eBusiness Weekly
Robert Gonye
If you don’t give your prospects a compelling reason to buy from you instead of your competition, you are essentially forcing your prospects to buy based solely on price.
It’s up to you to make sure that you are the one that educates your prospects on what their buying criteria should be.
Therefore it should be obvious that you want them to focus on the buying criteria that make you the best in your field and in order to achieve that it means your sales teams have to have the winning edge as a must and I will sum it up under Five key attributes any successful sales reps should have.
- They Double It Up On Their Strengths.
Most people choose goals based on their weaknesses or failures. For example, a rep who struggles to stay firm on their price during negotiation might say to himself: “I won’t drop my price by more than 5 percent for the next contract.”
However, successful goal-setters do the opposite: They pick their objectives based on their strengths.
If a salesperson knocks it out of the park when it comes to sales meetings, for instance, she’ll set a goal that’ll have her doing more sales meetings than ever before.
Doubling up on what’s working, rather than what’s not, means you’ll enjoy working toward the goal —which makes you likelier to stick with it. When you’re trying to compensate for a weakness, on the other hand, you dislike the process and easily become discouraged.
- They Set Result based Goals.
Setting results-based goals is dangerous. You can’t directly control the outcome of your work, so you might get discouraged even if you’re doing everything right. Imagine you set a goal of getting five executive meetings this month. If the professionals you call are busy, out of the office, or uninterested, you’ll miss your goal.
However, whether or not you meet a result-based goal is completely up to you. Your target might be: “I’m going to call 50 senior executives this month.” All you need to do is sit down and make the calls. You probably will get five meetings, but even if you do’t, you won’t feel like a failure.
Look at your historical performance data from your CRM or a business analytical tool to pick a goal that’s ambitious but doable.
Make sure you manage your call-to-meetings rate, you’d likely need to call around 63 executives to book five appointments, is it worth it and will it work ?
- They share their goals with others.
Sales Executives who consistently meet their goals don’t keep those goals to themselves. If you merely tell yourself: “I’m going to do it X,” and leave it at that, there’s zero accountability. When you experience a setback, you’ll probably give up on your goal — after all, no one will know.
Suppose instead you tell your sales manager about your objective. Knowing they will ask about your progress each week during your one-on-one dramatically increases your motivation. You want to avoid the embarrassment of saying you’ve thrown in the towel.
To further increase your accountability, share your goals with your team members. Simply announcing your objectives is helpful, but having a partner is even better.
Perhaps another salesperson wants to attend more networking events, while you want to blog more frequently. Every Friday, you check in with each other to discuss each other’s progress.
Finally, consider writing your goals on a sticky pad note and sticking it somewhere on your desk. A visual reminder will keep it top-of-mind.
- They choose small, specific, short-term goals.
The more drastic or lofty the goal, the sooner reps tend to give up. Imagine if you never exercised, and then one day you woke up and said, “I’m going to run for 25 minutes.” You’re probably not going to make it past 10 minutes .
I suggest picking goals that are small, specific, and short-term. Once you meet the first one, you’ll feel uplifted and energized — so you’ll set another, slightly harder one.
Using the right goal-setting techniques usually means the difference between success and failure. How will you use these strategies to drive your vision?
- They walk away from dead deals early.
Walking away from a deal you know is a time waster and a deal breaker is important, it requires a considerable amount of discipline and mental toughness — only a small percentage of reps have the strength to do it. And it’s a lagging indicator that they’re going to be successful in sales. By walking away, you’re able to work on other deals that have a better likelihood of closing.
But, why is it so hard to leave a deal? If you’ve been working on a deal for an extended period of time, it’s inevitable to become attached to it. The longer you continue working a deal that’s a bad fit, the harder it will be to walk away.
Even the most confident sales rep will stay to the bitter end because they have an emotional connection to the deal and want to see it through. The successful reps are those that walk away early because they’re self-aware enough to understand that they’re powerless to walk away late in the deal.
These characteristics are the ones that help reps meet and exceed their goals. Call it motivation for progress. See you next week as we continue on winning teams.
The views given herein are solely for information purposes; they are guidelines and suggestions and are not guaranteed to work in any particular way.
Robert Gonye is a Business Growth Expert and Influencer. He writes in his personal capacity. Comments and views: [email protected].
