🧭 More productive in sales: Here's how!
When you ask sales managers and salespeople how they can get better at selling, you usually get answers that relate to methods:
"We need to get better at phone prospecting." Or, "We need to contact more prospects." Or, "We need to get stronger at closing." And so on.
That's all well and good. Except that, in my experience and observation, there are two other factors that are even more important for sustainable success in sales: Mindset and personal productivity.
We'll cover the former elsewhere. Today, we're talking about productivity.
Imagine a salesperson creating 20, 30, or even 50% more in the same amount of time: how much more could they create and sell? What I'm saying is: the leverage of productivity in sales is enormous.
Here are 3 key starting points you can use to significantly increase sales productivity:
- Conviction of your own value added. Surveys among customers show that the effect that most influences the purchase decision is the added value that the...
Does your sales team rock 2020?
I find it amazing with what degree of complacency some CEOs and sales managers accept a mediocre performance in sales. Almost like a law of nature! There always seems to be enough reasons:
- “You simply can't get good salespeople these days!”
- “In our industry, customers always bought because of low price!”
- "Someone is just a salesperson, or he/she is not. You can hardly change someone!”
And so on. Frankly, I can't hear these excuses any more.
If people put just as much energy into the advancement of their sales as to look for reasons for trouble, we would be already a considerable step further.
My question is quite simple: What do you do to make your sales really rock in 2020?
More growth than in recent years, a higher margin, more enthusiastic customers and so on.
Of course, this is not possible with the old methods. Indeed, most salespeople have to considerably shake up their mindsets and attitude. Not to mention new sales strategies, tactics and...
This is how marketing works!
Did you see Elon Musk's presentation on the new Tesla Truck? Click here to watch a summary: https://youtu.be/1AwKmUH9wIg?t=13s
What do you think is special about this product introduction? The presentation in Steve Jobs’ style? That Elon Musk radiates pride? The innovative truck?
No, the truly special thing is that a pure B2B product is marketed entirely through emotions. And Elon is pulling all registers! You can almost imagine that CEOs of freight forwarders and other transport companies will camp overnight in front of the delivery site to get the first Tesla truck - just like the iPhone.
What can you learn from this, especially if you are selling products not to consumers but to other companies? Here are three ideas:
- What is really special about your products, that triggers emotions in the mind of your customer? Not by chance, Elon Musk shows the acceleration first, a factually rather insignificant feature in my view - but very important...
What the heck are you selling?
I guess the headline sounds weird to you. “Of course, I know what we are selling!” you might think. Not so fast! Watch the video to learn some surprising views on what you are really selling. And I’ll give you some real life examples.
Action items for today (after you watched the video):
- Write down five cases in which you or your sales team definitely disappointed a customer.
- Rate yourself or your sales team for each case on a scale 1-10 in the five categories I explain in the video.
- Write down three ideas of how you can increase your rating by at least 3 points on the scale 1-10.