Colleen’s Blog

What's the easiest way to lose control of the sales process? I'm sure you've noticed, many salespeople hold off on presenting their price to a prospective client until the final written proposal. They don’t bring up pricing in person or before a written proposal is sent because they’re afraid to scare away their potential client. Ironically, by following this methodology, they end up scaring away the prospect anyway. If you avoid discussing pricing options until the very last moment, you make it too easy for the prospect to ignore you. They may love everything about you and what you have to offer, but if the amount they see in writing is not something they’re comfortable with, chances are they will simply avoid discussion rather than initiating it and trying to come to a solution. In their mind, it’s much easier to ignore you than to reach out to you for a chance at a better price. Your buyer fears rejection too! When this scenario unfolds, you lose complete control over the sales process and you make it very difficult for yourself to recover from it.

I spent the week with two teams of top performing sales professionals this week. Although I suspect that some of them will fall out of that position before too long. Here are my observations:

If your sales are suffering right now, I want to make you aware of a shocking statistic. According to a study conducted by our friends at InsideSales.com, an incredible 30% of leads are never followed up on by the sales team when passed on by the marketing department. Can you believe it?! It doesn't matter if you have a client base of 10 people or 10,000 people. Ignoring 30% of your leads is a great way to create a sales disaster in your business. At the very least, I'm sure we can all agree that even if your sales are on target, that extra chunk of business can't hurt! Now that we have that surprising stat out of the way, let's discuss what's required in your follow up.

In Venice last week I learned that locals are leaving in droves. Yes, the water is rising (by 1.5 meters since the city was founded). But the encroaching tides are not the cause for the exodus. Instead, it is high real estate prices.  Only 57,000 locals remain in the city. The bakers are gone; bread is now imported from the mainland. The butchers are gone, the families are gone and the schools are closing. In multiple Piazza’s we saw 1-2 lone children playing in what were once bustling communities.  The city has become a location for “day visitors” as our guide called them, as most tourists don’t even spend the night. Homes are being bought by foreigners who rarely visit, and workers in the hotels and shops commute in and back every day leaving the restaurant patios away from St Mark’s empty. The nights, while peaceful, are somewhat eerie. And it got me thinking.

We're now well into Q2. Are you ready to help your team accelerate their success? I’ve been working with organizations and helping transform their sales teams for the last year. In all cases, these are companies looking to grow faster than the market and at an accelerated pace than their current growth path. Here are their keys to success: