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Are You Firing On Your Prospects In Your Quest to Increase Sales?

Guest post by: Leanne Hoagland-Smith

Article Overview: Some sales people engage in fire first with their approach when contacting new prospects. This has them behaving like Captain Wing It and fails to increase sales.

Are You Firing On Your Prospects In Your Quest to Increase Sales?

Over 149 years ago on April 12, Fort Sumter received the first shots from the South and the American Civil War began. I then began thinking how in many cases sales people “fire on” their potential prospects or customers from business networking event to that actual first sales call.

Firing on prospects or potential customers is all about, as my friend and colleague Bill Naplolitano, being Captain Wing It. These type of sales people go all around “Spraying and Praying” (my explanation) their actions without rhyme or reason.

The other thought I had was about how sales people also engage in Fire Aim Ready marketing and selling behaviors. Action is taken without being ready meaning no marketing research. Then there is no sales growth action plan that sets a predetermined course for future behaviors specific to target market. Part of the reason for this behavior is the confusion between marketing and selling.

From my observations, this confusion begins in part with sales training coaching because so many of these learning engagements be them seminars, workshops or even college courses focus far more of the time on sales skills while ignoring marketing beyond business networking and the infamous elevator speech. Until others know about you, you may have the best products or services, but you will still not be able to increase sales.

So if you have some time to reflect as this New Year begins, be honest with yourself. Are you focusing your marketing and selling actions on specific targets or are you engaged in:

• Playing Captain Wing-It?
• Selling first with no to limited ineffective marketing?
• Fire, Aim, Ready sales behaviors?

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Article Tags: action plan, increase sales, marketing, prospects, sales growth, sales training coaching, selling



Related Forum Posts
Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing
Simple way to avoid Cold Calling - Gary, A chiropractor I work with hates cold calling (me too!) and he uses a technique to warm people up to using his services - it's so simple! In Sales your dealing with 3 pools of people: 1. Strangers 2. Prospects 3. Returning Customers You need to move people from one pool to the next. We'll concentrate on #1 and #2 as it's most relevant to your question. My Clients does the following (you just have to tailor it to your situation - be creative). My Client (we'll call him Bob) Bob leverages his time and resources to only get people that need his offer (pain relief) to put their hand up. Dealing with Strangers can get expensive and they don't like to be told what to do as they have no trust or relationship built with him. So to get Strangers to put their hands up he writes up an offer with a free report on a particular pain relief - let's say lower back pain (note: he can simply just change lower back pain to neck pain and have a new report). and uses multiple marketing vehicles to promote the Free report - magazines, newspaper, forums, postcards, private clinics etc. The only people picking up this information are the very people Bob would like as customers as they have Lower back pain. Bob's Free report ends with him stating his services and includes a Free in-house Consultation with no obligation. You'd be surprised at how easily Bob converts Strangers into Prospects. Note: They become prospects when they ask for the Free Guide and in exchange provide their contact details. This gives Bob unlimited opportunity to contact them for the Free in-house consultation with no obligation to continue using him. At this stage Bob's ability to close the sale lies in his office providing good customer service, Bob's ability to help the prospect and provide value at the free in-house consultation. Notice, he hasn't had to pick up the phone to COLD-CALL his Stranger pool or his Prospect pool. Hope that example helps to increase your prospecting!
Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz] I second the request...
Re: Firing your customers - Hi Evan, I believe many of us have encountered such situations where we landed up with customers who were too difficult to deal with. Firing them for bad behaviour! Well I have never dared to do this. The reason is simple - I might sound egoistic, but, I believe that I am better than the rest and as such there is no point in firing at a customer who is having a bad behaviour. being cool does not have any adverse effect but in fact, on a couple of occasions I have got business from such clients. Reason - they felt bad at a later point of time as they realised they were wrong in being bad to me or my organization. Had I reciprocated on similar terms, it definitely would have a. brought bad word of mouth which an entrepreneur cannot afford and b. I would have lost them as clients forever. As you can see at the end of it, you turn out to be the winner because what you need is business and patience pays! Regards,
Re: Email Etiquette - [quote="jvprosperity":24jznj58] The P.S. suggestion is good but it depends on the type of communication (e.g. Autoresponder series verses one off emails to Clients or Prospects)[/quote:24jznj58] Andy, You are right. I was mainly referring to Auto Responder emails. To end a normal email, I attach signatures. Takuya


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