Archives for September 2017

You know your client you know what they need. You take care of them just like you have for the last 5 years that you have had this account. But do you really know them? Can you draw the organization chart of the entire organization? And more importantly …
• Do you know how they make decisions?
• Who the go-to people are?
• Where ideas for new projects originate?
• Do you have a relationship with your client’s counterpart in the other division?
• Who wields power but has no authority and is not on the chart?
• The history of the key contacts?
I could go on but you get the idea. If you only have a single lifeline into the company and he gets hit by a bus or goes on maternity leave or retires, what happens then? Every day your client company changes and you need to keep up with it. When they stormed the beaches of Normandy they didn’t stop on the beach. They continued inland and took over all of Europe. Likewise, when you have a foothold inside a company, you need to expand your influence by meeting more people and truly understand how that company operates as a whole, not just in relation to your work. Not to do so is to jeopardize your standing and risk losing the client to a competitor who does a better job of developing relationships.

When you are in a slump you need a jolt of energy to get you going. When your car battery dies, you jump start it to get it going. You hook up another battery and give your battery a short term jolt of new energy which causes your engine to start and run smoothly. That recharges your battery and you can operate your car normally. Mimic that with your sales activity. If you are in a slump, for a few days ramp up your sales activity. If you were talking to 3 people a day in the prior few weeks, do 6 a day for 3 days and see what happens. If you are like most people, good things will begin to happen and you can scale back to your normal activity. Look, it is simple math. In the short term the market won’t change and your sales skills won’t change so doubling your sales activity will double the results you get. So the moral of this story is to treat your sales career at least as well as you treat your car. If your car battery dies you don’t just let it sit there. You give it a fresh jolt of energy to get it going. You should do the same for your sales career.

When you raise your expectations … and actually believe it, everything changes and your sales effectiveness will rise in an attempt to meet those expectations. Here is the mechanism. When you believe in your heart that more is possible, your attitude changes and your beliefs about how things work change. Once your belief and expectation change your tonality will change. Think for a moment how your tonality changes when you ask a question expecting to get an answer and when you ask hoping to get an answer. It’s a dramatic difference right? Since around 38% of what you communicate is in the tonality you use, changing your beliefs and hence your tonality will have a major effect on the results you get. In addition, when you believe something will work you attack it with a different attitude and energy which will have a dramatic effect on the results you get. So today’s lesson is raise your expectations and work on your belief that the expectations are valid and your sales will rise to meet those expectations.