Sales Prospecting Perspectives

You know fall has arrived when the soccer fields are packed on Saturdays and the pigskins are being tossed around.  Football is back, and school has started.  If you are anything like me, this is one of your favorite times of the year.  We have made it through all the summer vacations and family visits, and most everyone is back to work, falling into the same routine we had four months ago. September is historically a stronger month for lead generation, so it's time to get your reps pounding the phones and finding those opportunities.  If you have some concerns with your inside team, now's the time to get everyone back on the right track.

I’ve been around awhile.  I started my selling career in 1987 canvassing door to door selling credit card authorization systems to any business who accepted Visa or Mastercard.  I’m afraid to count the number of sales conversations and business meetings I have been a part of, well into the thousands I’m sure.

In my experience I have found that the people I have engaged with fall into two general categories.  Those who are nice and those who are not so nice.  I won’t try to guess as to why someone chooses to conduct themselves in one way or another, as I’m sure you might have your own opinions.  What I will say however, is it’s a lot more fun and professionally fulfilling to work with people who fall into the former category.

Another week has passed and we are one week closer to the end of summer and the beginning of the school year.  I can hear all the parents out there breathing a huge sigh of relief as I type.

We had some really good posts I would like to recap for you, but first I wanted to share another post I ran across this week and felt it was worth sharing.  Ron Karr, author and sales speaker, had a great post this week, 7 Mistakes One Should Avoid in Sales.  His first suggestion was my favorite, "Don't forget to Qualify", something too many people in sales seem to lose sight of.  It is funny how sales reps or account reps always assume that there must be an opportunity if a prospect is providing time on their calendar.  There are several great ideas to check off your list, to ensure you are not making these mistakes.  A few other's that I thought were more common, "don't oversell" and "don't offer too much information".  A great read from Ron and an article that should be shared with all your sales teams. 

Now on to the recap.

We have all been there, stuck listening to someone “vent”:  a code word designed to disguise a complainer, and suck you into being the concerned friend, providing an outlet for your friend or coworker a channel to vent their frustrations.   My advice, if you have the time and energy to complain, and have identified a problem, do yourself and those around you a favor, do something about it or go home!

I just returned from a two week vacation with my wife and two boys.  We saw New York City, Washington DC, Philadelphia, PA, Baltimore, MD, Jamestown, VA and Cape May, NJ.  What a great trip.  In ten years with AG Salesworks, I had never taken a full two weeks out of the office.  My plan this time was to “work remotely” the second week, after all, how would the business possibly survive without me for a full two weeks?  It helps that I have a great and extremely capable business partner, but still, how in the world could the team get by without me?  

As I sit here with two days left in the quarter I realize what a bump in productivity we get when the pressure is on.  Sales has several new prospects who could close for the quarter, all the reps are pushing to get a few more opportunities passed, the directors are pushing for the best possible results as they look to prepare our clients quarterly reviews.

It has never been my philosophy to “do it myself”.  If I’m not an expert at something I would just assume hire an expert to do it for me.  Probably why car washes and quick oil change companies exist and thrive. While I can do either, I don’t really want to and would prefer not to waste my time and energy trying.  In the end I just don’t believe I come out ahead doing it myself.  Maybe it costs me a few extra bucks to have someone else do it, but the time saved can be used for something fun or working my day job, at which I probably earn more during the time I saved than I spent on letting the experts help.  Everyone wins, I don’t have to do something I don’t want to do, and can’t do as well, and the expert I hire gets the opportunity to create a happy long term customer.

The AG team impresses me every day with the amazing work they do for our customers, uncovering and delivering qualified opportunities.  But yesterday they took my respect to a whole new level.  They stayed late, and made additional calls to help the Dana Farber Institute raise money to fight cancer.

All too often sales reps try to fit every prospect into their sales process, without realizing that every prospect has their own “sales cadence”.  There are many variables that come into play with each and every sales cycle:  title, the level of need, whether the prospect is even aware they have a need, where the prospect is in the buying process or how they approach a purchase. All of these variables can make the difference between success and failure.  It’s not just about a lost sale (which is all about you), but the lost opportunity to help the prospect realize a goal or solve a problem (which is all about the prospect).

One of my areas of responsibility is revenue growth and while this is not new to me as I have been in sales my entire career, striving for double digit growth quarter over quarter in a services business can be a pretty tall order.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not whining.  We have done quite well and have emerged from the 2009 downturn with double digit growth in 2010 and 2011.  But what fun would it be just to sit back and accept fast growth when it could be super fast growth?  The major challenge, as I see it, is that when you turn up the expectations, the many variables involved tend to be magnified.