sales time. It was a way of improving the quality of my sales time by increasing the quantity of sales presentations. From then on, I made it a point to have several items or products to present on every sales call, and dramatically improved my results. That's just one example.
Got the idea? Never rest. Be discontent with every aspect of your job in order to provide the stimulation to improve on it. Question everything. Think a lot.
It will be your key to continuous, life-long improvement.
Source: Dave Kahle offers a variety of resources that can help your business stay competitive in changing times. Click here to learn more. | |
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Copyright 2005-2007 Promotional Consultant Today. All Rights Reserved. |
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