HARDISON’S TIPS – NOVEMBER 1, 2021 – Want to Sell More? Increase Face Time!
It’s never a good sign when you start off a blog by saying, “Maybe I’m old-fashioned”… because that means you are. However, when it comes to increasing sales and selling more, nothing beats old-fashioned hard work. It has been my experience that sales results in a direct selling environment are directly tied to one key performance indicator (KPI): Face Time. That’s it. Want to improve your company’s sales? Then increase the amount of time your salespeople spend in front of your customers listening to their needs and presenting your products/services as a solution.
Okay, so this is one of those concepts that is simple to understand but not easy to execute. Possibly, a way to understand the concept better is to look at a salesperson who is underperforming. If you want to improve their performance, simply figure out how much time they are actually spending in front of the customer discovering their needs and presenting a solution.
Generally, underperformers get hung-up on time wasters. For example, they spend too much time in the office. They travel at the worst time of the day in an inefficient route. They go home early. They spend too much time with one customer where they are comfortable – “visiting.” The bottom line is they spend too much time during peak selling hours in non-selling activities. They are not maximizing Face Time.
Here’s a simple exercise. Travel with a sales rep. Measure the amount of time he or she is actually engaged with a decision-maker listening to their needs or presenting a solution. That’s right – use a stopwatch. Time each customer interaction. Surprisingly, the actual time spent engaged is only a few minutes. Top performers maximize this KPI. Top performers have figured out how to ask questions, listen, provide solutions and deliver value to their customers. By mastering this Face Time skill, the time they spend in front of the customer is proportionately greater than that of an underperformer. Top performers don’t have any more hours in a day than underperformers, but they have simply figured out how to eliminate non-value time wasters in order to truly benefit from the time they spend with customers.
So, it’s simple. If you want to increase your sales, you must increase your Face Time. All that takes is a little bit of old-fashioned, hard work. Make It A Champion Day!
