Blog
It’s the beginning of your new fiscal sales year, and you probably worked extremely hard to hit last year’s sales goals.You might be feeling exhausted, with nothing left in your tank. You may feel as though you’ve done everything you can with your current customer base, and have realized that you must start your sales and prospecting efforts all over again, with even more dedication to exceed the new sales increase you’ve been given.
For many sales professionals, it’s a double-digit sales increase for this next sales year! As you reflect back, the sales cycle was more like a sales roller coaster, and if you’re like me – you like moving fast, but you don’t like the steep ups and downs of the emotional sales roller coaster.
How would you like to have a more sustainable sales and prospecting plan that will work for the entire fiscal sales year?
Here’s the reality, for sales reps to achieve their sales goal, sales teams can’t rely only on their existing customers.The biggest sales cycle challenge for sales teams is finding potential new customers. You need a sales process to do this.
Most sales reps don’t like cold calling and neither do I! Most sales reps have prospecting procrastination when it comes to making these calls and procrastination never leads to positive sales results.
I’m going to share with you a consistent sales process with a prospecting plan that will help you secure 10 new potential customers this year, by simply making 10 proactive prospecting calls or emails each week to avoid sales prospecting procrastination!
Here are seven strategies you can use to build your Sales and Prospecting Pipeline at a purposeful pace!
Let’s build your prospecting plan in reverse:
7. How many new prospects do you want to turn into new customers this year? How about 10 new customers this quarter or this sales year? That is less than one per month and very do-able! 10 new customers at $10,000 each is $100,000 in new business. How many of those new customers could be $100,000 customers? This would build a great sales pipeline to help you achieve your sales goals for the next three years!
6. How many prospect meetings throughout the sales year do you need to secure 10 new customers? The average sales closing ratio is 1:4 so to gain 10 new customers means you’ll need 40 prospect meetings. That would be on average at least one prospect meeting per week allowing you time to take summer holidays, attend sales conferences and enjoy at least two weeks off during the December holiday season because you will have slam dunked your sales and new customer goal, one year from now.
5. Before we begin creating your hot prospect list, let’s review your current existing sales clients to determine who are the ideal profitable type customers to attract. We all have a few high maintenance customers and we don’t want to attract more of them! Let’s make this easy and do a quick analysis of your top 10 existing customers.
What are their sales, who is the key decision maker and what is their role? What is their personality style? What are important criteria that make them successful to work with? What type of organization and what products or services do you sell that are profitable to sell? You want to look for any patterns and trends to help you determine who your ideal type of customers are. To keep this simple, I would suggest narrowing down and focusing only on three to four verticals at the most, which is one per quarter.
4. Build your hot prospect list based on your ideal and profitable type of customer. To create this hot prospect list, there are many sources for you to research such as LinkedIn, Industry Directories, and Industry Associations.
3. In looking at your verticals, identify when their industry tradeshows and conferences take place, as this is a great place to find and meet key decision makers. Put these tradeshows and conferences into your calendar and plan to be there.
2. Once you’ve gathered your list, commit to making 10 prospecting calls every week to achieve your sales goals using your Hot Prospect List.
1. Choose the best time to make those prospecting calls every week and schedule that time in your calendar. We highly recommend either early in the morning or you might try at the end of the day. At Teneo, we are committed to making those prospecting calls or sending emails every Thursday morning between 7:30am to 8:55am, as it has proven to be a great time to reach the right decision maker.
This prospecting strategy is simple and it works.
Avoid Prospecting procrastination this year and simply put your sales goal plan in pace by pro-actively making 10 calls or emails each week to secure 10 new customers this year.
Follow us weekly as we continue to provide you with Purposeful Prospecting tips, strategies and templates you can use every week to help you stay focused on your sales and prospecting goals for this year.
I’m a Goals Junkie – please comment below and share with me your sales and prospecting goals to stay accountable and we’ll continue to help you throughout the year to slam dunk your goals!
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.
Blog
I’ve observed that sales confidence is one of the biggest challenges that sales professionals and sales leaders are facing with their sales calls, sales presentations and especially sales prospecting. It’s not just new sales professionals, it’s more of the tenured sales professionals who have 10 and 20+ years of sales experience. Why?
Three factors that sabotage sales confidence:
1. Buyers, customers, prospects just don’t see the value of a salesperson’s role, knowledge and ability to demonstrate value. They are quick to blow off meeting requests! They are not returning emails or voice mail messages and it takes many more touch points and different and stronger messaging to get their attention. When they do respond, they ask for the best price, and then involve more people in the decision-making process – lengthening a more challenging buyer cycle than ever before.
This can happen with existing and even favourite clients and can leave a sales professional feeling less confident, which certainly erodes sales confidence on the ability to reach out to secure business.
2. Sales professionals are more reactive and have little time for pro-active planning and strategies. When we are in reactive mode, we are fixing problems and following-up on customer orders. Sales Confidence is eroded when we are in fire-fighting mode. Sales professionals need to follow a proven sales process enabling them to be more proactive, than reactive. Sales professionals are not allocating the necessary time to be pro-active to find new customers. Sales preparation builds sales confidence.
