“Remember, proper planning prepares you to progress profitably.” – Meshell Baker in today’s Tip 1737
How do you make more opportunities?
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Meshell Baker, our favorite sales confidence igniter and authentic selling crusader. Here she is:
Meshell Baker: Hello. Today, we’re going to talk about making more opportunity. And I’m going to start with a quote, Opportunity has been known to knock, but it doesn’t turn the knob and walk through the door for anyone. That part is up to you. By Givers Gain, which is a great book. If you haven’t read I highly recommend and encourage you to read it.
Now, how do you make more opportunities? By making every activity count. You see, when sellers and sales leaders put all their energy into tracking all the little things that they do, like how many calls they make, that doesn’t always match up with more thoughtful, strategy-driven, value-based, client-focused ways of selling.
Sure, you can count all the stuff and check the boxes. It’s helpful, but getting caught up in racking up numbers always misses the mark of creating more outcomes.
I mean, just because you’re making a bunch of calls doesn’t mean you’re getting anywhere with your sales, right? So doing things that are more impactful in action will actually move the needle.
So I’m only going to give you two tips today.
One, emphasize outcomes rather than activity. You see, the optimal approach for quality sales calls activities is to focus on outcome-aligned meaningful progress when you’re prospecting, setting goals on those sales calls. In other words, don’t focus on how many. Focus on the activity of each and every one. This is a shift in focus and It’s powerful.
So I’m going to give you a couple of examples of where you can make those shifts. Making fewer calls, but plan them better. Question, do you have a planning sheet or a guide that you are following every time you’re making these fewer calls? If not, you’re winging it, and that’s what makes trying to get to the sale so focused instead of following the guide to ensure that engagement is more meaningful to the prospect or the client.
Number second tip, have fewer meetings, but conduct them more effectively. This means that you have an agenda. Again, similar, your guide. When you’re having these meetings, what are you doing in the meeting? When you have fewer meetings, you have time between meetings to update the CRM and to actually do some follow-up and follow-through so that you’re able to, right after that meeting, send the information, send the email, look at what you told that client you were going to do and actually do it. Many times you have too many meetings and you don’t have time for the follow-up and the follow-through. And fortunes are always built in the follow-up and the follow-through.
Number three, conduct fewer demos with better results. This means that you have time to align your demo presentation to the needs of that client. You’re not just running through the steps of the demo, you’re actually tying the demo to what’s in the CRM or into that first call that you had. So you’re reviewing everything you have and bringing it to create an incredible demo for that person.
And the last one I’ll share with you is submit your proposals with higher rent rates. This is taking the time to really create a proposal that has more of a competitive differentiation and maybe offers multiple products or multiple options. So you’re slowing down your input to increase and impact your outcome. Take longer time to serve each client well, and you will not have the need to make as many calls.
Number two, measure what matters. Again, as we talked about the last things, what are you measuring? If you’re simply measuring the number of calls you’ve made every day, now this does not mean don’t make the calls. It means that measure what is being done and what is happening on each call that actually moves the needle to creating more outcomes. Because when you don’t take time to measure what matters, you won’t do what matters, and you’ll find yourself yourself in a desert of sales outcomes.
So again, whatever activity or metrics you choose to measure, ensure that that metric correlates and aligns with your sales goals, your sales goals, your desired sales outcomes, and the value that you’re bringing to every sales call. Remember, proper planning prepares you to progress profitably. Have a great day selling.
Scott Ingram: For more from Meshell, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1737. Once you’ve clicked over there, be sure to click back here for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!