Nothing happens until someone sells something. And a sale isn’t a sale until the money’s in the bank!
This month we’re focusing on the oldest profession in the world – and no, it’s not what you think. It’s selling. An activity which often strikes fear into the hearts of otherwise brave people.
Over the month we’ll be going through various strategies to improve your sales results, but first some observations from 30 years in the trenches.
Every selling situation is different. It takes a very different skill set to sell fridges at Harvey Norman, high end, extremely expensive equipment to industry or professional services to mum’s and dad’s.
More often than not, the best sales people in each scenario are not the ones you’d think would succeed.
Most of us have an image of the typical “born salesman”. Brash, extroverted, out there. Easily talks to anyone and is the life of the party.
Ironically, the converse is true more often than not. I remember way back at the start of my career, one of the most successful salesmen selling very high end computer mainframes was a mild, very softly spoken introvert.
A natural listener, he was quiet, thoughtful and persistent. He gently guided you down the road to a sale. A born advisor.
I’ve also experienced the opposite more often than not.
Organisations get taken in by fast talking, smooth types. They talk the talk, but hardly ever walk and produce results.
“Oh, the sale is just around the corner. They’ll be signing soon.” But they never do.
You’d be horrified at the number of companies who have sales people like these on their payroll. People who earn six figure base salaries without selling a thing!
So you can imagine my first questions to their bosses.
- “Why are they still on the payroll?”
- “What are your recruitment processes that they were selected?” and…
- “Are you willing to implement new recruitment and sales management strategies so you hire effective people for your particular selling situation?”
The answers may surprise you. Many aren’t willing to look reality in the face and take tough action.
But some do. By cutting out the dead wood and replacing it correctly their organisations move forward by leaps and bounds.
If you fall into the latter category and feel you need to improve the quality of your results, here’s an article on what specific attributes you should be looking for in a sales person. Both hardwired innate abilities as well as work style preferences which match on your particular sales scenarios.
Head over to https://revealedresources.com/practical-tips/1229-is-there-such-a-thing-as-a-born-salesperson for a fundamental list of attributes you must select from if you’re going to make a good hiring choice.
Over the next month, we’ll go into more depth.
In the meantime, if your sales team is not performing at its peak and you’d like to know why, talk to us about our sales team improvement and sales management coaching service.
We’ll come in, evaluate your sales process, team member ability and fit for role, your recruitment processes and overall sales management.
Our methodology works whether you personally sell or have a team. Our results speak for themselves.
Client A’s revenue went from $3M to $11.5M over 3 years, client B became the second most profitable subsidiary world-wide behind Germany over 12 months and client C improved their sales conversion rate by 30% almost immediately.
And while I can’t promise you these sorts of results, I can promise we will find improvements that positively impact your bottom line.
But you must take action. Call us on (02) 9499-7958 now and book yourself in for a sales improvement assessment. We’ll look at your current systems/people and where you want to get to and recommend a course of action to rapidly boost your sales results.
