Hospitality Sales & Management International


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3 Things You Can Do Right Now to Get Sales Firing Again – Activities For Sales Managers & Leaders

There is no question that in these economically uncertain times, sales leaders will need to get a whole lot smarter and more shrewd if they are going to keep their existing customers and they are going to need to be a whole lot more crafty if they are to win the slim pickings that are still out there to be had! That being said there are some fundamental sales management strategies that when implemented are guaranteed to generate sales within the next 90 days.

Strategy #1

Your first strategy will seem so simple and so easy that you are bound to say to yourself; “Is that all there is to it?” Please do not be fooled. Whilst the strategy below may seem simple, when done exactly as I have described below, it delivers some amazing results. So don’t question, just do! It has been proven that, when effectively applied, the practice of regular one-on-one Sales Performance Coaching is the fastest and most effective vehicle to drive your sales growth. One-on-one Sales Performance Coaching is a powerful, time-tested, behaviour-changing, sales acceleration strategy and is the foundation on which permanent and consistent growth in your business is built. Whilst there are many different processes and skills to be an effective Sales Performance Coach , there are 2 activities that you can apply that would have an immediate impact to your sales drive.

Sit down with each of your salespeople either in person or by phone, ABSOLUTELY NO LESS THAN ONCE A FORTNIGHT. Depending on the state of your sales pipeline, you may need to ramp that up to once a week. Here’s exactly all you need to do…

1. IN DEPTH review the week/ fortnight just past. When you are done …

2. IN DEPTH plan the week/ fortnight coming up.

That’s it, that’s all, that’s the lot!

What does IN DEPTH MEAN?

IN DEPTH means just that. As an example, when prospecting for new business opportunities either with existing customers or new prospects, your salespeople must complete some primary due diligence and be able to answer some or all of the following questions before even fronting up or making the sales call. By having answers to the questions below will afford them the best opportunity for success. Your job in coaching them IN DEPTH is to ensure that before they invest their time and your money going to see a prospect, they are extremely well prepared. Imagine if you asked your salespeople some or all of the questions below before a business development call.

“So you are going to see Bob at ABC ….”

1. What have you learned about ABC?

2. Who are all the “players”?

3. What does your research tell you about the critical issues that ABC is facing right now?

4. What is the evidence that they are facing these issues?

5. What do you believe the potential impacts of those issues to be? What evidence do you have that they are dealing with this issue?

6. What are their current constraints in solving that issue (in relation to time, people money)?

7. What is our answer for solving the issue?

8. What are the current market trends in their area?

9. What do we know about other companies that operate in the same space as they do?

10. What are ABC’s key strategic initiatives?

11. What would their decision constraint criterion be in relation to time, people money?

12. How may we be in a position to help them?

13. What questions do you have prepared to elicit needs?

14. How do you plan on positioning the company and what it is we do?

15. What information should you bring back from your visit, to move this opportunity to the next stage of the sales pathway?

16. What is the objective of the sales call?

That is what I mean by IN DEPTH! Can you imagine just how much better prepared your sales people would be to take advantage of the opportunities out there with this kind of IN DEPTH probing?

Strategy # 2

Look for sales closest to the “bulls-eye!”

Imagine standing front on and facing the circles of a target. Imagine the “bulls-eye!” in the middle is where the money is. The circle just out side the bulls-eye represents your existing customers, let call them A’s. They are the ones closest to the money. The next circle represents those customers that have bought from you occasionally, let call them B’s. The circle just beyond the B’s are your C’s and they represent those prospective companies you have targeted but have yet to buy from you. Then outside of your C’s we have the D’s. These are prospects we have yet to consider.

Once again, as simple as this practice may seem, it is often neglected. When we need more sales, where do we go looking? Out there in D, E, F, and G land. Start looking for business closest to where the money is. Your sales opportunity is to expand your influence within your A and B customer’s organizations and earn a higher percentage of their business. According to the 2008 CSO Insights Sales Performance Optimization Report only 33.6% of C.S.O’s interviewed were able to farm additional revenues from their existing customer base, and that was last year during a comparatively good market!

Your role as sales manager is to help your salespeople identify where you have previously left money on the table. What are the opportunities with your A, B and C companies? Go work there! Let your Marketing department figure out how to bring the D, E, F, and G prospects in to where the C’s, B’s and A’s reside. If your salespeople can’t answer the questions in Strategy 1 with your A’s B’s and C customers, you have work to do. Have your people renew old relationships. Have them beat the bushes for new opportunities you have yet to capture with your A’s, B’s and C customers. They live closest to where the money lives. Go get em’!

