Overcoming Sales Hurdles

Through trial and error we understand that the more issues remain the same the more they must change. Research in a myriad of periodicals mentions numerous challenges for organizations especially in the selling process. New issues abound daily impacting how selling professionals meet buyer’s needs.

What we know are the following:

➢ Decision Makers are hard to find. There are so many responsibilities for people that trying to find the time for discussion is difficult. Additionally, since organizations tend to focus on lean, more people are making decisions rather than management. A recent Wall Street Journal Report states that personnel without authority to purchase a laptop can plan a regional meeting with a budget of $500,000!
➢ Competitive Neutrality. The proliferation of the Internet and information is challenging. Buyers comprehend more of your organization than your own sales force!
➢ Organizational labyrinthine. Globalization, rightsizing, mergers and multitudes of organizational transformation are as perplexing as discovering the DaVinci Code. Reporting lines and decision processes are difficult.
➢ Financial Planning. The one constant is decreasing divisional funds. Agreement is reached only to discover the unavailability of funds.
➢ The best defense is unclear. 15 years ago, training your sales force was mandatory. With tightening budgets and productivity issues, selling professionals are sent into battle without armaments.
➢ CRM. The sales tool offered to assist selling professionals is underutilized and mis-understood.
➢ No Teamwork. Sales require more collaboration with the marketing department.

With over 27 years of research and analysis with numerous organizations we constantly hear about sales excuses- no return calls to numerous voice mails. I have made return calls to interested parties only to never hear from them again. The world has become more complex and navigationally difficult.

Read any present newspaper or periodical and you will begin to acquire the phraseology of the “knowledge economy”. This is defined as an economy based on creating, evaluating, and trading knowledge. In a knowledge economy, labor costs become progressively less important as opposed to the amount of knowledge acquired by individuals and organizations to become more effective. Simply put, the more information one has the more knowledge one gains. Content is king! This is the key differentiator.

Selling professionals similar to your clients must be content experts. Clients desire trust and respect and they desire intellectual conversation. Drop the features and benefit discussion- these left when public seminars did. Your clients crave illustrious council. Selling professionals must be advisors, consultants and experts. This is vital to your business success.

There are some rules about sales:

1. There are simply four techniques of selling that are vital. One does not need numerous methods and training. Learn the four simple steps and you will sell more than you realize.
2. There is no basic selling rule or principle that has been discovered in the last hundred years.
3. One needs to take these principles and use them daily. Practicing these rules and making them a habit in your daily life will make you better.
4. Do not rush learning. Rome was not built in a day. You must learn daily and practice daily but without haste and impatience.
5. Evaluate yourself. Be critical and learn by what you are doing and not doing to become better. Be honest in your assessment.

The one issue of selling never expressed in training or research is that it is not event based or linear. Selling is a process, it takes time, it takes effort and it takes patience!

Original sales article published here.

Sales Managers Require Accountability

As a sales manager or a director did you ever wonder why your selling professionals are not meeting quota? Is the ability to create outstanding client value withholding your team from reaching its audacious goals?

There might be a simple answer to this question and it just might shock you! The issue might be you – the manager.

In the last several weeks I am seeing a recurring issue that all sales managers must be aware, accountability is crucial to meeting quota. Managers must know what the leads in the pipeline are. Managers must know whether selling professionals critically understand the difference in a suspect, a prospect and a customer. Not many I recently surveyed clearly do. And, most importantly sales professionals must be held to a specific number of calls, appointments, proposals, conversations etc.

Sales professionals fail when accountability lacks. Selling professionals must have quantifiable goals clearly outlined by management with timeframes. Managers that meet regularly with staff and convey strengths and limitations are exemplars to others. Key Performance Indicators allow representatives to understand where they are and where they need to be. Similar to the GPS that is fully charged, accountability provides a roadmap to the final destination.

Albeit there are some obstacles in the path, accountability allows representatives to circumnavigate around environmental issues that affect the accounts and revenues. Without proper accountability, sales representatives are no different than a sailboat caught in a violent storm with no port in sight.

Create the ray of light that guides selling professionals so that they achieve higher levels of success.

There are seven secrets for selling effectiveness. Click here For a Free Report for the 7 Secrets to Selling Success Drew Stevens is one of the world’s leading authorities on sales and customer service. Drew is the author or the successful sales techniques book Split Second Selling. He is also the creator of the Sales Leadership Certificate one of only 14 programs in the United States offering an accredited degree in the profession of selling and has a top ranked podcast called Sales Fitness. To book Dr. Drew for a workshop or keynote or to obtain his Secrets of Ultimate Business Success visit his website www.stevensconsultinggroup.com

Sales Skills To Live By

With all the folly placed into selling, one must understand that through the banter, there are only four simple steps to help you sell. However, 92% of most individuals selling do not know of these steps, nor do they comprehend how to integrate into a process.

