Personal Selling - It's Time For A Tune-up
Personal Selling - It's Time For A Tune-up
Nine months down and 3 months to go. What will you do differently during the last three months of
the year to improve your selling results? If you don't take time to think about what you'll do
differently, you may not do anything different.
Now that’s okay if you're happy with your year to date selling results. If however, you want better
results during the last three months you'd better think about making some changes now.
One of the keys to raising your personal selling bar is effective sales planning. For most of us
selling is fun and planning is not. Remember that selling success doesn't come from doing what
everyone else is doing.
The most successful salespeople I know, do the things that most salespeople avoid or put off doing.
There are two requirements for sales planning. First set aside some quiet time for creative
thinking. Second, be sure to put your thoughts on paper.
At least once a year professional salespeople and entrepreneurs should dedicate a minimum of one-day
to strategically think about your businesses. Don't be too quick to say you're already doing it.
Most sales reps acknowledge they think about their territories and customers daily. When pressed
however most will admit they don't have time to creatively think about blue sky scenarios that may
happen a year from now. If you can't devote one solid day for unrestrained creative thinking, don't
think about aiming for the stars.
Your best bet is to wait for a shooting star to come your way.
Begin your planning process with these six critical questions. Direct these questions at your
business, your territory, your accounts, your customers, and naturally your competitors. These
questions will raise more questions and you should consider this process a success if you end up
with more questions than answers.
Here are the six questions that can take your personal selling success to the next level.
1. Where are you are now? Where are you now relative to your selling results and sales skills?
How's your performance? What's your relative rank within a your region and within your company?
What kind of overall growth do you have in your territory and in your top-10 accounts? Where are
your competitors making inroads in your accounts?
How well are you managing your time in your territory? What are your biggest challenges and best
opportunities for growth? Please be specific.
2. Where are you headed if you don't change anything? What's the implication for you if you don't
acquire new skills? What happens to your overall performance next year if you don't make up the
loss of your second-largest customer?
How will your customers react to a strategy that is really based on a "More of the same" philosophy,
especially when your competitors are becoming more creative in their approach? With more work and
less time available, how are you planning to manage next year when your business is expected to grow
7% across the board?
If you can't handle the challenges and opportunities this year, how will you respond to the one’s
you are given next year?
3. Where should you be headed? Do you have specific personal and professional goals? Are these
goals specific and clearly defined? Are they in writing? Do you have completion dates established?
For each of your top-10 accounts do you have specific objectives for sales, margins, growth rates,
product mix, etc? Have you made a commitment to read sales books and to subscribe to sales
publications? Have you analyzed your travel time and the time you allocate to large, medium, and
small accounts?
4. How will you achieve your objectives? You really can't "do" a goal or an objective. What you
can and must do is create a written action plan detailing how specifically you plan to achieve the
goals you outlined when considering question three.
For example, if your goal is to increase your sales by 6.5% in your largest account, how
specifically will you do it? How many “how’s” will it take to achieve your goal?
Your goals define (what you want to achieve) and your strategies define (how specifically you’ll do
it.) Without proper linkage between goals and strategies, your goals begin to look like dreams.
And in time you end up being a daydreamer instead of a goal achiever.
5. What are the specific details involved? The details referred to are the who, what, where, why,
when, which, and how as they relate to initiating and implementing your strategies. Ben Franklin
once said, "Small leaks can sink big ships." In sales, minor adjustments often create big impacts.
When it comes to personal selling never forget that little things mean everything to your selling
success.
6. What should you measure? Always measure what matters most. One of my favorite old sayings is
"What gets measured gets done." To keep you on your stated course (objectives) how will you measure
your progress? What key elements of success should your review monthly? Personal growth and
development are often the result of careful measurement and evaluation.
The difference between first-place and second place is often a very narrow margin. It's time for a
tune-up if you're serious about making this year's 4th quarter your best 4th quarter ever.
These questions can make a significant contribution to your selling results, but only if you invest
the time to ask them them. The favorite day of the week for procrastinators is tomorrow.
Action-oriented people, the real doers in life, recognize, if you focus your energy on today,
tomorrow takes care of itself. The future is yours to live one-day at a time. The shape of your
future personal selling success depends on the foundation of your plan.
Are you planning your future today or waiting for tomorrow to do it? It's a clear choice and it's
all yours.
The choices you make today will determine the personal selling success you achieve tomorrow.
Personal Selling Its Time For A Tuneup - To learn more about this author, visit Jim Meisenheimer's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
It happens every year at the end of the third quarter.
