10 Tips for Guaranteed Sales Success
Doyle Slayton | Jan 19, 2009 | Comments 6
1. Make the Telephone My Best Friend – If you want to succeed in sales, there is no getting around it. The phone is your number one productivity tool. That’s why there are 10 Things I Love About Cold Calling!
2. Use My CRM to Work and Track All of My Leads – Effective use of your CRM ensures that you are touching every prospect and client with purpose and at the right time. If you are not using your CRM, start today. If you Want Long Term Success… Build Your Pipeline!
3. Become a Master at Following Up With Prospects – This is where great sales professionals separate themselves from the pack. There is a basic principle for winning… Just Follow Up!
4. Develop My Ability to Ask Great Questions – Questions are the basis for uncovering needs and building value. Have you given your prospects a High Five lately?
5. Focus On Being an Excellent Listener – Great questions are supported by an ability to listen effectively. You have to Listen Like a Detective.
6. Only Talk About the Things That Are Important to My Prospects/Clients – If you spend time talking about anything else, you are wasting precious time. Try to look at things from the other person’s perspective.
7. Be “Coachable” and Follow Through With Direction I Receive From My Boss – Why do so many of us have a problem with authority? Your boss has your best interest in mind. Your number one business relationship should be with your manager.
8. Be a Positive Force and Leader On My Team – The Shield says it all.
9. Exceed My Goals Every Single Month… Quarter… Year – Sometimes the simple statements make the biggest impact. After a recent layoff, I once heard an executive say, “People can’t be in a sales job and not sell anything.” If you are in a rut, revisit the suggestions for How to Beat a Sales Slump.
10. Use the Power of Self-Reflection to Get Better – Most sales people do a lot of driving. There is no better time to think of ways to keep improving. Develop a system for Perfect Selling.
What other tips can we add to this list?
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Filed Under: Blog • Leadership • Sales • SalesTaxi
Read at least six business books every year. I like to read one every month, but I require my sales team to read one every other month.
If you want to be a trusted advisor, you must be a student of business.
Great list – the TIP to add that precedes the whole list is to Set Goals. It will give a target and focus to the other tips.
An easy process to follow is included in this post http://tinyurl.com/8awq8k.
Doyle,
Let’s add Sales 2.0 to the list! It time for sale people to start investigating and leveraging the various social media sites and tools to help bridge the communication gap to their prospects and customers. Tip: Get yourself Sales 2.0 knowledgeable and put together your starter plan for 2009.
-Tom
Doyle,
Mine addition is to know my prospect profile, so every time I pick up the phone I will recognize it when I hear it.
If I don’t know what my ideal customer sounds like, looks like, feels like – prospecting is like getting in my car and driving for an hour, where I end up depends on the direction I go. Without choosing my destination I only end up an hour away – maybe in the wrong direction.
Lynn
along the same lines of reading, my favorite tip is to read for 20 minutes every day and preferably, first thing in the morning when you are fresh and ready to absorb the concepts and put them to good use throughout the day. The benefits of a positive start to your day are priceless.
I appreciate Doyle’s list and commentary, and don’t disagree with the other bloggers and their additions. After 25+ years in the sales force development business, I would caution anyone writing to interest or encourage sales people to resist using the word “guaranteed”! Hard work, and the vaunted “positive mental attitude” are not guarantees! Too many sales amateurs are led down the path to discouragement, rejection and failure by being led to believe that any formula is guaranteed! The 10 or 15 or 500 tips for being successful are a minimum for the sales professional. There is no guarantee except… if you don’t do most of those things, well, you won’t succeed! Professional selling, like most professions, requires desire, commitment, outlook and the willingness to take responsibility for yourself! Do you have what it takes?