Have you noticed how many customers and prospects are on vacation? The summer tends to be a quiet time for some salespeople. You can use the quiet to your advantage if your business slows down during summer. It’s time to think about your selling. Thinking is so undervalued in sales strategy. When things are quiet it’s the perfect time to do a little thinking about your selling. Why not think about the answers to these questions?
Are you calling on the best prospects?
Are you on track to achieve your sales goals this year? You’re doing some things right if you are. What are you doing that’s working well? Perhaps you refined your ideal prospect and found that you are spending time on the best prospects so your sales process is moving along. It could be that your prospects are moving according to plan to close and bring in new business.
Are you spending time with the customers who buy the most or who can buy more?
Your time is a limited resource. You should be using your time to increase your business so you do meet your sales goals. You are executing a flawed sales strategy when you spend more time on small, less significant customers who really aren’t entitled to your limited time. Check that you are spending your time with your most important customers or with those who you plan to sell more to so that they do become your most important customers.
Are you asking the best questions?
Your questions guide your prospects to understand that they have a need and it’s important enough to buy now. You won’t hear, “I need to think about it” when you ask the right questions. You are asking the right questions when you uncover important customer needs or wants. You only present your products or services after you uncover three important needs and your customer confirms they are important.
Are you writing effective proposals?
Your proposals should be well-written based on excellent prospect discovery to highlight prospect problems, needs or wants. An effective proposal includes an analysis that is thorough enough so that you are able to quantify the problem. You highlight how the problem impacts many areas in your prospect’s business and costs more than your prospect realized. You make it hard to ignore the current situation so your prospect has to do something and buy. He selects you because you’ve done the best job of demonstrating your expertise and proof of performance.
The testimonials you include in your proposal are compelling. The writers are from significant companies and at relevant levels in the company to the reader of your proposal. The testimonials include the situation the customer experienced before your work and the results you produced as a result of selling your products or services. Your customer makes a strong recommendation to buy from you and work with you.
An effective proposal demonstrates that you not only know your business, but you know your prospect’s business as well.
What’s not working?
Some of you are not on track to meet your sales goals. What strategies need improvement? What tools do you need to be more successful? You may have answered several questions and realized that you have several areas that need your immediate attention. You can start to improve when you analyze what you’re doing.
Blindly doing the same things without realizing what isn’t working or what is working is a recipe for a lot of wasted time and less than stellar results. Take the time now to think and then act on the results of your thinking. You have the time now. Use it so you can be more successful in your sales calls when the summer ends.