Selling requires that you have a path that begins with customer introductions and interactions and end with customer involvement. Unless selling professionals follow the path in a linear manner, their future sales will falter. Each requires the other to understand client’s wants and needs

Prepare to Present
Uncover the needs
Manage Rapport and Objections
Provide Closure

I have used these principles for well over 27 years and they work. I have trained over 100,000 selling professionals and have helped them achieve over a billion dollars in gross revenues! These principles work for them and they will work for you.

Here is a just a brief synopsis of each.

1. Read current journals, periodicals and annual reports to comprehend the issues of the prospective organization and have strategic conversations with key decision makers.

2The ability to prepare well creates the ability to prepare proper and provocative questions aimed at the clients business needs and improving their competitive position.

3. Asking questions, remaining confident, knowing your products and services and controlling the conversation with value are keys to success. You must understand how to move forward to create further interest so they trust you!

4. The most fascinating yet most daunting part of any sale is closure. Procrastination and indecision are a part of like. Moreover, many professionals are afraid to ask for the business. The best way to make money and get more members is to ask. Never forget to ask the secret question, “How do we proceed?”

There are seven secrets for selling effectiveness. Click here For a Free Report for the 7 Secrets to Selling Success

Drew Stevens is one of the world’s leading authorities on sales and customer service. Drew is the author or the successful sales techniques book Split Second Selling. He is also the creator of the Sales Leadership Certificate one of only 14 programs in the United States offering an accredited degree in the profession of selling and has a top ranked podcast called Sales Fitness. To book Dr. Drew for a workshop or keynote or to obtain his Secrets of Ultimate Business Success visit his website www.stevensconsultinggroup.com

Muscle up Monday with Dr. Drew

Quote of the Week
Branding is no longer for Fortune 500 companies and Madison Avenue agencies with excessive budgets and inadequate tracking.

Personal branding is about managing your name — even if you don’t own a business — in a world of misinformation, disinformation, and semi-permanent Google records.

Going on a date? Chances are that your “blind” date has Googled your name.

Going to a job interview? Ditto.
Tim Ferriss

Read more: http://www.gaia.com/quotes/topics/branding#ixzz0V3J2fGRe

Thought of the Week
Even in selling brand is vital for business success. If customers and prospective customers are not speaking about you then you do not have a brand. In the age where consumers see over 10,000 messages per day, clutter is the norm. It is then vital for the seller/marketer to create differentiation and be heard above the din. What are you doing to create brand and be heard.

Best Practice of the Week
It is necessary to create strategies that engage your brand. To proliferate your brand engage in numerous activities around your consumers. Speak, write, network, teach, and volunteer are activities helpful to having people see you and discuss your differentiation. Invest in ideas and issues that allow customers to be attracted to you. Which is easier awaiting a phone call or creating the activities that make it ring? Do not be a spectator create those activities that keep you in the field of play!

About Dr. Drew

Drew Stevens PhD works with individuals and organizations to dramatically accelerate revenue growth. Dr. Drew is the author of six books including Split Second Selling and the soon to be released Ultimate Business Bible. He is also the creator of the Sales Leadership Certificate one of only 14 programs in the United States offering an accredited degree in the profession of selling and has a top ranked podcast called Sales Fitness with Dr. Drew. To book Dr. Drew for a workshop or keynote Contact Dr. Drew or to obtain is Marketing Acceleration Worksheet to help you create brand recognition.

Heat Up Your Cold Calling

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Coach Drew Stevens provides some sintilating tips on how to cold call in these difficult economic times. Interestingly enough it is not as difficult as it appears. Cold calling gets down to three vital elements and the overarching desire to succeed. If you can maintain confidence and aggression and follow Coach Drew’s three simple rules you are destined to beat the competition, create allure and close more business!

How to Build a Brand

Drew Stevens, a U.S.-based marketing consultant, said many people think brands take years to develop. Not so, he said. A brand can build credibility quickly as long as there’s demand for the product or service, as long consumers develop trust in the brand’s reliability, and as long as there’s good, and constant, communication about the brand.

How to Avoid Self Sabotage

With the conclusion of the year, holiday stress, and economic pendulum swings, it is very easy to self-sabotage. Statistics prove that internal stress is the key factor in self-sabotage. More important, we sabotage because we focus on negative aspects; we focus on failure. Research shows that individuals have a fear of failure, but too often the real problem is fear of success. Failure is a manifestation of looking at the past. Our success lies in the future. Self-sabotage is really a form of denial. It also brings up the question of what is versus what can be. To avoid sabotage you must respect YOU and you must view the future. You must learn to love yourself.

