Teach your Sales Team to Qualify and Sales will Increase

In its simplest form, the definition of Marketing is: creating qualified leads. Whenever I get a group together for one of my Sales & Marketing Boot Camps, they look at me crazy when I give them this definition. You see, most sales people don't understand the difference between sales and marketing. They also don't understand how to market themselves so that people want to buy from them. In one day's time, I cannot change the mindset of a salesperson but I certainly can get them thinking about changing their mindset. The goal for me is to get them marketing more and selling less.

You see, your sales will increase when your sales team learns how to be marketers (aka: qualified lead specialists). Once they learn how to accurately and adequately qualify prospects, sales will increase. As rational as that seems, I can't tell you how many times I've worked with sales professionals who spend a disproportionate amount of their time with prospects who are not qualified, and as a result, will never end up buying their products or services.

So let's review some of the core qualifications we can teach our sales teams. There are more but these qualifications are critical to consider:

1. Do they have a need, want or desire (preferably more than one)? If they don't have a compelling need, want or desire, why would they be interested in your product or services?
2. Can they afford your product or services? If they can't pay for your services, how is this going to help you?
3. Are you dealing with the decision-maker? If the person you're speaking to isn't the decision-maker they may be unable to close the deal. I always try to discover who is involved in or influences the decision and include them in the decision-making process.
4. Is the timing right? People don't like to be sold but they are more than willing to buy as long as it's for their reasons and in their time frame. Be sure, however, that the time frame isn't just used as a mask to stall the buying process for some other reason.

There is no doubt these are challenging times for sales teams and the companies they work for. If you're a small business owner, this also applies to you on a smaller basis. Unfortunately, many businesses have decided to cut back on the training and development of their people. That's a huge mistake! If you have the right people on your team, its critical you keep investing in them. My advice is to invest in the sales and marketing portion of your business; it's what brings you revenue. Everything else, is an expense.

If you are interested in increasing sales at your company, be sure that you have trained your sales team on proper marketing techniques. If you haven't, can't, or don't want to, send them to one of my boot camps. I will get them into shape for you!