‘He who hesitates is lost’ is a saying I have chosen to kick off this topic.
Why?
Over 50 years of empirical research into sales success shows that people who do not hesitate to prospect for new opportunities in new and existing accounts on a constant daily basis are five times more productive on average than their hesitant* colleagues. Five Times!
This research shows that businesses and their people can no longer rely on their technical competence, passive referrals, reputation, brand, or blanket advertising and marketing alone to bring in new business and revenue streams as they may have done in the past. They also need to effectively self-promote and prospect for new business using professional and ethical sales strategies and demonstrate real value for money. In short, we need to make our competency visible to people who need to know about us.
Here are four tips to help turbocharge your sales in 2023:
- What’s your Why You? Have a compelling value proposition that demonstrates how you help the people you want to work with
- Get Noticed: Position yourself in the marketplaces you need to be seen in and get noticed (for all the right reasons)
- Repetition: Effective salespeople don’t leave selling to chance. They don’t do it for a while then stop. They know they need to keep doing key activities like prospecting, following up on opportunities, meeting with clients, etc. on a regular and consistent daily basis to meet their sales targets – it’s about the numbers
- Be Helpful: good selling is all about helping people and the best way to do that is developing your questioning and listening skills and working in collaboration with your clients to help them solve problems and realise opportunities.
When you proactively manage your visibility, you can get recognised for what you do well and then you are in a position to get rewarded.
*If you have any anxieties around prospecting and business development, that is quite normal. Most people do until they learn how to master the craft of prospecting – how to contact prospects and clients- and address any negative stereotypes and fears they have around selling.
We have a range of programs and assessments to help you address any issues in this space.
Remember, everybody lives by selling something.
Stories from the field
I FOUND THE FS!!!
I had a business case presentation this afternoon to take a pilot client to full roll out and I opened with WWW. The Director and Head of Retail paused, looked at each other and then spoke openly for the next 10 minutes while I took notes.
At the risk of turning it into TLDR, the result is a $84K deal being drawn up and a full roll out before Christmas.
Thanks for your session, wisdom and concepts – came at a perfect time for me and definitely is already being put to good use and helping me shut up and listen.
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