HARDISON’S TIPS – NOVEMBER 11, 2020 – TIPS FOR BOOSTING YOUR SALES SUCCESS
- Sell solutions to challenges:Mediocre sellers sell features, “My product has 10x more features than the competition at half the price.” Or, “I follow this 8 step process to evaluate your business processes. Step 1….”
Average sellers sell benefits, “Our 8 step process will uncover the levers that lead to great strides in operational efficiencies.” Or, “Our product will save you days of time sifting through piles of data.”
Top performers sell solutions to challenges, “From our conversations, I understand A, B, and C are going on in your organization and I think that if you can alleviate C that will lead to an immediate savings of more than $200,000 and more than $1.5 million in savings annually. It will also free up your staff to spend their time on more productive activities.”
What do you sell?
- Manage your selling time: It takes just as much time to sell a $25,000 deal as it does to sell a $100,000 deal. Why not invest your time in getting more $100,000 deals? (See sales tips #4 and #6.)
- Always be…:You’ve heard the ABC’s of selling – Always Be Closing. But just as important is ABP – Always Be Prospecting.
- The best way to get over that lost sale is to move onto the next sale in your pipeline. If your pipeline is empty, it is much more difficult to recover. To that end each loss feels much more devastating. Top performers are always working to fill the front end of their pipelines by creating new conversations every day. (For prospecting tips, read 6 Keys to Prospecting Success.)
- Focus on quality, not quantity:To some degree sales is a numbers game. But it is not just about the numbers. The key is to create quality The best sellers have strict qualification criteria and don’t waste their time with prospects that are at too low a level, companies that aren’t the right fit, or buyers that don’t have the funds to spend. Top performers work hard to find out this information early on, so they don’t spend their precious time on prospects that aren’t going to go anywhere (see sales tip #2).
- Always have a next step:Never leave a meeting or a conversation without a solid next step that’s been agreed upon. Better yet, always schedule the next step when you have the prospect on the line. Too often you’ll hear objections such as “just email me a few times that will work and we’ll put it on the schedule.” What ends up happening is the prospect goes into the witness protection program, never getting back to you or returning your calls or emails.
