The Sales Experiment

by Leave a Comment

3 General Improvements All Sales Professionals Should Make

All salespeople should make improvements in three general areas:

  1. Efficiency: All salespeople need to be more quick and dirty with administrative tasks and other tasks or projects that should be delegated. We do not need to be micromanagers of paperwork. We need to move that stuff quickly and efficiently.
  2. Effectiveness: All salespeople need to improve in effectiveness. This means we need to identify weak areas and areas of shoddy discipline and improve. We must prospect and build our pipelines and be more effective in every skill that goes into doing that. We need to be more effective at presenting, negotiating, and solving problems. We must become better and more surgical in the key income producing activities.
  3. Enjoyment: All salespeople need to learn to have fun and enjoy what they do. If we’re intentional, sales can become tied into our callings as individuals. That sounds crazy, but it’s true. If you find where your unique personality, skills, and passions can intersect with your sales work, then you might just find more pleasure out of what you do. The key is learning how to bring great value to others while being who you are.  and providing solutions to your clients.

These are general areas for sales improvement. But all three are vital for a sustainable, growing sales career.

If you aren’t enjoying at least part of what you do, you’ll be miserable.

If you aren’t being effective at what you do, you’ll constantly struggle financially and emotionally.

If you aren’t efficient, you’ll struggle physically and mentally. You’ll run out of steam.

The question, then, is how. How can you be efficient, be effective, and enjoy what you do?

You tell me. How can you improve in these three areas?

by 2 Comments

The Need to Make Difficult Decisions about Everything We Do

The Need to Make Difficult Decisions about Everything We Do
the importance of difficult decision-making
Photo Credit: `James Wheeler via Compfight cc

We can only do so many things in a day.

If we shove as many things as possible into that day, we can only be so effective.

We become unfocused and scattered and obstacles start popping up that hinder us and distract us from our key goals.

One of the keys to being more effective (in any area) is to make difficult decisions.

We must decide between competing opportunities. Usually, there is something good about each opportunity that comes up, even if it’s just an opportunity to please someone and move their agenda forward at your own peril.

As I’ve been making my way through Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown, (affiliate link), I’ve been trying to be more selective and intentional about my decisions around sales opportunities.

The safest way to do this is to be clear about what the best possible opportunity would look like and only say yes to those opportunities.

I’m horrible at this practice, but it’s a practice that all of us could benefit from. Otherwise, we slowly lose control and direction.

Every decision is an opportunity to move ourselves toward our highest priorities.

———————————–

Today’s Reading and Listening

I’ve been consistently listening to and/or reading to positive, mindset-shifting, skill-sharpening content every day since 9/1/2014 per my commitment to the Dan Miller Challenge.  I have not, though, been so hot at writing every day. 

The Art of Focus Pt 1: Opportunity Cost Internet Business Mastery – Episode 255

Jeremy and Jason (the hosts) discuss the hidden costs in the decisions we make around our businesses along with some guidelines to help us make wiser choices. This dovetails nicely with my learning from Essentialism.

The 3 Drivers of Sales Success  Part III – Your Sales Playbook Podcast, Episode 109

This podcast is a wonderful (free) masterclass on developing more business by strengthening our relationships with current clients.

by Leave a Comment

Sometimes Priorities Get in the Way of Our Best Intentions

I’m not narcissistic enough to assume I have readers. If I had readers, then I’d have subscribers. As of the writing of this post, on the day of my sons’ 6th birthdays (they are twins), I have no subscribers.

Therefore, I only have readers who might have found this blog because I linked to another blog or willy-nilly sent a tweet out when I wrote a new post.

I started the Dan Miller Challenge (his impromptu, unofficial challenge) on 9/1/14, and didn’t know what i was getting into.

My commitment was to listen to or read 30 minutes of helpful, life-changing, mindset-shifting content everyday. I would also select one action, implement it, and write about it.

Today, the buzz-saw of a crazy workday and an ill-planned-for birthday for 6 year old twin boys hampered part 3 of my plan – implementing an action item.

And yesterday, I committed to finishing up my commitments from earlier this week around finding speaking opportunities, finding interviewing opportunities, and finding bloggers and journalists to network with.

I didn’t fail today. Failure would mean that I wasn’t effective or productive. I was both, but I was effective and productive in areas that had nothing to do with content I’ve read or listened to this week.

While I believe in being disciplined and having some boundaries, I also believe that we need to be malleable.

Today, my priority was my clients – both internal (my colleagues for whom I do work) and external. My boys’ birthday was also a priority (there was a honey-do list).

The only thing I think I might need to work on is being much more efficient. If that happens, then I shouldn’t run into having to choose between a small action related to this challenge and the other priorities vying for my time.

Today’s Reading and Listening

I searched for and found more sales-oriented podcasts (vs. marketing and social media podcasts).

I loved the new podcasts. My experience is that sales-focused podcasts force direct relationship action items. I think I need that.

What do you need?

What content, input, learning, or mentoring do you need right now? Would it be hard to find?

The Beauty of Multiplication – The Village Church with Beau Hughes: A great sermon laying out an approach for multi-site churches that encourages satellite campuses to, over time, become autonomous. A refreshing perspective in an age of megachurch complexes (although I’m fine with megachurches).

Are You Worth It? – Advanced Selling Podcast: Learning to identify the value of the salesperson in a transaction. Often, a customer or client only sees the goods or services, but not the consultative value of the sales professional.

The Headline Formula – The Sales Copy Samurai: A simple headline formuala. Not easy, just simple. I love the suggestion to write at least 20 headlines before deciding on the final one.

Until tomorrow…

 

 

 

Recent Posts