Strategy # 3

Go to work and re-engineer your current sales process, if you have one. If you don’t then get one! The latest research from the CSO Insights’ 2008 Sales Performance Optimization Report shows that ‘process-centric’ sales teams outperform non-process-centric teams for every measurable metric.

Sales team performance and effectiveness has been shown to increase by as much as 40% when sales teams have a clear, proven sales process visible to them. The chances are extremely good that if you currently have 5 salespeople on your team, you most likely have 5 different sales processes going on all at once! What other part of your business runs on multiple different processes? Imagine running your business with half a dozen different accounting processes, or multiple IT or customer service processes? Sounds silly doesn’t it? Yet sales teams do so all the time.

Whilst you can reengineer your current selling process, the exercise is not for the faint-hearted. It may be advisable that you bring in professional expertise to ensure the greatest success. You may just be too close to your own current sales methodology to see the gaps or dysfunction.

So there you have it 3 practical ideas you can implement right now to get sales firing again. At the very least run strategy #1 for 90 days. If you will do that, sales will start to flow again.

Sales Management in This Recession – Improve Your Sales Team?s Performance

We limit ourselves when it comes to selling and business development. Here is another story from my networking association meeting the other night.  This article can help you or your people overcome self limiting sales beliefs and develop more business faster.

 

Back to the two ladies I talked about in my previous story, after I asked my favorite question.  “So ladies, what are your major issues as it relates to business development during this economic down time,” here is what happened.

I started giving my suggestions about what they could do about the low price issue (see previous story.)  As I’m talking, one lady is sort of listening as the other is checking out all the other people to see if there is someone better that she can network to.  As people walk by she actually starts talking to them as I’m talking and then comes back to my golden nuggets of selling wisdoms.  Obviously she wasn’t interested in hearing what she could to do about her issue.  The other paid a little closer attention, but then wanted to tell me why the customer was wrong.  Basically, without words, she told me she was going to continue doing it her way.

Now here is the irony.  These people need to win more deals.  Their business floats with the economy, meaning good economy, more business and bad economy, less business – always the same share or the pie.  Yet, their employers want business – no matter good or bad economy.  This means in a bad economy their share has to get bigger or they have to beat the competition more often.  So why don’t these people want to get some tips and try to use them?  Here are 2 reasons why.

People that are employed are content and feel they don’t need to do anything different.  If anything they want to change their employer – i.e. complaints, suggestions, and excuses.  Even if they are on an incentive or commission they blame the company for their failures.  That’s why I advocate a negative commission, i.e. you lose money if you lose a sale that’s forecasted.

These people have no reason (in their mind) to change.  This is where management has to step in (a) to tell their people what they have to do – coaching, and (b) then hold them accountable for producing results – task master.

People hold themselves back.  From childhood we are conditioned to attain a level (get a job.)  People get so far i.e. employed with a steady paycheck, and they have subconsciously reached their level.  Yes, everybody says they want more, but they are held back by their own negative self talk, and this, believe it or not, keeps them in their comfort zone.  Subconsciously they are saying, “The devil I know is better than the one I don’t.” or “Why invest in self improvement, I’m good at what I do.” or “This is as good as it get’s.  Why risk, why make the effort?” or “It’s everyone else’s fault,” or some other limiting negative self talk.

This again is where managers have to step in.  They have to realize these self limits about their people and (c) train them on how to sell,- trainer (d) show them on how to do it, – mentor  and (e) again, hold them accountable for the implementation – task master.  The lack of accountability for implementation is why training and self-help fails.  Without reinforcing the changes, the negative self talk that is solidly programmed in the minds of everyone, takes over and sabotages any progress towards change.  See John Assaraf’s book The Answer for more on this topic.  www.johnassaraf.com  

So the moral of this story is that employed people do not have the incentive to change.  They are content in their status and unless someone – like a manager – is not content with their outcome, nothing will happen to raise the level.  It’s as good as it gets with more of the same happening, but everyone hoping for better results – the classic definition of insanity.

And now I invite you to learn more.

Bonus tip:  If you’d like to see to what extent your people limit themselves, use this FREE SALES TEAM ASSESSMENT TOOL.  Just click this C-Level Relationship Selling Link -  http://takemetoyourleaders.com/Assessment . Sam Manfer makes it easy for any sales manager to be effective coaching his or her sales people to feel comfortable connecting with and relationship selling C-Level leaders.