Driving Unbeatable Sales Numbers!
Doyle Slayton | Sep 02, 2009 | Comments 22
Someone recently ask me, “What are the critical things they should do to drive more sales for their business?” I was pretty busy at the time, so I responded with six quick bullet points. Today, I decided to provide all of my readers with an expanded, more detailed version. Actually, it’s a specific breakdown of how I personally try to build my sales week!
1. Cold Call – I do everything in my power to make a minimum of 100-200 prospecting calls every week. These are calls made to any prospect with which I’ve never had an appointment. I may have spoken with them before, but at the time, they were not interested or maybe they were not ready to meet… so now, I’m trying again to engage their interest and get them to meet with me.
2. Schedule Appointments – I try to average a minimum of 5-7 new appointments scheduled every week.
3. Conduct Appointments – Most of the appointments I scheduled above are going to run, but there will always be one or two that cancel or reschedule due to something unexpected. I have to make sure I run an average of about 4-5 new appointments every week. These are “new” appointments, so I’m not counting 2nd and 3rd visits with people I’ve already met with. Those return visits are just a part of my follow-up.
4. Follow-up – Most of my follow-up is over the phone. I want to make a minimum of 75-100 follow-up calls every week. These are all attempts to move my prospects further down the sales cycle and bring them to a close. I want a definite “Yes” or a “No” and I’m going to keep calling until I get one of those two answers.
5. Close Deals – Let’s do it! Once we get a verbal over the phone or a written email commitment, I want to get paperwork signed as quickly as possible. My goal is to turn in at least 1 deal every single week. If I miss a week or two, I’ll shoot for 2-3 submitted deals the next week!
6. Repeat Steps 1 through 5 over and over and over and over… as quickly and efficiently as possible!
Call me “old school”. It’s a simple six step process and if you have the will… you’ll drive unbeatable sales numbers!
*Of course I have to remember to leave a little time and energy to write my blog posts during the week… LOL
What are the critical activities that drive more sales to your business? How is your formula for success similar or different than mine?
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Filed Under: Blog • Featured • Reader Questions • Sales • SalesTaxi
Cold calls: 100-200 each week
That’s 5200 to 10,400 per year????
You need to have a better prequalification system or in some way understand the profile of you successful accounts
Follow up calls: 75-100 each week
That’s 15-20 per day or 5200 per year???
What you have described is physically impossible for a single person to maintain
Analyze your successful accounts, get referrals, research similar accounts and you will be able to play golf 2 X per week and make 10X the money
I would integrate the following when sales metrics and determining the performance of my sales department, because my views are new economy sales model driven: attend networking events weekly and actively seek out at least 1 new training event per month. Also, integrate use of e-mail and branding via social networking sites. The old economy sales model relies to heavily on cold calling an leaving voice messages as a lead source.
Great Advice,
The days of “bare knuckle” selling have past.
A key step “someone” must do is understanding the BUYING process. Your SELLING process is an inside out approach to try to “manage” your way to success.
Buyers like to buy, they hate being sold.
With that said study them, their process, criteria and by all means listen as the #1 reason buyers do not buy is salespeople who fail to listen, and therefore lack an understanding of the buyer’s problems you are to solve.
I discuss this in my blog post: WARNING: Buyer’s say what salespeople do wrong?..PRICE is not on the list! http://nosmokeandmirrors.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/warning-buyers-say-what-salespeople-do-wrongprice-is-not-on-the-list/ .
Marketing’s job is to provide buyer persona’s and map sales tools to match steps in the buying process. If they drop the ball, get out there and do what we do…
“Make it happen”
Mark Allen Roberts
Your numbers are amazing to me. I don’t beleive one person can make that many calls and not burn out. There must be a better way. I suggest you target your prospects by getting vertical and pitch the problems you have helped other prospects solve and ask if they are experiencing a simuliar situations. I would then ask if they would like to know how I helped other companies in their industry. Making that many calls you will burn out in 90-120 days.Get creative!
1.List Building.
2.Hot, warm, lukewarm or cold market.
3.Pre-approach using the law of attraction.
4.Don’t push!
5.Be nice, warm and gentle.
6.Follow up slowly and gently.
7.Entertaining your life.
Sales is the opportunity and the way we refer the product/service through our Reputation and reference of who we know or come in contact with .By expanding our Reputation and reference Value ,we will be the preferred Referral of the Product/ service we represent.SALES NUMBERS FOLLOW !!
Why is everyone”Telling” Doyle “That doesn’t work” or “You should be doing it this way” I think Selling is like Social Media –
THERE IS NO WRONG WAY!!
Everyone’s customers are different,
everyone’s product is different
everyone’s value stream is different…
So how could we all sell the same way?
