Rule # 1. Don’t listen to the news all day long.
Yes, the market is tough at the moment, but remember, it’s the same for everyone. If you want to succeed in sales in today’s market place you have to take responsibility for your own success in sales. Gone are the days when salespeople could sit it out until things improved. The political, economic and social disruptions that we have had for the past few years are still going to be here for a while.
We are in for another tough year ahead!
Stop blaming poor sales on the economy, the politics, the weather the leads, the customers, the price, the April school holidays and the recession. These are all outside influences that you and I cannot control. But what we can control is what we are good at and what we do best, and that’s SELLING!
You need to focus all of your energy on becoming the best you can be in sales. There is no such thing as a bad economy in sales. All that happens during an economic contraction is that the easy sales that were out there which anyone could have sold are no longer available, and the customers who are buying are now more demanding than they have been in the past.
Customers now demand far more from the salespeople they meet with. Forget about “The economy” and start creating you “Own economy”. Your own economy is your sales pipeline, and your sales pipeline is made up of your daily activities.
(Phone calls, meetings with customers, establishing needs / problems, presenting solutions, closing, generating quotes / proposals, making follow-up calls, determining “next steps”, prospecting, etc.)
Selling is one of the few, if not the only profession, where you can create our own Economy but it requires discipline.
Discipline = Action = Activity = Sales
Companies are pulling their hair out at the moment with frustration at the lack of energy and commitment that they are getting from their sales teams. Start following the above formulae: (D.A.A.S) and start taking responsibility for your own success in sales.
You need to have an attitude in sales that shows your customers you are doing this because you WANT to and not because you HAVE to. No one wants to do business with a negative salesperson. One of your responsibilities as a salesperson is to be positive.
When you meet with a customer and they say, “Business is slow and things are tough”, the last thing that they want to hear from you is confirmation of this. Tell success stories of customers who are succeeding. You must take responsibility for improving the attitudes of your customers and the other people you meet with daily.
Taking responsibility for changing other people’s attitudes is the best way to remain positive in a tough market.
Related Tag: Sales Training
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