3. Competition is fierce. Customers are more demanding, knowledgeable and do their research before they talk with a sales professional. Many sales professionals and sales leaders have not stepped up their A-Sales Game to be able to quickly and confidently articulate their company’s value proposition against their current competitor, how their products/services will provide better solutions to their prospects and customers and how to handle all types of objections from securing a meeting to securing a sale.
Three solutions to build sales confidence and create more confident sales professionals:
1. Practice, practice and more practice will build confidence. Sales leaders, like sports coaches, need to have their sales team practicing their introductions to secure a meeting, creating a value proposition that raises eyebrows and intrigues prospects to learn more, plus providing a purposeful consultative conversation framework that builds sales success. Rather than boring weekly and monthly team meetings, this is a great opportunity for sales teams of all levels of experience to get better at what they do to build confidence. There is also a great video coaching tool that will record your sales professionals’ sales calls and provide you with video reporting to quickly assess and get better.
2. Plan, plan and more planning will further build sales confidence. Start with three-year sales goals and asking yourself and your team – what are their sales goals in the next three years? This gets them to start thinking outside of their one year and 5-10% sales increases. Most sales professionals will share much bigger goals in the next three years, than sales leaders anticipate. Then, map out a plan to achieve these sales goals and be a stronger and more confident sales professional. For example, doubling your sales in the next three years, is a 26% sales increase each year for the next three years. It’s easier to achieve than you think.
3. Demanding buyers and organizations are looking for confident sales professionals who can problem-solve and bring valuable solutions that help improve their business and achieve their KPIs. They don’t want to have product and price conversations, they want purposeful business conversations by stronger sales professionals who will confidently help them grow their business.
Want to increase your sales confidence to grow your business and your customer’s business?Check out our new accredited sales training programs offered in 2019 here.
Give me a call at 519-863-3975 if you’re interested in understanding more about our accredited programs.
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.
Blog
It can feel pretty chilly after a big client loss, whether or not it’s winter!
During this past year, we have tried several different prospecting strategies to grow our business after a major client had to halt their sales training program. We are sharing with you the best three proven prospecting strategies that worked and the three prospecting strategies that are as chilly as the cold weather!
I don’t need to tell you how it feels to have your sales revenue significantly impacted.
In order to regain the lost revenue, we figured out three things that worked and three things that didn’t.
Three proven Prospecting Strategies:
1. Be proactive and block out time to prospect every week. I have blocked my calendar and been disciplined to make at least ten telephone calls and/or emails every Thursday morning from 7:30am– 8:55am.This is when most of our ideal clients, VP of Sales, are in their offices early or enroute to work, and before they get into their 9am meeting. This simple habit has increased our business consistently this year and for the past 15+ years. The best marketing is still consistent and habitual prospecting!
2. Ask for Referrals. I’ll admit I never liked to ask for referrals because I felt that I was asking for a favour. I realized I needed to change my own mindset and self-talk on referrals. Now, when I call a sales leader and reference a client’s name, they are much more willing to talk to us. We have secured five new clients this year, all resulting from client referrals.
3. Sales Leader Evolve Breakfast. We hosted sales leader events this year and our efforts resulted in new leads, new opportunities and new business. These events provided us with a reason to reach out to new prospects and warm up these calls.
Three Prospecting Strategies that did not work:
1. Connecting to any and every sales leader prospect on LinkedIn is a bad idea. Even though we have increased our LinkedIn Connections by an additional 1000+ new connections, it didn’t generate any new leads or interest. We learned the importance of first nurturing these new connections.
2.Being active on all social media platforms doesn’t always work. In our efforts to increase our social media presence and connections, we realized that many of our ideal clients, who are sales leaders, are way too busy to be social on Facebook and Twitter. Choose the social medium that is active with your ideal target market and stick with it.
3. Not all paid advertising will get you results. When we realized that LinkedIn invites were working for the Sales Leaders Evolve Breakfast, we decided to bolster advertising with more paid ads on LinkedIn and Facebook. Even after spending over $1000, it really didn’t generate any additional leaders coming to our event. We learned again that nurturing connections matter in sales.
This year, we launched our new Advanced Prospecting program.
One of our client sales teams has already secured over 54 new client partners as part of their prospecting blitz. They have slam dunked their goal of 50 partners!
If you’re committed to warming up your prospecting efforts, check out our new Advanced Prospecting program for your team.
Teneo Challenge: As part of your prospecting strategy for the next year, take time to do a quick analysis. Figure out what’s working and what’s not working to maximize your prospecting efforts and time.
Give me a call at 519-863-3975 if you’re interested in hearing more about our Advanced Prospecting program.
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.
Blog
Like many leaders, I want to be a great leader and I always strive to be my best.
Yet, I wonder is my best good enough? What do others think about my leadership style?
During this past year, I chose to be brave and get feedback through the CheckPoint 360° Competency Feedback System™ – Management Report. I’ll admit, I was nervous to initiate this and when the report landed in my inbox, I was even more scared to open and review the report, especially because I expanded the feedback from direct reports, colleagues to several clients.