I know a salesman whose customer will test the product for approximately a year after the sampling process – how does this work into a weekly or monthly plan?
It doesn’t!
He has to treat that customer different from the one who calls up and says “How many do you have we need them today!” (That has NEVER happened to me BTW)
So before “YOU” pick someone else’s “Plan for success” apart – see what you can take away and use as your own!
If you can network and develop your warm calls – COOL! Now take Doyle’s steps 2 through 5 and plan you Bahama trip in the spare time that you are not cold calling!
- Just the thoughts of someone who believes the magic potion for sales is trying different things until you find what works for you!
KUDOS to you Doyle
It takes guts to write down your activity targets and share them with the world.
Those that came up with a different system for success chose not to put any numbers in…perhaps they didn’t believe they could commit to the work?
I play a numbers game myself. I give myself different points depending on category of activity:- 10 Points for the following:-
Contact Conv, Identified Pipeline, Vendor referred Lead gained, Webinar Booked, Webinar Attended,Customer Profile completed
100 points for the following:- Meeting Scheduled, Meeting held, Quote/proposal delivered, Order Received
When I started this about 8 months ago I was smashing my activity targets that I set for myself so like a company does I’ve kept increasing the target every month. I had my busiest August ever, my best ever pipeline, more deals closing this quarter than I could of dreamed of last year and absolute faith in the activity targets for the future. Needless to say it feels really good. If this is burnout then great I’d recommend it.
Good topic/comments. I was taught the basics, the same as Doyle, and they have served me well. From time to time, I may try a different approach, and that’s fine…I can afford to, because the basic foundation is set. It’s a proven System – a system that works.
The inescapable truth is that we will all reap what we sow… plain and simple. My responsibility is to do the sowing – to the best of my ability.
The Market, the Economy, these are environmental issues. They may make it easier, or harder depending on the industry, but they do not determine my success. Opportunity is always there if you look, and think, but Success requires action and conviction.
Action is the difference between hero’s and cowards, winners and losers, successful entrepreneurs and frustrated salespeople.
It’s an inside job – it’s my Attitude – it’s my Actions that make a difference – not my opinion.
Fortunately, I only have to try to do this today…tomorrow is another day. It works for me.
Doyle,
Now you’re speaking my language. All I do is research, prospect, cold call, qualify, and schedule meetings for an outside sales person all day. We’re talking 65-80 dials a day to prospects. Cold calling is a vital part of our business, however there are other important things we do to get new business. They are:
1. Join industry-related associations to network with potential clients.
2. Ask happy current customers for referrals and reward them for it.
3. Send direct mail to potential clients so that they get familiar with our brand. Then they can expect a call from us that is a bit warmer, and sometimes they will call us first when the mail piques their interest.
4. Attend industry-related tradeshows to network with prospects and clients in hopes of getting new business and keeping current customers.
5. Ask happy customers for more business.
National advertising (magazines, radio, and TV) is on my wishlist but I know we don’t have the budget for that just yet.
I think having a website that allows you to capture information from potential customers is helpful as well. To do that, you have to offer something of value, like White Papers, free software, or a gift. When you call them later, you can remind them that they were on your website.
Best regards,
Emanuel Carpenter
Author of “Dead Guys Don’t Buy”
I think in this economy and more importantly in this sophisticated culture of buyers – the best approach is sales done as a service.
In order to best serve the prospect you need to understand what are their challenges and map to them. Help your prospect understand we can solve their business pain and improve their world – for them, their dept, their company – by determining what matters most. What are their goals and challenges – where we can contribute, resolve and enable their vision.
Relationship matters – if you take this approach – you will be considered as someone who is looking to partner with them vs sell to them. My aim is always to have them “at hello” and know I’m not just another vendor/sales call.
Taking the time to do proper discovery – understand a bit about their business prior to the call, as well as the discovery done while in conversation. Define which of our customers are most like them and share contrasting stories of where they are now and what it could be if they chose us. Make it human – memorable, emotional and repeatable.
A call to build a new business opportunity done right – is usually 90% being a good listener and asking questions to probe further.
It’s definitely quality over quantity – and I find I get to deliver both, when working in this context. Oh and it’s great fun too!
It’s all about calls and appointments. The more calls you make, the appts you get, the more sales you will get. You CANNOT FAIL if you make phone calls. 100-200 a week cold calling is not easy, but if you want to be UNBEATABLE, make it happen. It’s that easy.
Fun working next to you Doyle. We’re insane! FREAK!
