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Are headwinds impacting your business? Lately, the air has been swirling with uncertainty, gloom and even fear regarding what is brewing in today’s economic climate. As businesses and sellers, we need to ensure these headwinds are not impacting our own self-talk.
Nothing happens until a sale is made and we need more sales to happen (other than the sale of hand-sanitizer!).
This past week, I was in Ambergis Caye, Belize. It was a beautiful island just off the mainland of Belize. Actually, it was a 14-minute plane ride on a single prop airplane that held 12 persons including the pilot.
For our readers who know me well, I’m a sunny, fair-weather type person and I hate the cold and wind—it will come as no surprise to you that the headwinds that were present impacted both my pleasure trip and the week’s professional business.
What headwinds (obstacles) are impacting your business? Even though I was on holiday, I started to allow these headwinds to impact my own mindset. I decided to use my best tool to turn around these uncertainties. I sat at the beach and started to write and turn around these obstacles into tangible strategies. As I started this list, I began to feel much stronger about the situation. Within a few hours, the winds even started to subside.
I highly recommend you take a few minutes to create your own list. Here’s what I created:
| Obstacles aka Headwinds |
Strategies to Overcome Obstacles |
| Economy and Stock Market Plummeting |
Salespeople must become stronger to have business conversations and show the ROI reasons |
| COVID-19 Travel Ban impacting Live Training |
Offer Live Virtual Training |
| US Election impacting business decisions this fall |
Develop stronger business & sales strategies in Q2 and Q3, prior to US Election |
| Companies not willing to invest in soft skills training with budget restrictions |
Create stronger performance and results-based training to show ROI investment |
| What are your obstacles? |
What strategies can you put into place? |
Interesting perspective – sometimes we feel these headwinds are much stronger than they actually are.
As we toured the island and met with locals, we asked them if it was always so windy. They didn’t seem to be frazzled by the wind. They would simply pull down the tarp of their open-air restaurant/bar and it would be instantly warmer and calm inside. You just need to find a shelter to reduce the headwinds and even your own head noise!
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.
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Sales Leaders,
If you were the coach of a high performing sports team, what would your team rally and conversation look like in the dressing room before game time?
- Are you rallying your team to win this upcoming game?
- Are you strategizing on game moves to play an offensive game against the competitive team to win?
- Are you building confidence and getting them excited and motivated for the upcoming game?
- Are they in strong shape to mentally and physically play this upcoming aggressive week?
- Do you huddle and high-five and have your team cheer/mantra before you head out to the field?
- What is the aura of your weekly sales meeting? Does your team leave more excited for an upcoming sales week?
What can you do to create a stronger IMPACT in your weekly sales meetings?
In our Sales Leadership Journey Program, we talked about this topic to get sales leaders to transition from mundane weekly meetings to being stronger coaches who rally their team at the beginning of the week.
Most sales meetings are too focused on last week’s sales achievements. You can’t do anything about last week’s sales numbers. You can do something about this week’s upcoming sales numbers.
Here are 3 quick fixes to create stronger business rhythm:
- Other than secured sales – what are the next two important KPIs you want to feature on your dashboard?
- Apply the 5-5-5 Coaching Strategy to strategize on what you will do to win business this week.
- 5 minutes – one sales team member shares their customer situation
- 5 minutes – the rest of the team can only ask questions about the situation (great discipline to get the team to only ask questions, not provide solutions or sell too soon – yet)
- 5 minutes – the team can provide ideas, advice and solutions on how to win this business
- Get your team more involved in your sales meetings. Delegate a sales topic each week to a member of your team to provide a five to 10 minute sales training lesson.
One of our Sales Leaders in our “Leading Sales Success Journey” Program implemented a daily 4pm team call. It has increased motivation and accountability…and best yet 25+ new clients since January 1st. That’s great business rhythm!
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.
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Sales Leaders,
Remember when you were a kid and you had to put yourself out there in grade school and send a Valentine to everyone in the class, including the person you had a secret crush on? You would spend time personalizing all those Valentine cards, choosing different images and messages to add to every card. It was just as much fun (and sometimes painful!) to give those Valentine’s Day cards as it was to receive them…
This grade school Valentine’s Day ritual is a lot like Prospecting!
Who is the prospect you’re crushing on, the one whom you would LOVE to have as your next new customer? What can you do to #ShowTheSalesLove and get your dream prospect to return the love by granting you that meeting?