Are you going to allow the negative self-talk or are you going to build a better future, brick by brick? There are seven vital techniques to avert sabotage.

1.    Self-Talk – Terminate the negative self-talk. Negative behavior and talk stimulates depression and anxiety. You must look in the mirror; understand the positive aspects you provide. Create positive speak, avoid negative terminology, and change your body mechanics. Smile at others and smile at yourself.
2.    Failure – Simply avoid it. Do the things you hate to do first. Sabotage stems from individuals believing they will fail if they attempt something uncomfortable. Not true. Failure is learning, creativity, and innovation. Some of our famous ancestors failed and created great things. King, Lincoln, Bell, and others believed they failed, only to have their dreams come true. Stop worrying about failure; it is the best education. However, in order to fail you must confront it head on and remove yourself from the comfort zone. Stop procrastinating today!
3.    Positive People – Depression and anxiety manifest when we gather with other negative people. Avert disaster by moving away from those that depress you. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill discusses the power of the Mastermind, small groups that share similar desires educating each other. Move away from those that anger you and befriend those that awaken your dreams, incite your desires, and expose your creativity.
4.    Passion – Conviction and love is movement. Passion ignites the mind and the soul. Self-sabotage arrives when you work at a job. Life is too short for employment with organizations that treat you as a liability. Moreover, working for something that you abhor makes you remorseful. Find opportunities that ignite your spirit and provide a sense of purpose.
5.    Self-Esteem/Confidence – Self-sabotage requires the elimination of limiting beliefs. What is a limiting belief? Limiting beliefs are those things you believe that place limitations on your abilities. Such beliefs are true and others false, but we use them as a brake to deter us from making what appears impossible, possible. For example, many individuals state, “I do not have proper experience—I will not get the job I want.” Alternatively, others state “I do not have any luck—I will never meet the decision maker.”
The level of experience might be true. Your level of experience and skill might hinder certain jobs but if you do not apply, you do not get the job! If you desire luck, try sitting in a gambling hall. Luck does not create opportunities; experience, aggression, and focus get the decision maker.

Our mind creates limitations from things we experience and habits we form. You must reset your internal GPS to determination, then you set you mind to accomplish anything you desire. Don’t believe it? Determination ended a bloody Civil War, brought a man to the moon and gave us our first African American president! Confidence begins with a belief in YOU!
6. Pleasure – The easiest method for ending self-sabotage is doing pleasurable things. Misery creates company, but pleasure manifests power. Take the time to do things you love to do: listen to music, read a book, take a walk. Scientists have proved that our mind requires rest. Thinking of negative issues and limiting beliefs creates energy and polarizes our thinking. Conducting pleasurable activities produces endorphins in the brain that relax the mind and decrease our breathing and heart rate.
7. Action – The difference between “fortunate” and insignificant individuals: they take action. Self-sabotage is embodied from habits. Detaching habits takes time: 21 days exactly. If you truly desire change then you must take actionable steps to eliminate your self-sabotage. Set timeframes that are reasonable.

Creating a toned and symmetrical body takes time and energy. You cannot go to the gymnasium once and expect a favorable result. Change takes time, effort, and, most important, discomfort. Get out of your comfort zone, indulge in (good) pain, and eradicate self-sabotage forever!

Yin and Yang of Business Building Featured in Salesopedia

According to the American Marketing Association, marketing is the organizational function and set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders. Now that is a lengthy definition that means, get your attention, provide you value and keep you forever. Easier to remember isn’t it?

To aid your marketing efforts, capitulate that you are an Insurance Agent. You are a marketing professional. Yes there are numerous denominations for the profession: consultant, traine
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Read more…

FREE Tele-Seminar on Selling in Tough Times

In response to the demand for low cost quality information to gain more business in rocky times, I’m excited to announce my FREE Teleseminar on Thriving in a Volatile Economy.

I have been living and teaching accelerating business growth for over 30 years; the principles in this program have allowed me to operate five successful businesses during three recessions. Now, I will show you how to thrive in economic uncertainty and where to find hidden treasures of gold.

Remember, to be on the field of play you need to take action. I have reserved a spot for you to be one of the first to learn about this program. Take action and join us on Thursday December 18, 2008, learn the “Secrets” and start your New Year in blazing speed.

If you would like to make a reservation, please visit:
Click here to Register or follow this link: http://TinyWebLink-001.com/?pid=4542695

You need to register today, my lines are limited and the last one was completely sold out.

Wishing you success,

Drew Stevens

P. S. For the first 50 registrants I am offering my FREE Special Report – “Thriving in the Current Economy”. This 15-page report provides techniques and strategies to find business now!