You Fail at Sales. You are not hitting your targets and your time is wasted. Your sales performance is suffering and your career may be at risk. You might even be fearing the next meeting with your sales manager.
There are simple steps you can follow to fix the problems with your selling. However, before any mention of fancy tricks or guru inspired techniques, fixing your sales performance can be peeled back to one critical area.
Pre Sales Preparation.
With 55 % of salespeople missing monthly targets it is small wonder that you may also be in this category. The odds looked stacked against you before you even start out. Further, only 3% of prospects think that salespeople are trustworthy. So how do you rise above these numbers, put yourself in the top tier and earn those sales and commissions you need?
Getting to the top of your sales leaderboard, earning the higher commissions, hell, even just keeping your job in sales comes down to one key thing. Pre-sales preparation.
Once you understand this your sales will improve. You will not waste your valuable selling time and you will be successful in your sales career
Your Pre-sales preparation is not about having a pen in your pocket, enough gas in the tank or setting out early to make the appointment. No. your pre preparation is about spending time researching.
Your research needs to take two forms.
Your own Product or Service research
Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) research
Fix these and you will fix your sales.
Too many salespeople do not understand that a successful sale begins long before you even set off to meet (or call in the realm of telesales) your prospect. The first research for you to carry out is
Your own Product or Service Research.
Do you know what you sell actually does? What are your products main features, The benefits, the uses it can be set to, how it works etc. You might be surprised to know that many salespeople do not fully understand what they are selling.
You need to put yourself ahead of the game here and do your research. Ask questions of your product or service provider. Get a broader overview (you do not need to be a technical expert, you can always find answers from someone in your organisation)
How do other departments (service teams, back up, customer support) dovetail into your product for your prospect.
Have the answers behind you as to what and how your product works and the solution it brings to your prospect. Which brings you on to the next piece of research you need to carry out
Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
Ask yourself this question. Do you use the scatter approach when prospecting? Do you throw out enough material, cold outreaches, direct messages or budget in the hope that something sticks?
You appreciate that sales is a numbers game but you need to put the numbers in your favour and be in the 45% that hits target and makes commissions.
How? You drill into your ICP before you even conduct your first outreach. You need to know
- What is the demographic of your ICP
Does their profile match your product or service? Are they in the range
for age, geography, interest.
For more on customer profile types and the 4 prospect character traits you will meet read my article Fix Your Sales Performance
What Budget does Your ICP have
What are the pain points your ICP has
What will move them away from the pain points
What challenges are they facing with a current provider or purchase
And so on.
Once you start putting questions down to research, you will find more specific ones will form, related to your business or industry. You need to gather the information and Questions in your Ideal Customer Profile research will form the basis for you to formulate your sales plan.
Because now you will have the knowledge and information to target prospects who will have a need, are in the zone, and can pay for what you offer.
You are cutting out the wasted time, effort and energy on prospecting for appointments that will bear you no reward. It is always easier to go for
‘Low Hanging Fruit’
To conclude, You will succeed in sales, improve your sales performance and earn what you want if you pre prepare. The time you invest in doing so, is not wasted time.
For FREE information on sales challenges and what you can do to sell more and increase your income, head over to my page, You are Missing Sales by Missing the Basics