The other day, we were in Monterrey, the “Sultana of the North,” visiting one of our dear clients and friends. We were talking specifically about the sales team, the number of “prospects” they generated and their difficulty closing sales. They told us that some of the sales executives' indicators were the number of calls made and the number of new companies added to the database. A database—or a list of future customers?
But the same issue remained on the table: why are they not closing sales?
Well, dear reader, this scenario probably sounds familiar in your company. Perhaps you share the same headache: your salespeople keep calling, calling and calling, with a database of more than 5,000 prospects nationwide, but they do not close sales.
They have already taken courses in sales, closing and negotiation. You have trained them in Karras, Harvard and Lego methods, neurosales, magic sales, the closer of closers and the master of sales. You have called the town's sales guru, the person the director met at IPADE, the one who worked directly with and was a padawan of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and is on very familiar terms with Slim… but no. We keep grinding away, suffering every month and wringing our hands as we wait for invoices to come in. The harsh reality of working in sales!
Who can help us now?
That is not the way, my dear friends. The problem is not closing the sale; the complications and blind spots begin earlier. Perhaps your sales department has not distinguished between building a database of every company it can find and generating a genuine prospect list. So they fire shots left and right, like at a village fiesta—and you measure them that way too. It simply cannot work!
Where is the problem? There is no prospecting methodology, so my work becomes mere telemarketing: I call, make an offer, hang up and repeat over and over. If that is your business's focus, fine! If not, we need to talk.
Look… prospecting should be one of the most finely tuned processes along the long, winding road of sales, because otherwise we are merely working through databases. Your sales executives should be very clear about:
- Who's his client and his market.
- What Your Customer Wants.
- How your company or product makes life easier for customers.
- Who's his competition, what and how he's selling.
If your sales executives cannot answer even one of these, we are in trouble from the start. Do they know the answers? Good. Then let's discuss the finely tuned prospecting process before building a database or list of future customers.
Where to start with our database or list of prospective customers:
- To set targets: I have to say that they have to exceed sales expectations.
- To define a strategy: we maintain, renew, acquire or grow customers.
- Qualify your prospect: Assign a numerical value. Have they bought from me before? How much can I invoice them? Can they afford to buy? Do they buy similar products or services? How long will selling to them take?… Among other questions.
- Who is who? Who has purchasing authority? Who influences the purchase? Who will give me access to the right person?
- Processes: none of us likes them, I know, but we must understand customers’ purchasing processes from call #1.
- Motivation: What we consider least. Why, or for what purpose, buy our product or service? What problem does it solve?
What comes next? Getting to work. But we will leave that for another blog post, dear reader. First work on the points above; without them, we will continue merely creating databases.
P.S. Remember, we offer an outstanding Effective Sales course. In case you need it.
Rock´n roll people!!!
