The Top TEN New Year’s Resolutions for Salespeople-Part III

Here is the final post of a THREE part series on New Year’s Resolutions for salespeople.  Grab you 1-2 of the Top !) and get to work this year.  And don’t forget to share these posts with 6 of your friends!  Have an awesome 2012!

FOUR Magic Pre-Call Questions

FACT:  There are 4 questions that, when asked internally (and answered) before every sales call, you LOSE LESS and always sell more!  Pay attention because here they are:

1-What is the purpose of this call? Seems like a simple question doesn’t it?  In fact, I ask this question repeatedly to salespeople every year on ride-alongs and field observations.  The most common answer that I get is, “The purpose of this call is to make a sale.”  Now, although I agree that the purpose of the sales cycle is create a customer and a profit, the purpose of every sales call is NOT to make a sale.  In fact, when one thinks that the purpose of every call is to make a sale, the conversations tend to be focused on the product, not the customer.  Instead, think about what you need to learn, uncover, or discover.  What are your targeted take-aways from the call?

2-What do we know?  Another simple question designed to help us to identify and inventory the information that we have about the prospect, customer, or client and their current situation, needs, structure, buying process, etc.  We cannot send in salespeople half-cocked with little-to-no information about the account anymore.  In fact, especially in the B2B sales world, there is NO EXCUSE today for a salesperson to be underprepared for a sales call.

3-What do we need to know?  This list is easy to make and yet rarely created in advance.  There are a variety of things that we need to uncover and discover throughout the sales process and if we understand in advance what these are, chances of making sure we cover all of these bases is better.

4-What do we need to get “out on the table?” The answers to why someone buys come from their motivations—not ours!  Those motivations are often hidden and rarely offered up voluntarily by the prospect, customer, or client.  With the proper preparation, focus and questions, however, they will often come up in the conversation.  You need to get these motives “out on the table” from the other party because when they say it, it is fact!  When you say it, it is suspect because you have an agenda—to make a sale.

**Action Step

Create a process by which you will have to answer these four questions OUT LOUD or IN WRITING before every sales call on the phone or in person.  Once these 4 questions (and subsequent and answers) become part of your routine/your habit before each and every call, you cannot help but win more often!   Challenge a colleague or your manager to hold you accountable for solid answers to these questions.  This is the NUMBER ONE thing you can do to be more effective in 2010!

THREE Closing Questions

A funny thing happened on the way to this challenging economy…we forgot how to close!   Salespeople today have faced so much stalling and price hesitance that they have gotten “gun-shy” about asking for the business once they have earned it.  I see this happening every day in the field and in our prep work with clients.  Too often, when sales take a dip and opportunities become fewer and farther apart, the salesperson hesitates to ask for the YES because they are afraid to hear the NO!  But more often today, I see salespeople that are taking on the role of “hesitant visitors” and “product demonstrators!”  They have lost focus on their role.  Although the purpose of every call is not to close a sale, every call must have forward movement towards the next call!   And that requires a CLOSING QUESTION!

**Action Step

Write down three specific ways that you will ask for the business (or the next appointment) on each call.  The questions do not need to be overly difficult to come up with (example: “So…do you see any reason why we should not go ahead with the order?”) and do not need to be over-analyzed. There are three main rules to remember once you have come up with your 3 closing questions:

#1—Write each closing question down 100 times and then read them out loud to develop the confidence to ask them. (Sounds silly?  How did we learn math as children?  Repetition is the mother of skill.)

#2—Earn the right to ask for the business!  Do the proper discovery…ask the appropriate questions…dig…diagnose…connect the value.

#3—Use these 3 questions regularly.   Too many times I see salespeople on the precipice of greatness in a sale and they forget to take that final step.  Closing is the natural conclusion to the professional sales process but you still need to ask!

TWO Networking Events per Month

Again, I impress upon you the importance of getting out there and getting visible to the marketplace in which you choose to thrive.  Whether your opportunities to network come in the form of trade shows, mixers, association events, charity events, customer expos, luncheons, or learning events, you need to have a plan!  Just as important as it is NOT to be invisible in the Social Networking arena online, it is equally important to be physically visible in the events where your prospects and customers can see you!

**Action Step

Grab a calendar and schedule up to 24 events this year in which you can “press the flesh and kiss the babies!”  You need to get out and make connections for and with others.  Go beyond the obvious!  Join a morning leads group and get involved.  Get on the board of the associations to which your customers belong.  Volunteer in the charities that your customers support.  Start a running club….a biking club and invite prospects, customers, and clients—you can promote these through your Social Media efforts.  Remember that Networking and NOTworking are two different words.  These efforts are all part of a process and not simply events.  They take time, preparation, planning, execution, and follow through.

ONE Book per Month

Zig Zigler, known all his life to be an avid reader once said, “It’s not what I get out of the book that counts.  It’s what the book gets out of ME!”  I have rarely met anyone at the top of their game that has not spent considerable amount of time in the pursuit of getting better.  In the profession of selling, this is done through education, exposure, preparation, and practice.  Leaders are readers!   It’s as simple as that!   One of the greatest habits in which you can ever engage is that of reading.

Two of the biggest mistakes that we make as human beings are; #1-We don’t try to get better in the areas in which we currently do well AND #2-We avoid the things that we don’t do well.

**Action Step(s)

First, identify and write down 4 areas in which you need some improvement. Next, identify and write down 4 areas that, if you “moved the dial a few notches” it would mean more sales—even if you are already good at them. Next, identify 4 areas in which you need to learn something new in order to “stay ahead of the game” or to “catch up” with your customers.  Now, you have 12 topics to seek out education and to build a reading curriculum.  Go to Google or to Amazon.com and enter these words or phrases into the search bar and check watch what appears.  Suddenly, at your fingertips, you will have multiple suggestions on article and books from which to gain your education and to see what “the book gets out of you!”

Finally, a note of caution: It almost seems that New Year’s Resolutions are almost made to be broken and that it is often only a matter of time (days or weeks in most cases) that we are back to our existing routines and habits.  This suggested list of Sales Professional Resolutions may seem somewhat daunting as a group but if you grab 1-2 and make a firm commitment that you engage in this activity and this behavior for a solid year, I’ll bet you grow as a sales professional.  So….get to it!