Sales Blog for Sales and Sales Management

Ever take some extended time off?  I just did.  Took almost the entire month of July off.  I didn't write, post to the blog, twitter, call clients, or prospect.  Virtually nothing of a business sort other than some details around an account sold in June and some inside personnel issues.  Monday, we came back from the lake and Tuesday was my son's and nephew's birthdays so we took that day off as well.  Wednesday was back in the saddle and time to re-boot to sell.

First thing I did after meeting with staff was go to my contact list and make calls.  Left messages for 5 people, talked to one person (did a crappy job with that one), posted the blog, twittered, connected in LinkedIn, re-adjusted my success formula for the rest of the year and scheduled an appointment with two clients in California.

The best thing I did yesterday?  Start.  It may not have been perfect.  I may not have gotten the results that my success formula calls for, but I started.  I'm not saying this to brag.  Quite the contrary.  I'm admitting that I face the same challenges that all of you do. And that is I can procrastinate and find lots of other things to do other than those things that drive business to our company.  Yesterday, I made the conscious choice to jump back in and re-boot the sales engine.  If you've been off for awhile either because of vacation, working on deals or have just gotten off track, re-boot your business by jumping back in it. Don't worry about the outcomes, just start.  It will do wonders for your head and you never know- someone just might buy.

I recently met with a group that openly admitted that sales were broken.  This is what I heard.

1. Not enough names to start the process
2. Our partners for our selling seminars are not the answer
3. My compelling phone call isn't compelling enough - I'm not getting appointments
4. My success formula is wrong
5. Sales cycle is longer than expected
6. No accountability to effort
7. I don't have a success formula; I just operate day to day hoping that...
8. Calling on some people, but not enough people
9. Lack of effort

If you are at plan, ahead of plan, having an extraordinary year, then congratulations and thanks for reading.  You move to the head of the class.  If you are not in the above group, then where are you broken?  What are you going to do about it?  Who can help you?  How can we help?

Everyone is talking about the economy, and most everyone is talking about cutting and managing expenses instead of selling.  Browsing my Google reader, I found the following from Verne Harnish's post on the 6th of March: 

Drive Revenue, Eliminate Waste, Save the Team -- I've been pushing hard on tools and techniques for driving revenue.

Driving revenue through new sales is hard.  Managing expenses is easy.  You identify those items that do not contribute revenue and then methodically reduce the amount being spent or eliminate the expenditure.  It's easy to the extent that it is measureable, and in many cases, immediate.

To pull yourself out of the economic slump and put yourself in an economic and sales opportunity, do the following:

1. Pull your head out of the dark place.  My guess is that you don't own 100% market share so any decrease in your sales production has everything to do with your attitude and your effort.  Get your head straight first.
2. Think sales, think offensive strategy, and think selling to those that have already bought from you in the past.  You cannot win on defense.  You will only drive revenue if you sell and you might as well talk to those that already know you and are confident in your competence.
3. The market is the market, go to work.  When you leave the house in the morning and tell your family that you are going to work, remember that work isn't a place it is something that you do.  Effort starts the entire selling process.  Yes, it is harder now but you have to believe that your competitors are sitting back and whining about the economy while you're out talking to their clients.

It's only a tough economy if you want it to be.  There is plenty of business and plenty of opportunity to show your stuff right now.