Sales Blog for Sales and Sales Management

Sales activity is as difficult for me as it is for any sales person. I have lots of reasons/ excuses to NOT make the prospecting calls that would eventually lead to sales success. I need inspection of my activity, accountability to standards and coaching of behaviors just like all of the sales managers and sales people we work with, coach and mentor. The keys to successfully executing   sales  activity and executing your plan consistently are: 1. Understand that prospecting is THE job sales people get paid for. If you are challenged with this, you might want to look at Tom Redmond's information at: Redmond Group Inc. Tom's call reluctance assessment may help you identify some root problems with consistent prospecting activity and successful conversion of prospecting efforts. 2. Having goals that you are committed to and create passion. Starting with lots of goals and then focusing on the few critical ones will help create the required desire and commitment. 3. Creating a plan of execution for those sales activities required to make sales 4. Establishing a plan of accountability and inspection - Verne Harnish's concept of 'huddles' is perfect. 5. Gaining insight from the data you collect in your huddles - you should frequently look at your actual activity against goal as well as your actual conversion ratios against projected. This insight will help you determine if your results are due to effort or execution. Today I traveled to Cleveland. Before I left, I decided that I would get my prospecting activity done. I made a list of 20 people that I was going to talk to and I proceeded to make calls via my bluetooth enabled truck. I managed to talk to 3 people from the 12 that I dialed and have appointments with all three. But the most important lesson here isn't the conversion of effort to appointments: it is the effort that was made. I did not allow myself to use excuses this week for not doing the prospecting activity required for me to be successful. That was today.