 After 12 months of ramp-up in the sales jungle, here are my hard-learned lessons that I can take forward into the next phase of my career...
Stay friends... even when they’re NOT buying!
This was a rather mature (if I may say so myself) realisation that I came to in the early stages of my sales career-it simply means that it’s better to understand the value of the relationship as opposed to the “now” sale. However, this gets really difficult when the “sales:friends” ratio is unbalanced. But I stuck it out, and am now beginning to reap the rewards - there is certainly incredible value in staying friends and serving your non-buying client in the same way as you would serve a buying client, and that makes the sales game a strategic one. Remaining friends, and not slacking on follow-up and touching base are some of those innate sales skills that distinguish the good sales folk from the best!
Sell like nothing’s gonna close… and dealing with nothing closing
Selling in a long sales-cycle industry, you have to deal with zero or very little sales in the first year... and that’s after putting some seriously hard work into it! So this point carries with it the idea of patience and perseverance. I adopted a mantra from my sales manager that goes “Sell like nothing’s gonna close”. Very easy and motivating to say when you are in your sowing or prospecting phase of your sales career, but what about when you are so sure that you have hit your harvest period, and still... no sales? My personal remedy: keep the mantra! Continue “Selling like nothing’s gonna close” and deal with each non-closing deal in the same way. Nothing personal, learn the lesson, try again and chase the next one!
Keep your eye on the prospecting ball
I became the queen of research, cold calling, bullet-proof to rejection, trying again and again and again; just call me the Prospecting Princess! But after a year, my prospecting started paying off: I was getting call-ins, saying; “Thanks for being patient with us, we are now ready to buy”, and the pieces started to fall into place! What one doesn’t realise is that that euphoria you are feeling when that call comes in is due to the months of painful prospecting. I quickly realised that if I wanted that sweet feeling of success, I would have to keep my eye on the very activity that produces it: prospecting!
They DO call you first!
There is NO substitute for prompt follow up and staying current! If your friendship is maintained (see point 1) There is no better feeling than after a year of prospecting, smiling and showing up, when you get a “Raelene, our budgets have just been released, I would love for you to come and see us, we are putting together our annual training calendar” - BLISS! This will prove to be a value-adding, genuine relationship based on trust. So: less SELLING, more BUYING!
Understanding the value of FREEBIES!
It’s true, all sales folk need not waste money hours, so make sure that they focus on the right (revenue generating) activities at the right time. When you have no revenue being generated, anything to get you in front of a potential buying client will do - even a freebie! But this is a skill all on its own. You see, you want to be sure that there is some good revenue potential (and let’s face it, can you ever be sure?), and then you have to make sure that you are not putting too much of your sales energy and time into it, when you could be putting it into another opportunity. But you also don’t want to treat the freebie as just a cheap freebie - that means you can’t compromise on attention to detail, quality and a prompt follow-up! So, you must do your best at all times to reap great results, chase the revenue potential that you saw initially and make sure you get a return on the investment of your time.
About the author: Raelene Rorke is a new Account Manager at Avocado Vision, which is a training company that teaches people how to build strong client relationships that turn into great revenue generators.
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