I closed my office door, turned off my emails and took a deep breath as I opened the report and quickly scanned this Executive Competency Overview 360° Wheel with the 8 Core Management Competencies of Adaptability, Development of Others, Relationships, Communication, Task Management, Production, Leadership and Personal Development.
It was well worth it, as I learned more about my strengths, a few blind spots and what I need to put into action to become a stronger leader.
It only takes 15 minutes for you and your direct reports, colleagues, boss and even your clients to complete a simple series of questions. It’s anonymous, so you don’t know how each person is rating you. Here’s what you’ll receive as part of the extensive and detailed 22-page report.
Executive Competency Overview
Executive Skill Set Summary
Here are five key reasons why I recommend the CheckPoint 360° Assessment:
1. Increases self-awareness
Self-awareness is especially important when it comes to leadership. Even though I knew I needed to do a betterjob of delegating responsibility, this report told me my team was telling me the same thing. I also thought I was working efficiently, yet others viewed my working harder as inefficient.
Leading people requires a careful balance of competing priorities and understanding how people see you.
2. Promotes dialogue with others
Dialogue is the first step in moving from measurement to improvement. This assessment of the 8-18-70 skill sets allows you to have better conversations and dialogues with your team. I openly shared my results with my team and clients and asked for feedback on what I could do to work more efficiently and delegate responsibility better.
3. Encourages personal development
This assessment helps develop professional and personal goals for the next year. By providing easy, digestible areas to examine, leaders will naturally grasp them in order to continue their improvement.
4. Increases accountability
The CheckPoint 360° Assessment clarifies behaviors and holds me more accountable with my team, peers and clients to improve and change behaviours.
5. Enhances performance
This assessment is one of the most powerful tools you can have. It will help you quickly improve your performance to become a better leader.
Honest and reliable feedback is necessary to test one’s own perceptions, recognize previously unseen strengths, and become aware of blind spots in one’s self-perceptions. I’m grateful to have completed this and challenge other leaders to do the same!
Teneo Challenge: Be Brave! As a leader, find out how you can grow your strengths and uncover any blind spots you might have to help you become a stronger leader in the next year.
If would like to discuss this further or put it into action, contact us to begin your CheckPoint 360° Assessment at lisa@teneoresults.com or click here for more information.
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.
Blog, Sales
We have three major changes at Teneo to better serve our customers and the sales community, and there is one thing that will always remain consistent at Teneo. Keep reading to find out what they are.
Teneo has an Accredited Partnership with CPSA
After more than 10 years of working with the Canadian Professional Sales Association (CPSA) as a Strategic Training Partner, we are thrilled to now be an Accredited Training Partnership with CPSA. Our accredited training programs prepare salespeople to meet the CPSA’s Professional Sales Designation pathway. This pathway is attracting more people, including college and university graduates, to the sales industry and will strengthen the sales community.
Our Rigorous Training Programs
As a result of the new standards and sales competencies set by CPSA, we have increased the rigorous nature of our training program, with Teneo’s style of interactive training and coaching, kicked up a notch to help sales teams raise their A game to meet today’s demanding buyers.
Our Purposeful Sales Strategies program that will prepare salespeople to successfully complete their Certified Sales Associate Professional Sales Designation (CSA). The feedback from our past participants has been phenomenal with a rating of 9.5 out of 10!
Our Purposeful Business Strategies Program prepares salespeople to successfully complete the Certified Sales Professional Designation (CSP), which is a gold standard program for achieving sales excellence in the industry today.
In addition, our advanced prospecting program Purposeful Prospecting helps sales professionals to identify ideal clients, and secure and close meetings with key decision makers with a 90-day prospecting blitz.
Each of our programs consist of Teneo’s integrated training and coaching model along with interactive microlearning videos and a practicum component, which differentiates our training from the rest.
Teneo New Brand & Website
We have gone through the intensive process of rebranding our company and website to match our company values and sales training structure.
We chose the ring icon. The inside ring symbolizes that we start with coaching sales leaders, as they are at the core of an organization and are pivotal to the success of sales teams. The second ring represents sales teams and how Teneo helps to transform them from good to great. The third ring represents Teneo working with customer service teams, as they are a valuable extension of the sales team. The final ring symbolizes the entire organization. Teneo works to align the sales culture across all departments to create an exceptional customer experience that delivers results.
Teneo Commitment Remains Consistent
The one thing that has not changed is our dedicated team and how we remain extremely committed to our clients.
Thank you to our many clients and suppliers who provided us with feedback, insights and support throughout these changes – we are very grateful.
Our Teneo team, consisting of Shannon, Angela, Jennifer, Jasmine and Chris, have all pitched in to ensure the changes within our business strengthen the client experience, our team and company culture.
If you need help with your sales goals, let’s talk. Email me at lisa@teneoresults.com
Teneo Challenge: What will you do to embrace change and be strategic, proactive and brave in the coming years?
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.
