Colleen’s Blog

Wow - we’re now in the final week of November. It’s hard to believe that we'll be entering the final month of the year very shortly. Time flies, doesn’t it?! I’m sure you’re already thinking ahead to 2015. But, before you pull out the planning boards and strategy documents, don’t forget to first analyze your successes and drawbacks in 2014. Ask yourself key questions, answer them, and use those answers as building blocks for planning 2015. <-- Click To Tweet I want you to succeed and I want 2015 to be your best year ever. Here are several questions you may want to ask yourself to make that happen:

Alright - before you get the wrong impression, Engage Selling’s blog is, and always will be, committed to driving more sales to your business. Despite the title of this blog post, we haven’t turned into a nutrition blog overnight! Don't worry! But, the title still stands. You and your business may need to go on a very specific diet if you want to give your prospecting efforts any chance of succeeding. I’m talking about going on a technology diet.

You may be surprised to learn that many salespeople and business professionals spend less than one hour a month prospecting for new business. One thing you must always keep in mind is that there is no sales problem that good prospecting skills can’t solve. Unless you’re rude or have a bad attitude (in which case you shouldn’t be in sales!), nurturing your pipeline consistently will lead you to sales success. I frequently coach sales reps who know exactly what to say, when to say it, and have terrific, well-priced products and services...but they still don’t sell. Why? Because they have no prospects waiting in their sales funnel! Simply put, if you have no prospects, you can’t make sales. <-- Click To Tweet To ensure that you are creating a steady stream of new business opportunities, here are a few tips that can help your prospecting and pipeline building efforts:

As you know, organization is simply one of those “must-have” skills that a salesperson must possess in order to be successful. Let’s make a distinction - being organized in sales doesn’t mean having a spotless office with perfect stacks of paper and a strategically placed hand sanitizer beside your computer. Being organized means having one contact management system that you use every day to manage all client files, your complete calendar, your tasks and all the information you need to prepare for each sales call. You must get yourself organized with a true sales force automation system such as InfusionSoft, Landslide, Salesforce.com, SugarCRM or OnContact because they become your sales dashboard.  While I’m not endorsing any of the aforementioned systems, I do highly recommend using a proven CRM system to help with your day-to-day activities.

You could be the world’s greatest salesperson selling the world’s best product, but if you can’t connect with your prospects, will your sales results reflect your expertise? If you can’t open a dialogue with prospective buyers, it becomes very difficult to sell a product or service! This is a common problem for many sales professionals, the inability to secure a conversation with potential customers. A certain feeling of frustration creeps in and it can become difficult to maintain the focus or motivation to keep trying. When you’re passionate about your product and its ability to help your prospect, the frustration tends to grow even more. Can you relate to these feelings? Chances are you have felt this frustration at one point or another. Want some good news? I have a few points worth discussing that will hopefully drive you to keep trying to initiate contact with your prospects: