Developing Your B2B Sales Skills
Unique Skills for Business to Business Selling
Challenges work to boost your effectiveness…
and that’s why I’m writing you right now as I
hope you don’t give up on your New Year’s
RESOLUTION by Jan 15th as most will do!
What do you think would happen if I were to
follow you with a camera crew 24 hours a day,
7 days a week for the first 100 days?
I bet 3 things would immediately take place…
1. You’ll START being more EFFECTIVE
2. You’ll STOP being INEFFECTIVE
3. You’ll SPARK MOMENTUM in your life!
Sometimes the strangest series of events occur to alert us about things we should be doing to help us hit our numbers consistently every month, quarter and year.
This recently happened to me after attending a conference and listening to a great speaker talk about achieving results, then I watched a webinar done by an Internet Marketing Guru who challenged everyone to think about crunching their numbers to gain a better understanding of how to achieve, and finally while traveling I reflected upon things I did early in my sales career to help me succeed.
Amazingly, it all came back to asking a question…
What Will Crunching Your Numbers Do for You?
I almost wanted to kick myself in the seat of my pants since the answer was so obvious. Take some time to crunch the numbers of my personal sales goals for 2012. In this time of reflection and thought, there are seven points to focus upon while crunching your numbers.
Just a gentle reminder, you should have your B2B sales Goals for 2012 established, noted and in some cases – launched.
If you have neglected to set your new goals for the coming year, then you are one of three types of people:
One thing I noticed with high tech world we live in – few people actually plan their customer or prospect contacts. Winging it is ruling the day due to the instant or urgency tendencies of text messages and emails.
GEEZ! Winging it is a bad thing. It does not work with b2b sales presentations and it definitively does not work with phone calls, texts and emails. Okay, you Xer’s are laughing too hard about the email comment. Old Boomers enjoy calling the most, emailing next and texting is new to us.
Okay, some of you are possibly wondering why should you be planning your contacts. Look if you are planning your face to face calls, it is not very different. With the exception of being even more strategic with your phone calls, emails and texts.
As I look into the recent financial situation around the world and in the USA, it is time for some serious contingency planning – regarding your 2011 Sales Plan.
Look – like it or not – we are going to have another round of budget tightening, price cutting requests, and other types of fear based actions and activities.
The Professional B2B Sales Person will recognize what is happening and will take some time to develop a contingency plan of action. Yes, they will be prepared for what both their company does as possible counter measures to another recession as well as what their customers or targeted accounts will be doing in the coming months.
Whenever I get into a situation where my b2b sales pipeline is getting a little slow, I know it is time to begin thinking about where are my current opportunities. As I make a list of potential targets – both current customers and targeted prospects – I’m looking for the best opportunities.
Now, best opportunities actually depends upon your current level of business.
If you have little business or are new to b2b sales, then you need a strong – qualified is best – list of potential customers to focus your efforts.
If you have a current book of business and just need a pick me up of new opportunities to fill your sales pipeline, then include current customers with expansion opportunities as well as some prospects – again, targeted and qualified prospects are much better than random list of names.
Okay, back to the topic today. Your need a structure of targeted questions for each company placed on your targeted opportunity list. And, here are the best four to use…
This is an interesting question because most people will tell you to track sales results. Okay, it is true you need to track sales results to keep score on your progress and sales skills development. However, this a “lagging” indicator meaning it is after the fact and tells you nothing about the future.
Others will tell you to track activities necessary for sales results. Again, this is something you may need to track – especially if you are selling small or one call impulse purchases. Tracking things like number of phone calls, contact with decision makers, appointments with decision makers, presentations to decision makers and sales closed. These are great for transactional selling – making a sale – rather than gaining an account.
So what should a B2B sales person track? How about this…
It is time to look back at the last years results and measure your progress. While this may seem unimportant or needless detail to some, they smart ones know the value of reviewing their results. Then using the information as a guide for setting goals and objectives for the new year.
Here is a list of things to review regarding your results from last year…
The big debate of all time with sales people is whether to plan their calls – every call – with prospects and customers. Well, the answer is simple if your goal is to be a Professional Sales Person. You plan the call.
Most sale people prefer to Wing It, stating reasons such as being flexible, going with the flow of the call, being creative, using their knowledge to control the direction, blah, blah, blah and blah! Enough already. The truth is most sales people are lazy and lack the discipline shown by the real Professional Sales People. I know that feels like a strong statement to make – yet, my experience tells me it is true.
So what makes sales people fore go one of the top traits of Professional Sales People? Here are some of the real reasons…