You're special and kind and smart and loving and tolerant and helpful and dog-gone it...people should like you!
And you are...and they do.
Your momma didn't lie to you.
You're special... just like everyone else.
This means deals won't just fall into your lap on a regular basis, so you have to get out there and make sales happen.
Yeah, yeah. Good things happen to those who wait.
I mean, just look at Prince Charles.
It only took him 74 years to become king.
But you and I don't have 74 years to make our number.
Heck, if you're off track for 74 hours, your boss is probably going to call you into his office to let you know he's watching you.
So here are the five things you better be doing every day hit your number and make it to President's Club...or hit the road, Jack and dontcha come back...
Yeah, yeah...
The CRM sucks...
The roadmap sucks...
The comp plan sucks...
Even the coffee sucks...
But you took this job for a reason...and others are hitting their numbers...so maybe it's your attitude that sucks.
Sidebar—Lookey here: my selling career has spanned four decades. I've been on my own since 2007, and I'm inside countless businesses and working with countless more salespeople at these businesses every day. Maybe I'm old and full of crap...or maybe I know what's what. You found this post for a reason, so please give me a few more minutes. It might just save your sanity...if not your career.
I've worked for companies that have gone bankrupt, been chopped up and sold to competitors, promised to go public, then shit the bed, as well as those that have grown 300% or more in a few years, and they're all the same.
Management knows less than you think they do.
Marketing will never give you enough leads.
You'll always be missing some key features that your prospects claim they must have.
Your competition will always muddy the water, both legitimately and with some bullshittery.
The economy will always throw out mixed signals that scare the crap out of your customers.
Yet you still must hit your numbers, and by "numbers," I mean your activity numbers.
So put on your blinders, stop engaging in the company gossip, i.e., "no spilled tea with me," stop focusing on what you don't have and what you can't control, and focus on what you can control:
Everything else is noise.
Silence the noise so you can make your own.
After all, if you don't toot your own horn...there is no music.
"A: Always. B: Be. C: Closing."
It's an epic line from an epic movie, but it will sink your sales efforts faster than swimming with a Chicago overcoat.
The line is from a movie in the 90s, based on a play in the 80s, based on the life experience of an office manager in the 60s who was working with salesmen trained in the 40s and 50s.
So it's literally a line your grandfather and great-grandfather used back in the day.
It was marginal advice then.
It's suicidal advice now.
A: Always. B: Be. C: Closing. Is crap advice. Stop worshipping it."
Years ago, inspired by Jeffrey Gitomer, I created my own challenge coin business cards, and I included the line,
Learn to open relationships vs. 'closing' deals to grow."
Being a fan of Jeffrey's, you can imagine how thrilled I was to have him on The Sales Podcast and to receive this testimonial from him:
(See what I mean about tooting your own horn? But I digress.)
The New ABCs include:
Or make up your own, as long as you flush "always be closing" from your memory now and forever, amen.
Far too often, I hear salespeople and entrepreneurs say things like,
I'm just not feeling it. I'll do my (insert thing they hate, like prospecting, marketing, creating content, etc.) when I feel better."
I got some news for ya, Bubba—just like working out—you'll feel better when you do the work, not the other way around!
In other words, motion beats meditation.
"But Wes, nothing is working. Everything I've been doing has been worthless. I need to do more research...read another book...sign up for another webinar...join another mastermind...I'm just missing something...I don't know what it is...but I'll know it when I find it."
Wrong! WRONG! WRONG!!!!!
The truth is, you know what to do...it's just not the most thrilling or exciting thing, so you make excuses to justify sitting on your ass, scrolling social media, letting the media spool you up and piss you off, as you reply to an email or two and convince yourself you're working.
Don't just sit there, DO SOMETHING!
Call your five best customers and just check up on them.
Call five prospects that didn't buy from you last year and check up on them.
Give a referral to five of your friends, contacts, customers, or prospects.
Make a 3-minute video on one key component of what you sell, publish it online, and email the link to your list.
Create a flash sale and offer it to the first one or two or three customers who buy.
Write a handwritten note to five prospects, five customers, and five friends or family.
Send a personal video email to five prospects.
Make a list of the five things you hate doing as it pertains to sales and marketing and commit to not leaving the office today until you do them, then commit to starting your day with those things so you can get them off the list and allow that sense of accomplishment to propel you throughout your day.
As we say in the South,
If ya gotta eat a frog, there ain't no use in staring at it. And if ya gotta eat more than one, eat the biggest one first."
This has two meanings.
You need to enter the conversation already taking place in the customer's mind."
Far too often, salespeople allow their brokenness, their neediness, their need for attention, accolades, and "attaboys" to blind them to the needs of their prospects and customers, which leads them to interrupt, to talk over them, to talk down to them, to use industry jargon and insider language to appear informed and intelligent.
The result is they come across as pushy, demanding, know-it-alls who lack empathy and are not trustworthy because the prospect who has been talked over does not feel heard and understood.
This is why an apparently good meeting turns into...
Thank you so much. You have been very helpful. We're going to take everything you said under advisement. We'll be in touch."
How do you meet them where they are?
Follow the New ABCs, i.e., always be curious, courteous, and concise.
Ask questions. Be polite as you listen. Answer their questions as quickly as possible, confirm they are clear on your answer, then ask another question.
Rinse. Wash. Repeat.
Try it and let me know how it goes.
Need some help? Get this report to control every sale...
When you follow the sales agenda provided via the link above, you'll go into every sales meeting prepared.
But you'll also go into every prospecting situation prepared.
When you have a plan, which includes a proven script or series of scripts, you leave nothing to chance.
You know if this is your first or 21st attempt to connect with a prospect.
You know what you said, what you relayed, what you promised, and what you guaranteed.
You know what the next steps are, what the deadline is, and who owes who what and when to make it happen.
You don't do this with a good memory.
You do this by having a plan, working the plan, and documenting and confirming every step along the way.
Sure, recording a Zoom call is nice and all, but you need to take notes for several reasons.
It boggles my mind when I see salespeople not taking notes during a meeting with a prospect or customer.
It's easy to do in video meetings, but you can and should do it in person as well.
Failure to do so means you are hoping things work out in the end, and hope is not a long-term, reliable, viable strategy for sales success.
The profession of sales offers an honorable, lucrative, rewarding career, but there are rules of the game, just like any profession.
Wing it and you might make a discovery that changes the sales game forever. I mean, heck, someone has to win that Power Ball lottery, right? Why not you?
Or learn the rules and apply them, and the sky's the limit.
Need some help?
Check out 12 Weeks To Peak™ below for some self-guided help.
Or contact me and we can discuss my private options.
Market like you mean it.
Now go sell something.