“Improve sales win-rates through better deal management and paying attention to those that you know.”
~ Miller Heiman

There are only 9 more Selling Days remaining in September and in the Quarter!!!

It is in a salesperson’s nature to get excited about closing new business. Winning a new client is a reason to celebrate. But, when looking for revenue opportunities, sticking close to home can have its advantages. Your current accounts would be a good place to start. You know their business issues, you know why they decided to do business with you in the first place, and you have established relationships. When new leads – and resources – are scarce, the ability to drive new revenue from existing clients can be a great way to help ensure success. Are you confident that you’ve already uncovered the full potential from your existing client base? There are likely current needs your client has that you could be pursuing. You should approach helping an existing client with the same enthusiasm as you approach new clients.

Maintaining strong relationships with current accounts provides two key benefits:

• You retain the existing business
• You uncover new opportunities

This is not accomplished through just periodic check-ins or great customer service after the sale; it requires an ongoing commitment from you, me all of us and as my Pappy use to say, “don’t you forget it.” As opportunities become scarce, competition increases, so are you doing enough to protect that account? In this marketplace you can’t differentiate by product offering, you must differentiate yourself by the way you sell and the unique value you can provide. A salesperson who can understand a client’s business issues and help craft solutions that help the client succeed are valued and rewarded. Differentiate yourself through your ability to be a well-informed, trusted business resource. When you help your clients achieve their objective you both will win and I will never forget that.

 Go out and have a Great Selling Day and make a difference in at least one person’s life today.

“Get back to real selling for that is what we do.”
~ Miller Heiman

There are only 12 more Selling Days in August and 33 remaining in the Quarter!!!

Getting leads should always feel like a luxury rather than an entitlement. Marketing’s job is to accelerate the sales cycle. Developing highly qualified leads is absolutely the best way to deliver on this commitment. But business development success ultimately rests on the salesperson and delivering real results should be the number one focus instead of figuring out who to blame. Professional salespeople need to take control of their own destiny and be proactive.

Sure it is a lot easier when you simply respond to a lead and try to build on the momentum that marketing has already created. But often times, clients have done some of their own diagnosis and you may find yourself pigeonholed into answering product-specific questions rather than having a discussion about their business issues. Beginning this dialogue is not a situation where you just wing it. Take the time to develop a Valid Business Reason that will resonate with the client. And no, saying something like, “Mr. Customer, would you like to talk to us about how you can increase productivity and reduce expenses?” will not work. It needs to be specific to the client and it needs to feel a little risky for you to bring up. After all, you are taking a chance that your ideas may not be compelling to the client. If you are not able to get them interested in a discussion then maybe you really don’t have a fit at this time. Getting a dialogue going with the client is not something that happens with a catchy phrase or a smooth answer. It happens when you can quickly demonstrate that you are an expert who understands some of their key issues and you have some ideas to help. This is the risky part. You may not bat a thousand but the conversations that do get traction will certainly be ones where there is some clear common ground.

As salespeople, we are ultimately responsible for our own success. Pointing fingers and worrying about things outside of our control are not strategies that will enable us to hit the objectives we agreed to. So let’s get back to real selling, stay passionate about what we do each and every day and never cheat the company for our customers are counting us. 

Go out and have a Great Selling Day and make a difference in at least one person’s life today.

“What is your message? Is it the same ole stuff?” ~ Miller Heiman

There are only 5 more Selling Days left in July and 49 remaining in the Quarter!!!

It seems most every executive I talk to is trying to figure out a way to create compelling messages to the market that drive interest and create new opportunities. They are all searching for ways to be relevant in a time when there is a clear economic headwind. The funny part is that the end result – the actual marketing piece or sales call – seems to still have the same “ho-hum” message and impact. It appears that people are still afraid to take risks and to create provocative points-of-view.

I think prospects and clients want to hear these points of view so they can quickly figure out if you are someone who understands what is going on in their world. Companies have so much going on right now in terms of just making sure they have a strong foundation for survival. They don’t have time to have drawn out strategic discussions with potential vendors/partners to teach them about their business. Instead, they look for solutions to solve obvious problems.

If your message to the market is generic and more related to how great your company is then I don’t see this as an effective way to generate interest and develop new opportunities. Specific insights demonstrate that you really are an expert and you really do think about the trends in the market. It shows that you will state your opinion even though it may not be aligned with the clients’ issues. But even if it is not aligned, most customers and prospects will move the discussion along and explain how they have a whole different set of issues… either outcome is great!

Selling is truly all about the customer and their issues. The best way to determine if you remain relevant to the market is to look at the new opportunities that are in your Sales Funnel. If you don’t have many, then it is time to change the way you are doing things. At least that is my point of view.

Go out and have a Great Selling Day and make a difference in at least on person’s life today.