If you find your phone ringing more often these days, from people trying to sell you something, you are not alone. In today's tough economy, salespeople are being compensated through sales commissions only. To make their sales quotas, sales people spend their days 'dialing for dollars'-----hoping to talk unsuspecting people into buying what they have to sell to survive.
However, most will fail because they don't understand the impact of their personalities on the person at the other end of the call....and....they are blindly 'winging it' by operating without a proven sales process methodology. Here is an example of how salesman John Sharp wings it during a prospective customer sales interaction:
According to an article on sales management in Business Performance Management, December 2008, only 41% of companies surveyed were confident that their organization manages its sales operations and performance effectively. Two of the most common impediments to successful management of the sales team are inconsistent execution (47 percent of respondents) and an overall lack of sales processes (38 percent). Processes in areas of sales such as revenue forecasting, incentive calculation and territory management are imperative to achieving corporate revenue objectives; it's alarming that so many companies lack some of these basic procedures.
Once company leadership recognizes the firm can't survive in tough times without a viable sales process and realistic revenue forecasting, they can ask for help in getting their train back on the tracks. A good place to start whenever processes are inefficient is to analyze, and overhaul the company's information systems. Practical, accurate and consolidated data about sales activities is absolutely necessary for striving to maximize the motivation and productivity of the sales force. For example, the proprietary Sales by Objectives (SBO) methodology is a proven goal setting process to get results when both the buyer and seller work together to make a responsible buying decision.
Connection Matters When Getting Buy-in
People first buy-in to you emotionally before they are willing to listen to what you have to say. Every message is filtered by the potential buyer (through observing the planning for and execution of sales interaction) by the deliverer of the message. Making a list of granular objectives or next actions by the prospective buyer are critical to strategically planning for the sales interaction. Becoming a good 'opener' of the sale is the runway for becoming a good 'closer' of the sale. Passing the A.C.I.D. test is critical to sales success.