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Respecting Time by Making Appointments
As part of organizing actions in time, establish pre-arranged appointment times for when they work best for YOU (scheduled at lower opportunity times for other, harder-to-control actions). Use the repeat feature on your calendar so that you hold those times week after week. When you offer an appointment time that is agreed to, send a calendar invitation that can be accepted and ‘saved for this event only’ from the series…leaving that spot open next week at the same time. Increase the opportuni…
New Habits
Now that you have picked an imperfection to work on (and if you haven’t, please do…tardiness is clearly one that can always be addressed if it’s an issue for you), how is it going?
What are the structures you put in place to help you? Did you put alerts on your phone to remind you to do something (practice a new action, get out the door!) or recurring actions in your calendar to start to build a new skill?
Building habits takes intention, prompting, repetition, patience, adjustment…and celebr…
Opportunities for Growth
Imperfections exist, and acknowledging and accepting that fact is helpful in order to move with them and through them.
When we accept them as part of the package, we can own them without defending, excusing, or avoiding…they just are.
From that point, we can expand our view and ask: How is this habit and behavior affecting me? How does it impact others? What do I gain from it and what does it cost me?
And we can choose new actions.
If you are in a sales leadership role, and you have …
Asking for Referrals
I must admit, as a salesperson this is one of my weaker areas. I GET a lot of referral business but it’s not because I ask for it. I can only imagine what would happen if I intentionally asked a happy client to refer me to someone they know who might use my assistance. So, don’t follow my lead on this.
However, I do work with people who are good at this and are generous to share what they do that works, which is what I will share with you.
ALWAYS give two business cards and say: “Here is…
Calling After Delivery
In home furnishings retail showrooms, we have done a poor job with this area; it is an industry shortcoming!
We even have a name for this action: a can of worms that shouldn’t be opened. Seriously. We treat it as something to be avoided at all costs.
And yet, I assert that we could raise our revenues by 10-15% with this action ALONE. And to do that, we need to align our expectations with what is likely to happen and upgrade our skill of managing it when it does.
What does that mean?
Ex…
Calling Unsold Opportunities
If you have neither closed the sale nor scheduled an appointment to meet or speak again with a prospect, calling to see how their process is unfolding IS the next action to take. Always.
It’s a judgment call as to WHEN to reach out, and I invite everyone to examine their follow-up on unsold opportunities to see if you have a process in place (such as reaching out 48 hours after contact unless otherwise noted). At the very least, start by reaching out with a ‘great to meet you!’ email or text……
Actions Matter
Actions repeated create habits.
Actions are the only things that create results (not feelings or intentions or circumstances).
I often review goals that have action plans that are ‘insufficient for goal achievement.” What I mean by that is that the actions might have a value of $750K when repeated…which is GREAT…except that the goal is $1.1m. That’s not great. Make sure that the QUANTITY and the QUALITY of your actions are sufficient for the desired results. If you are not on track with your …
Identifying Pitfalls and Traps
Are you good for the first three days into a new initiative and then start to slip?
When do you stop doing the actions that you committed to?
Do you start to tell yourself: “It’s not that bad” or “It’s not that important?”
Rather than avoiding these natural tendencies, include them in your goals. Consider them BEFORE they happen so that when they pop up, you will be prepared for them.
For example, if you know that you start the month strong, make your first week goals and miss your thi…
Guardrails #1
In the very simplest of terms, as a sales professional, our job is to make it easy for our customers/clients to say yes… and to buy from us.
To do that, we need to truly be responsible for the entire sales interaction and how it goes, and where it ends up.
Guardrails help that.
By guardrails, I mean guiding the conversation so that it doesn’t veer off course and stays in the lane for the intended outcome. Guardrails include asking questions that will direct the discussion and get the answer…
GRATEFUL FOLLOW-UP
For many salespeople (including myself) follow-up is the weakest skill. It takes scheduling, organizing, and consistent action for follow up to be effective. It takes doing things you don’t want to do. It takes failing – a lot! – and trying again. It takes rigorous evaluation and measurement to improve and build the follow-up muscle. And it never, ever ends.
Whether cold or warm calls, managing web leads or referrals, follow-up is a skill and a practice of patience and persistence. It will ALWA…
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