Smart Thinking: Tough Times require tough salespeople

We all hear countless foreboding comments regarding today’s business environment.
“Times are tough,” “We’re heading into a recession” and “The economy is tightening” are thoughts many fellow business owners have recently expressed in my training sessions.
When I ask how they are responding to these pronouncements, I hear, “We’re getting lean,” “cutting overhead,” “reducing expenses,” and “laying-off non-essential staff.”  I always wonder: What happens after they have executed these extreme measures?
As a business owner, I believe it is wise to conservatively spend and do not encourage recklessness under any circumstances. But I am also aware there are companies making their fortunes during these same “troubled” times. What separates those who prosper from those who struggle? It’s no secret that a company with a strong, highly competitive, committed sales team will always find a way to achieve its bottom-line financial goal versus one with a sales force that believes the headlines, makes excuses and justifies a shortfall.
Every sales manager and salesperson I train understands there are approximately 10 key income-generating behaviors that must be performed on a monthly basis to assure consistent success. They are the money-making activities that drive quota achievement, company recognition and overall selling excellence.
Many salespeople fill their days with busy work and tasks that never contribute to a strong company bottom line. They “wake up, work hard and go home” each day without relating their behavior plan to their goals. Their bosses are subjected to an endless array of excuses for low sales and are held hostage by sales forecasts based on hopes, wishes and dreams. True sales winners create behavior plans that guarantee quota achievement and will not give the excuses that are generated by conditional commitment.

HOW MANY OF THESE 10 BEHAVIORS DO YOU CONSISTENTLY PERFORM?
• Targeting: creating a success profile for your ideal prospects.
• Prospecting: finding new sources of business opportunity.
• Sales Funneling: moving the targets from “suspects” to “possibles” to “prospects” to “probables” to “best-fit” customers.
• Disqualifying: eliminating the “tire kickers” who have no intention of doing business with you.
• Closing: turning the qualified “probables” into customers.
• Questioning: demonstrating the guts to ask prospects the tough questions.
• Servicing: delivering what you promised when you closed them.
• Proposal follow-up: committing to “close the sale” or “close the file” phone calls.
• Customer development: looking for ways to grow each customer’s business.
• Continuous education: staying ahead of the learning curve on product information and sales techniques.

These categories of behavior necessitate unconditional commitment; however, by devoting your energy to them, you will achieve the success you deserve as a professional salesperson. Your battle cry in 2009 should be, “Courage, Not Caution.”  I invite you to step up and challenge your old methods of performance. Times are changing, and you’ll probably find – like many around you – that “the way you’ve always done things” just isn’t doing it anymore.
A quote I discovered last week reads, “Don’t put a wishbone where a backbone should be.”  When you think about “Your Sales Spine,” remember that it takes guts to challenge the beliefs and behaviors that aren’t yielding results. Now is the time to stretch your comfort zone and challenge yourself to experience greater success. Happy Selling!