Let’s think back to when you were 8 years old and had no fear during Valentine’s Day. Would you make a hand-written card, and spend time choosing the perfect Valentine’s Day message? Or would you do something bold and give them flowers, chocolates, or a teddy bear?
Be Creative and Bold this week. Choose the right messaging to get the attention of that “special someone” to create a sales relationship that lasts long past Valentine’s Day!
Perhaps, you want to get really creative and send a v-gram or even send chocolates to get their attention! Or maybe you want to show the love to your favourite customers and thank them for their customer loyalty.
Whatever you decide to do, be sure to #ShowTheSalesLove this week!
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.
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Sales Leaders,
Did you achieve this past month’s sales goal? Are you ahead or behind for the new fiscal year?
Too many sales leaders and their sales teams are only focused on achieving monthly targets – this will NOT help you exceed your sales goal for the year. As a sales pro, you know that when customers defer decision-making, it elongates the sales cycle. You have to be focused on the bigger picture and the entire year in order to reap the best results.
The secret ingredient? Proactively identifying your 7-day task to achieve your yearly goal.
Sales Planning is all about alignment: Aligning your territory goals and plan with your company’s goals and plan.
From there, it’s about aligning every customer meeting to ensure it is purposeful in achieving your yearly sales goals and company goals.
The reality is, most sales professionals don’t take the time to analyze and build their territory and sales plan each year. This is critical to your sales success, especially as your goals will continue to increase each year.
In order to get the most out of your sales planning, we have created this Sales Plan Template, as well as this quick list of best practices for creating an actionable territory/sales plan:
> Align your territory goals with your company goals and other KPIs.
> Plan Early – You should begin territory planning at least three to six months before your new fiscal year so that when the year begins, you have a workable plan to put into action. If you have not done this, you can still do so TODAY!
> Analyze your territory – Break it down into A, B, C and even D accounts. How can you turn your B accounts into A accounts and your A accounts into A+ top accounts? Can you delegate your C and D accounts to inside sales or customer service?
> Know your numbers – How many new clients did you secure last year to achieve your goals? What is your average account size? How many accounts are above your average account size? How many accounts are below your average account size?
> Plan to Prospect – How many prospects must you secure in order to hit your sales goal? Which companies in your territory will you approach? Create your target “suspect” list.
> How can you make every call more purposeful to align with your territory plan goals and company goals? Apply the PURPOSE consultative framework. Time is money.
> Managing your territory is like managing your own business. Maximize your products/services, smartly maximize the usage of your time, and you’ll see your territory grow like a profitable business.
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.
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We don’t want sales goals to become new year’s resolutions that fizzle within a few weeks of the new year.
To achieve your goals this year, you need to be 100% committed to saying yes, and 110% committed to saying no to the DISTRACTIONS.
What will you say NO to? Here are the Top 7 Distractions to say no to…
1. High Maintenance Customers who take up a lot of your time but give you very little in sales.
To achieve your goals, be proactive and focus your time on your ideal profitable customers.
Download the Ideal Client Analysis to determine your Ideal Profitable Customers.
2. Not having a weekly plan that will help you achieve your 3-year and 1-year goals.
It’s Friday. How many meetings do you have scheduled for the next week and the next two weeks?
Download the Weekly Time Blocking Chart to map out your Ideal Week.
3. Traveling for one client meeting
To maximize your travel time, what can you do to schedule at least 1-2 meetings in the area? I live over an hour outside of the Toronto area and I do my best to schedule multiple meetings when I travel to a city. Clients and prospects are willing to see you when you are traveling from out of town, and are in their area.
4. Giving your best price quote?
Stop – don’t just send a quick quote or price. Schedule a conversation to better understand your clients’ needs and even more so their goals, outcome and business.
This way, you will be able to provide clients with a purposeful conversation and a 3-Option Solutions Proposal. This will turn the conversation away from price and allow you to focus more on their business.
Download the Option Proposal Template to help develop a stronger proposal solution.
5. Monthly Sales Targets
6. Negative Self-Talk
Your internal dialogue and self-talk will affect your planning. It’s easy to think, ‘This customer won’t be buying from me,’ or, ‘My price is too high,’ or, ‘They won’t like my solutions better than my competitors’ solutions.’ Say no to negative self-talk in order to improve your business outcomes.
7. Excuses
There is no shortage of excuses you can make as to why you can’t achieve your goals. The economy, the customer not returning your calls/emails, a competitor having a better price. Identify the obstacles, then create strategies to overcome these obstacles in order to stay on course and achieve this year’s 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.
