The biggest reason for many failures is keeping things on the to-do list for a longer time. We fail to understand that others are fighting at the back to fill the gap in your “longer-period.”
Others make longer periods into shorter periods for the clients, and so the client goes with them.
Success requires constant review to make sure that we connect all dots without missing even one.
We feel elated when we get one such success!!!
The first and the foremost thing a salesperson should do it, “keeping selling.” It is not that there is “no need” situation in the market. There is only a “no want” situation in the market. So a salesperson should not stop the selling.
A new norm is there everywhere. So it should be there in the sales presentation and pitch too. Rewrite your sales pitch. Redesign your presentation. Revisit what you are selling.
The conventional “cold email” and “cold call” is going to be tactless in this situation. The same old way of “one-stop-shop” is not going to fetch any more water. Adjust your team to the new reality.
As per a survey, it requires six times more effort to convince a client for a deal than earlier. So the best part is to hold your clients very close to your heart. Often speak to your customers. Communicate proactively with them.
Reassure your client that you can understand their pain because they are also crossing the same situation.
Whatever may be the situation, the closure should keep on happening. Revisit your old leads. Engage with your earlier prospects. Analyze why they didn’t give you the business last time.
Finally, speak to your delivery organization to bring them on board with you on keeping the “Customer First” attitude.
Personal tip to sales guys: Don’t shift job now. Sell what you are well versed in all these days rather than going to new selling. It is not just you are going to sell. It’s the brand name of the company which is going to help you to sell.
The synchronization of what you have with your company and your selling skill is your real motivation. You cannot sell yourself and also the brand now. It is a risky task.
We will google for any information. Being it personal or official, we will get answers. Will we get an answer that is suitable for us? The answer would be mostly NO.
We will tend to fit ourselves into that answer and get satisfied.
With keeping the same situation, let us analyze the business. There are zillion business houses in the World. But very few create footprints in their arena. The entire remaining business houses blindly follow those footprints as if they are also equal to those others.
We can see a lot of these in my business line, the Small and Medium Business area. There are not many similarities among the business houses of the SME segment. But we all feel that we can follow others to become one like them.
The best example is in hiring salespeople. During the initial days of the company, the sales guys play a vital role in the growth of the company by formalizing the sales strategies.
But, when the company stabilizes the business, sales guys will not get the opportunity to play many roles in new strategy formulation. They sometimes will get to fine-tune those already formalized strategies only. The company brand or current client references will take the role of spearheading the part of the sales.
It is not the capability problem of the sales guy. Here he didn’t get the specific opportunity to play those strategists’ roles. He will be a good sales guy to run the already formalized sales strategy.
What happened in the market now is, a new company will check the profile of these sales guy and feels that they have won many large deals and so if they hire those sales guys, they are going to bring such deals to their company too.
It may or may not happen. Predominantly it will not happen. This is where the CEOs or the Management of the new company fails. Mostly, only those who have played a vital role in formalizing the business strategy can plan the same role in the new company too. If you hire a hardcore sales guy who was successful in bringing new clients and deals with the collaterals and portfolios of the company may fail big time to play the role of a strategist.
It may not be a failure of the sales guy alone and it will be the failure of the new company too.
You can crosscheck this with the frequent job change of sales guys in the market or with the frequent firing of sales guys by the companies.
Next: No same rule applies! (Business Travel)
AnubKumar Dharmabalan 