SALES QUOTE
“Talk doesn’t cook rice.”
-Chinese Proverb
For Salespeople…
Ask yourself after your next sales call if it was a success. The only way it is a success if you accomplished your objective. That means you did set your sales call objective before your sales call, right? Just as the proverb implies, even if you believe the sales call went great it doesn’t matter. The only thing that counts is that you moved your sales process along and are closer to getting the business. In sales, the only thing that matters is getting the business.
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THE BLOG S AND OTHER COLUMNS
I’m now writing The Real Deal, a column on women in business for Allbusiness.com Hope you’ll read more ideas so you can achieve your success in business.
You can get RSS feed for the blog.
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THE SELLING IDEAS FOR THE MONTH
The Land of Opportunity
If you read the newspapers (the ones that are left) or watch the television news or even catch the news online it seems that every day there are more and more layoffs. This is one challenging business climate. You’ve probably read the dire predictions. I promise you that despite all of the bad news, there will be some salespeople who will have a successful year. You can be one of them.
Don’t waste time. How many times do you need to retrieve a file, get a work tool or complete a task only to find yourself spending time looking for it? You may think you are organized and you really are not. Here’s how you can tell. Over the next few days count the number of times you need to retrieve an item, whether it is information or tangible, and you retrieve what you are looking for the very first attempt. If you think you’re organized, you go right to what you need. If you’re not, it’s often the second or third place you look that you find what you are looking for.
I believe most people spend too much time looking for what they need because they are disorganized. Looking for stuff takes away from the time you could be working on productive selling tasks. The secret to getting more done is to waste less time. What do I suggest? Be honest with yourself. Do you need to clean out your files? Do you need to install Google Desktop so you can quickly retrieve electronic information? Do you need to move the items you use regularly closer to your desk? Now schedule time on your calendar and organize. Your time spent will pay dividends throughout the year.
Don’t work more. Some people pride themselves on how much time they work. They work ten hour days and they think they should win a medal. You’re not getting a merit badge from me if you work yourself silly —especially if you’re in sales. Now with the tough economy, there will be some people who think that if they work more than 8 hours a day, they’ll make better numbers. Even efficiency experts agree with me. Industrial efficiency pioneer Ernst Abbe in 1908 published his conclusions that a reduction in daily work hours from nine to eight resulted in an increase in total daily output. Henry Ford studied productivity for 12 years and showed that cutting the workday from ten hours to eight hours — and the workweek from six days to five days — increased total worker output and reduced production cost. Work smarter, not more.
Don’t sleep less. Do you think you could get more done if you slept less? Forget about it. You won’t be more productive with less sleep and your thinking will be poorer. In Gallup Poll surveys, 56% of the adult population reports that drowsiness in the daytime is a problem. In research done at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research they found that sleep-deprived individuals are able to maintain accuracy on cognitive tasks, but speed declines as wakefulness is extended. You want to take longer to think? Sleep less. Is this what you want when you need to be thinking fast on your feet in front of a tough, new prospect?
Now is the time to make some decisions about how you approach your selling. In today’s economy you need to be sharper and work smarter to succeed. Despite what the media tells you, our country is still the land of opportunity. Sales professionals who are prepared to work smarter will be the ones to take advantage of the fewer opportunities that are present this year.
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ACTION ITEMS
1. Monitor your productivity this week. What is taking you longer than it needs to take?
2. Identify ways to shorten your sales cycle. What steps in your sales cycle can you shorten? 3. Get to bed earlier!
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Programs
You can check for current programs.
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If you have either an iPad or an iPhone (and who doesn’t?) you need to know about iTunes U. It’s an amazing collection of tutorials, lecture and information from major universities. You can learn so much while you’re exercising or doing other “downtime” projects. Forget Dancing with the Stars! Why not learn something useful.
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Here are some selling tools to help you sell more now. Click on the photo to find out more!
Monday Morning Sales Tips : A book that has quick ideas for you to be more successful in sales. Real-World Selling: A book with selling skills and strategies that work in the real world of sales. Secrets of Persuasion: Audio CD for the clues to use to speed-read people and close more business.