Create Sales Opportunities

Would you like to have more opportunities to increase your revenue? Almost every business owner would! In my current role as the “SEA Sales Doctor”, I’ve identified some common areas where many of you could produce additional income.

It is essential to recognize that YOU must CREATE these opportunities. It is also therefore important to be willing to try out new ideas, to be creative, to get outside your comfort zone. Trying out new ideas gives you experience and allows you to determine what actually works for you and your business. As you try out various techniques, your confidence in your ability to recognize what does work will increase. Increase the number of "at bat" sales opportunities you have so that you can afford to lose a few and still meet your financial commitments.

There are many ways to increase the number of sales opportunities you have. The best way is the simple way. Organize your weekly schedule to prioritize sales activities. Always ‘have your radar up’, be alert and willing to speak about your business constantly. With practice, you can learn to do this without being ‘pushy’. Done effectively (you have a reasonably good list, a good ‘infomercial’, good questions, a variety of simple offers, a little discipline and focus), it should yield results when you stick to it.

Here's how to do it:
Put together a list of at least 200 prospects that fit your ideal customer profile. Then create and know your ‘infomercial’ so you'll be confident of what to say when the opportunity arises. Formulate your offers. Determine various aspects of the prospect's situation that your product or service addresses. Decide ahead of time what kind of questions you can ask to show sincere interest in the individual, and that will draw out information that will help you know what specific problems you can solve.

Set aside time every day for sales activities. Set reasonable goals for the number of prospects you will call or visit. Stick with it. Let nothing interfere with this essential activity. Then, make visits to prospective clients! Go and talk with them! In almost every case, you will need to make yourself do this to have a viable business. They will not come to you. Keep track of what works, and what doesn’t.

Follow up with prospects regularly. Rotate offers. Offer something that will save the prospect time, money, or hassle. Be brief, so they will look forward to hearing from you, rather than viewing you as another annoying sales person.

When you follow the steps above, you will get more sales, period. In summary, remember it’s up to you to WORK YOUR PLAN!

Six Dollars Please

(I wrote this last year while on vacation – it bears repeating)

It is imperative that you give attention to the highest possible level of customer service in all aspects of your business, including all the people involved in it.  Every contact potential clients have with you or your employees is an opportunity to build a relationship, or quickly undermine it.  Your opening greeting can set the stage for what the ongoing relationship is going to be like.

Case in point: Yesterday while on vacation in Florida, we decided to visit DeLeon Springs State Park, which has a unique restaurant, swimming, boating, nature trails, and other ‘touristy’ things.  At the front gate we were met by a woman who obviously had been doing her job far too long.  Her opening greeting was “Six dollars, please.”  She was asking for the parking fee!  How about something like, “Welcome to DeLeon Springs.  Have you been here before?  We have a number of fun attractions for you and your family.  To enter the park, it’s six dollars for parking…”  Then I had to ask for a brochure, map, etc.  As a customer service trainer I suppose I could be accused of being overly sensitive about such things, but can you see how the experience could, and should, have been much better?  More importantly, can you identify ways to ensure that YOU are ALWAYS greeting your customers the best possible way? 

It doesn’t matter what business you are in.  A friendly, caring manner will do your business far more good than a curt, cold ‘strictly business’ attitude.  Make sure you have systems in place to ensure that YOUR customers will always come back, and recommend you to others.  Customer service involves the entire experience that clients have with your company, including delivery persons, accounting, etc.   For example, how do you answer your phone?  Is it friendly, business-like?   Do you have a separate phone number for business, or a way of knowing which calls are business calls?  Is your family trained to answer business calls properly?  What is your greeting like when visiting clients in their home or business, or when they come to your place of business?  Is it gracious, professional?  You don’t need to become like the ‘cookie cutter’ employees of large multinational companies with their memorized lines.  However, it is good to learn from them.  Pay attention to their methods, and then use your warm personality to do a far better job of offering a real personalized approach to business.

So, instead of saying something like, “Six dollars please” when you first meet a potential client, what is YOUR opening line…?

Self-Knowledge: The Key to Preparing for Competition

Self-knowledge has always been the key to preparing for competition. Knowledge of your attributes, abilities, interests, strengths, weaknesses, and traits is essential to riding the front end of the wave of change into the new century. To fully assess your own talents, realize that studies confirm that what we love and do well as children continues as our latent or manifest talent as adults.

Examination of your weekend or evening interests might reveal a gem of potential you can apply to your vocation. I strongly suggest you don’t unthinkingly relegate what you love to do solely to hobbies. You might make it, or at least integrate it into, your life’s work.

The acquisition of knowledge, which is the new global power, is a lifelong experience, not a collection of facts or skills. Not long ago, what you learned in school was largely all you needed to learn to secure a career. With knowledge expanding exponentially, this is no longer true. Hundreds of scientific papers are published daily.

Every thirty seconds, some new technological company produces yet another innovation. Your formal education has a very short shelf life. Lifelong learning, once a luxury for the few, has become absolutely vital to continued success. Continue gaining expertise and avoid thinking like an expert.

Action Idea: An excellent benchmarking exercise is to spend a weekend with key associates or family members and dust off your childhood memories. Remember what you really enjoyed and wanted to do most as a child. The next activity in assessing your interests is considering your current ones. What do you most enjoy after work? What do you most want to do on weekends and vacations? What are your hobbies? Can you bring more of what you enjoy into your business life?

Action Step: Increase your reading, writing and vocabulary proficiency. One of the most important qualities of successful leaders is an ability to express thoughts and knowledge. Research by management and human resource experts confirms that no matter what the field of employment, people with large vocabularies—those able to speak clearly and concisely, using simple as well as descriptive words—are best at accomplishing their goals. Well chosen, carefully considered words can close the sale, negotiate the raise, enhance relationships, and change destinies.

In a world of e-mail, fax dispersal, voice mail, sound bites, concise reports, business plans, and meeting briefs, the individuals who can articulate their goals, substantiate their claims, and support their visions, will own the future. In the 21st century, literacy will be the major difference between the haves and have-nots.

Why do fewer than 10 percent of the public buy and read nonfiction books? One reason is that many would rather get home than get ahead. They are motivated to get by and get pulled along by the company, the economy, or the government.

Another reason is that many individuals believe that information found in books, computer programs, and training sessions has no value in the business world. How self-deluding!

As the new tools of productivity become the Internet, the Digital Versatile Disc, direct digital download of text, audio and video, and the combination of the interactive computer with telecommunications, the people who know how to control the new technologies will acquire power, while those who thought that education ends with the diploma are destined for low-paying, low-satisfaction jobs. In almost the blink of an eye, our society has passed from the Industrial Age to the knowledge era.

Increase your reading by 100 percent. Decrease your television watching, and that of any children in your family, by 50 percent. Surf the Internet and subscribe to book summaries, or download free chapters from different sources. By reading book summaries, you can gain the essence of all the top business books in a very brief period of time.

Action Idea: Read at least one book each month, and listen to at least one additional audio book or education series during commute or downtime.

Knowledge is the new power. And literacy is the door to knowledge. Hopefully, listening to the “Psychology of Winning” program will be one of the keys that will open the door to your future for you.