Colleen’s Blog

You have it good. In the "hustle and bustle" of your workday, it's easy to get wrapped up in the stress and pressure of consistently hitting your sales targets. You're constantly prospecting, networking, following up with clients and working hard to make the next sale. If you've been in sales for even a small period of time, you've probably felt overwhelmed at one point or another. But regardless of all of this, I want to remind you of how good you have it. Whenever you feel the overwhelm taking over, remind yourself of these important points:

You can discuss sales strategies, ideas, tips and methods to no end. You can set sales targets for your team to hit, implement a promising new strategy and motivate your sales reps with morning huddles. But, when the day starts, it's up to your team to do the work and create the results. Salespeople don't always struggle due to weak strategy, at times poor productivity habits will seriously hinder their progress as well. Let’s cut to the chase. The best way for your team to achieve true productivity in their work day is to ask them to cut off all inbound access. Now, before your jaw drops too low, let me clarify that you should only ask that they do so temporarily, ideally an hour or two each day. Consider asking them to turn their phone to silent or completely turning it off. They will also benefit from logging out of their email inbox while they work through important tasks. When your team is focusing on outbound business development prospecting, they should not have to deal with distracting, time consuming tasks which take the focus out of their work day. It's great to be able to multitask, but your team will always be able to accomplish more by laser focusing on the task at hand. Want a perfect example of how this simple tweak in productivity can benefit your team?

Are you actively seeking referrals from your current client base? According to recent studies, 78% of happy clients want to give out referrals. Yet only 8% of salespeople actually ask for them. Can you see the disconnect? It doesn't take a math genius to figure out that many salespeople are missing out on key opportunities to increase their sales and grow their businesses. I understand the intimidation factor, but the truth is in order to achieve and maintain any kind of success in sales, you have to push through the intimidation and ask for referrals anyway. They are such a powerful tool to grow your customer base, and not asking for them often enough is doing a huge disservice to yourself and your business. Here's the truth, you will always get a rejection if you're asking for referrals the wrong way. Just like anything else, being successful with gathering referrals requires strategy. <-- Click To Tweet Consider this quick strategy to get the ball rolling:

I recently had the honour of presenting at the inaugural Million Dollar Consulting Convention presented by Alan Weiss. Over 180 professionals attended the Convention, and while I was there to “teach” consultants how to create a Nonstop Sales Boom, I took in as much (if not more) than I gave out. Here are my top 10 from the week: The key to a successful life is loving every day. If you treat each day as an exciting new opportunity to explore, create, and experience you will always thrive. – Alan Weiss

Let’s face it - a salesperson constantly running out of time will likely become a salesperson that will soon run out of sales. It’s easy in this world of distraction to lose track of our time and lose focus on the daily tasks that bring us sales success. When you’re trying to manage multiple tasks at once, you may find it difficult to manage the hours in your day. So, to ensure that you don’t become a victim of lost time, I’ve compiled a few tips to help keep you on track, so you can stay ahead of the clock!