Nine months down and 3 months to go. What will you do differently during the last three months of
the year to improve your selling results? If you don't take time to think about what you'll do
differently, you may not do anything different.
Now that’s okay if you're happy with your year to date selling results. If however, you want better
results during the last three months you'd better think about making some changes now.
One of the keys to raising your personal selling bar is effective sales planning. For most of us
selling is fun and planning is not. Remember that selling success doesn't come from doing what
everyone else is doing.
The most successful salespeople I know, do the things that most salespeople avoid or put off doing.
There are two requirements for sales planning. First set aside some quiet time for creative
thinking. Second, be sure to put your thoughts on paper.
At least once a year professional salespeople and entrepreneurs should dedicate a minimum of one-day
to strategically think about your businesses. Don't be too quick to say you're already doing it.
Most sales reps acknowledge they think about their territories and customers daily. When pressed
however most will admit they don't have time to creatively think about blue sky scenarios that may
happen a year from now. If you can't devote one solid day for unrestrained creative thinking, don't
think about aiming for the stars.
Your best bet is to wait for a shooting star to come your way.
Begin your planning process with these six critical questions. Direct these questions at your
business, your territory, your accounts, your customers, and naturally your competitors. These
questions will raise more questions and you should consider this process a success if you end up
with more questions than answers.
Here are the six questions that can take your personal selling success to the next level.
1. Where are you are now? Where are you now relative to your selling results and sales skills?
How's your performance? What's your relative rank within a your region and within your company?
What kind of overall growth do you have in your territory and in your top-10 accounts? Where are
your competitors making inroads in your accounts?
How well are you managing your time in your territory? What are your biggest challenges and best
opportunities for growth? Please be specific.
2. Where are you headed if you don't change anything? What's the implication for you if you don't
acquire new skills? What happens to your overall performance next year if you don't make up the
loss of your second-largest customer?
How will your customers react to a strategy that is really based on a "More of the same" philosophy,
especially when your competitors are becoming more creative in their approach? With more work and
less time available, how are you planning to manage next year when your business is expected to grow
7% across the board?
If you can't handle the challenges and opportunities this year, how will you respond to the one’s
you are given next year?
3. Where should you be headed? Do you have specific personal and professional goals? Are these
goals specific and clearly defined? Are they in writing? Do you have completion dates established?
For each of your top-10 accounts do you have specific objectives for sales, margins, growth rates,
product mix, etc? Have you made a commitment to read sales books and to subscribe to sales
publications? Have you analyzed your travel time and the time you allocate to large, medium, and
small accounts?
4. How will you achieve your objectives? You really can't "do" a goal or an objective. What you
can and must do is create a written action plan detailing how specifically you plan to achieve the
goals you outlined when considering question three.
For example, if your goal is to increase your sales by 6.5% in your largest account, how
specifically will you do it? How many “how’s” will it take to achieve your goal?
Your goals define (what you want to achieve) and your strategies define (how specifically you’ll do
it.) Without proper linkage between goals and strategies, your goals begin to look like dreams.
And in time you end up being a daydreamer instead of a goal achiever.
5. What are the specific details involved? The details referred to are the who, what, where, why,
when, which, and how as they relate to initiating and implementing your strategies. Ben Franklin
once said, "Small leaks can sink big ships." In sales, minor adjustments often create big impacts.
When it comes to personal selling never forget that little things mean everything to your selling
success.
6. What should you measure? Always measure what matters most. One of my favorite old sayings is
"What gets measured gets done." To keep you on your stated course (objectives) how will you measure
your progress? What key elements of success should your review monthly? Personal growth and
development are often the result of careful measurement and evaluation.
The difference between first-place and second place is often a very narrow margin. It's time for a
tune-up if you're serious about making this year's 4th quarter your best 4th quarter ever.
These questions can make a significant contribution to your selling results, but only if you invest
the time to ask them them. The favorite day of the week for procrastinators is tomorrow.
Action-oriented people, the real doers in life, recognize, if you focus your energy on today,
tomorrow takes care of itself. The future is yours to live one-day at a time. The shape of your
future personal selling success depends on the foundation of your plan.
Are you planning your future today or waiting for tomorrow to do it? It's a clear choice and it's
all yours.
The choices you make today will determine the personal selling success you achieve tomorrow.
Personal Selling Its Time For A Tuneup - To learn more about this author, visit Jim Meisenheimer's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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Staging DivaDebra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Gould has trained over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates worldwide to start staging businesses. Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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