Colleen’s Blog

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:

Have you ever wondered why the most skilled salesperson on your team or in your organization isn't always the one who finishes the year with the best results? It’s true; your ability to sell often dictates how much you will end up selling. However, there are other variables to consider. One of the most important elements involved in greater sales results is where you place yourself. You can reach a certain audience behind your desk with a phone in your hand, but you will often be met with similar results week after week, month after month, and year after year. Stationing yourself in one place severely reduces your chance of achieving any type of scalability with your sales results. ← Click To Tweet Because of this, you are required to give some thought to creating and reinforcing what can be called a “sense of place.” To ensure that you are reaching a larger audience and increasing the number of prospects in your pipeline, here are five places you need to be:

The top 10% are like the Heat. They accept responsibility, regroup, refocus, and come back charging. They hit the court / office, make note of what didn’t work and what did, and leverage their strengths. Sure, take a breather after a big loss. Step away from your desk. Go for a walk, lunch, or take an afternoon at the park. But, while you are away accept that YOU lost the deal and only YOU can stage a comeback. Comebacks start only when you take responsibility and then take action.

I'm trying to buy a pocket door for our bathroom and discovered that Masonite manufactures the perfect one. I look on their website and find a local re-seller and the first one that pops up is Florida Lumber. Great, they are open Saturdays! Chris pops down to place the order. The door should be no more than $450 Florida Lumber suggests an alternative manufacture that will cost between $650-$1100 and take 5-6 weeks to order. They also tell us that Masonite is out of business.  This seems odd since Chris and I were both on their website that day. Plus, we can't wait 5-6 weeks. Chris leaves empty handed and calls Masonite direct. Masonite is NOT out of business. They are alive and well, shipping products all over the US. Home Depot is now a re-seller so we call them, order the door, and are told it will be in in 9 days. Price is as originally expected. When we asked Masonite why someone would tell us a lie about them they responded with:

Your mindset is typically one of two things. It can either be one of your greatest tools or one of your worst obstacles. The good news is you get to choose which side of the spectrum your mindset sits. If there’s one quality every successful salesperson can share, it’s their overall mindset for success. I haven’t yet met a successful salesperson who spends most of their time focusing on scarcity or negative circumstances. ← Click To Tweet As hard as you must work in order to see results, you should be working equally as hard to stay positive. Here are a few tips to get you on the right track:

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is trying to sell to everyone that comes into your pipeline. I know, it’s intuitive as a salesperson to sell as much as possible, but effective salespeople know how to pick and choose which prospects to sell to. They know the good from the bad. The reality is, not every prospect is an ideal candidate for your product or service. The sooner you learn this important lesson, the sooner you can focus on the prospects that are ideal candidates for you to work with. By selling to anyone and everyone, you are setting yourself up for huge customer service problems in the future. ← Click To Tweet