Great topic Doyle. For those who immediately offered their own methods as the best, you missed the whole point – hard work is what will make you successful! We can sit here all day and debate what’s more valuable; a cold call, a cold email, a business card handed out at a networking event; but ultimately, you will get out what you put in. Obviously different tactics will work better for different industries or products (i.e. I’m in inside sales, and email is a VERY powerful tool for initial contact, so I now track not just call #’s, but cold emails sent as well) but at the end of the day, don’t focus so much on what you’re doing, but how much if it your doing. Activity is key; get in front of enough people (no matter what method you used to do so) and the results will be there.
Bob,
I would add don’t just focus on what you’re doing and the activities but also the end results. If you’re not getting CLOSED business from whatever it is you’re doing, you need to do something differently.
-Emanuel
Just look at the six steps, insert your own numbers, execute and repeat daily.
Stephan Schiffman’s A=P=S still works: Appointments = Prospects = Sales. Understand your numbers. When he wrote Cold Calling Techniques he was making 15 calls a day.
Just focus on the six steps..!
Great input! I agree with Doyle in that I make 100 calls per day, period. Those calls are clustered to maximize flow and focus and could encompass cold calls, warm calls, updates, references, interviews, client visits, prescreens, etc. WHATEVER it takes to get to the next logical step. If you are passionate about your profession this part is fun
Having said that, I am a true believer that a true sales professional understands the nature of the sale, the duration of the cycle as well as the final outcome or solution that the Buyer is seeking. I agree with Doyle, you keep up the dials until you either receive a yes or move on. I can’t tell you how much business I’ve received over the years because of this tenacity and work ethic.
If you speak with top billers you will find that old school or not, sales is tough; it all boils down to calls, pipeline, closes and commissions. Not to mention account management, collections and networking events.
Kudo’s to everyone for understanding the importance of focusing your efforts on your client and his/her wants and needs. It comes down to relationships and understanding implicitly that every Hiring Manager or Buyer requires a unique & creative approach. If you step back and analyze, you will easily find that we are all doing the same things and remain positive and successful regardless of what the market bears.
Just my 2 cents
Doyle,
I agree with the basics and applaud you for doing them. (it’s always amazing to me that salespeople won’t or don’t) I’m curious about your numbers though…did you mean to say you make 10-20 cold calls per day or was it really 100-200? If the latter, and if each call only takes one minute to make (longer if you get someone on the phone and leave a message or have a conversation) you’re spending anywhere from nearly two to over three hours per day cold calling. There are lots of methods for cold calling and many of them work well (one of the posts above mentioned Steve Schiffman’s book – I worked with him for several years and his stuff works very well) and any of them that work should provide better results than 100-200 dials resulting in 1-2 new appointments per day.
I recently trained a bunch of appointment setters for a large insurance borkerage who were dialing 6.5 hours per day and maing an avergae of two appointments each per day. They’re now up to 5 or 6 each per day.
Bravo to you for having the tenacity to make that many dials…I’d like to see you be more effective to either free up some of your time or have more appointments for your efforts.
Thanks for sharing!
Jeff
Jeff, the article said 100-200 calls per week not day. Hope that helps. That is still a lot of calls in my line of work.
Doyle
We found that following up on quotes and proposals worked well. The challenge was to keep up with this in a timely manor. Like most sales people, this task was not always completed.
We came up with an automated follow up system. If you would like to see how easy it is to use, please contact me. I am looking for active sales people to use it and provide feedback.
Dave Jabas
http://www.myemailassistant.com/
[...] Someone recently asked Doyle Slayton “What are the critical things they should do to drive more sales for their business?” He was pretty busy at the time, so he responded with six quick bullet points. Today, he has decided to provide all of his readers with an expanded, more detailed version. Actually, it’s a specific breakdown of how he personally tries to build his sales week! Read about it here. [...]
Doyle;
Maybe you can help me. I have been the top sales consultant for my company. I love working for the company I am at, and I love sales. I am having a difficult time staying focused. I am always concerned about my quota all the time. So I feel its constant. I feel I am working harder not smarter.
I cold call once in a while. My territory I had built where I didn’t have to cold call as much, but I am finding it difficult to keep my sales up consistantly every single month. I am not sure what I need to change. Could you suggest anything.
I always go the xtra mile. I always follow up with my customers. I never have experience such a rut. It seems like things have slowed down some. I do things for my customers that most sales consultants would not do. I invested in my own sales. Such as leave behinds etc. July and Aug. I was sales rep. on the month back to back. Then it seemed all my large accts were moving slow on signing paperwork. I use to put urgency in all my sales. Then customers would say I cannot make the decision that quickly.
My company has hired 6 other sales reps. and it seems they are not having trouble and I’m the tenure rep. There territories have been empty for almost a year. I feel that these sales are made by the sales manager, because they are always with the new sales reps. I get very disappointed in myself when a new sales rep. did better then me. I am always told I am to hard on myself. I want to be the best and always on top.
These are all good points! Thank you for the information.