Quote of the Week - October 11, 2005

Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence -- is the key to unlocking our potential.
- Sir Winston Churchill

Quote of the Week - October 5, 2005

If you don't run your own life, somebody else will. -John Atkinson

A Critical Look At Creating More New Sales

Selling is not an event, of course. It's a process. Sales Managers and Salespeople tend to put way too much emphasis on the wrong parts of the process and, as a result, overlook more new customers than they are already selling to.

Regardless of the 'sales method' you follow, the process of selling invariabley includes these five functions:

• Initiate
• Introduce
• Inquire
• Inform
• Influence

Developing a sale essentially involves two strategies. The first strategy, Prospecting, includes the first two steps - Initiating contact with prospective buyers and introducing yourself and your offering. It allows you to place qualified prospects into the pipeline.

The second strategy, Conversion, is the part most people tend to think of as "selling" and includes inquiring about the propsect's needs, fears and uncertainties; Informing the prospect of solutions you offer; and, Influencing the prospect to do business with you.

Most sales managers tend to focus on the last three steps, and most sales training is directed toward improving Discovery, Presentation and Closing skills. However, all the sales training and development in the world is of little value if salespeople don't make enough calls to develop new business.

It is a fact that the single charactistic shared by the most successful salespeople is simply this: they initiate contact with prospective buyers in greater numbers on a more consistent basis than salespeople who are not as successful.

Sadly, failure to initiate contact with prospective buyers on a consistent daily basis is the single most important reason for the failure of more motivated, goal directed, competent, capable salespeople.