Lack of Sales Focus
Through this process I realized one rep (whom I will call Susan) was not performing as expected. Susan, whose territory was everything outside of the Washington, D.C., metro area, sold via the telephone.
I spent hours trying to determine why her production lagged. The puzzling thing was that she knew the service cold, seemed to have plenty of suspects to call and had a rapport with the prospects. What's more, she came in early and stayed late. She even had a huge pipeline. She sounded great on the phone, and her presentations seemed to be right on. But she was not closing business.
I was stumped. Then one Sunday afternoon, while on a run, it hit me. The next morning, I called Susan into my office for a one-on-one meeting. After we exchanged pleasantries, I told her I was taking all of her territory away except for New York state. I guaranteed her that within 90 days she would not only be making her numbers, but also exceed her best efforts to date. I assured her that her job was not in danger, and that she had the necessary skills to do what I was asking. Reluctantly, she accepted the challenge.
Pipeline of Quotes And Suspects
I asked Susan to go back to her desk, locate her latest pipeline report and come back to my office so that we could review it. Once we reviewed it, it became clear that she had five real opportunities pending, three in New York and two elsewhere. Then I suggested Susan tier her activity. I had her place all her quotes into three tiers. In Tier 1, she listed all her opportunities that had a 75 percent chance of closing within the next 30 days. Tier 2 included all those with a 50 percent chance of closing in the next 60 days, while Tier 3 contained all the quotes that had less than a 50 percent chance of closing within 60 to 90 days.
Next, Susan tiered all the suspects she planned to call during the next six months. In Tier 1, she placed her top 30 suspects, Tier 2 was for the next-likely 30 suspects, and so on. This gave Susan a ready supply of suspects to call. Now Susan could proceed with closing her current pipeline of quotes, knowing that as she closed one opportunity after another, she had a strong supply of suspects in reserve.
Focus, Focus, Focus!
In reality, what happened to Susan repeats itself over and over. As sales reps, we deal with so many aspects of business,prospecting, presenting, overcoming objections, requests for quotations, follow-up and other marketing activities,that we often get spread too thin. We forget to focus on what is important: asking someone to buy from us.
Here are two tips that will help you focus:
1. Don't kid yourself about the quality of your pipeline. Make sure you are confident that you took all the right steps in the selling process before an opportunity goes to your pipeline. (That's assuming you have a pipeline, which you should.) For instance, did you speak with the decision-maker's boss first and then the decision-maker herself? Did you allow the decision-maker to express her pain regarding her current situation? Did you allow the decision-maker to sell herself on what a great idea you had?
2. How many times did you "touch" the prospect during the decision-making process? Studies show that if you touch the customer seven times over a short period of time, your chances of a sale are greatly increased. And, remember, there are several ways you can touch or "ping" your prospects: voicemail, e-mail, a meeting, a thank-you card, a holiday card, direct mail, a workshop, a trade show, a referral or even a small gift.
No matter what you choose, focus is the key.
Peter Meyer: Lack of Differentiation
Janet Ruhl: Misreading Trends In Pricing