Ideas in this posting will help you: Make Money, and Improve Your Competitive Position.
Coach to his team: “The big game is tomorrow. We really need to win this one. I know we haven’t practiced for a year, but we don’t have time to practice! Our schedule is too hectic!!
Is this coach setting his team up to succeed? No way. Would you run your team, or your business, this way? Of course you wouldn’t. Or would you?
Sharpen the Saw is Stephen Covey’s 7th Habit. In his seminal book ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ he describes it as the Habit that “surrounds the other habits...it is the habit that makes all the others possible.”
How sharp is your saw? Take this brief quiz. Score yourself 10 points for each ‘Yes’, 5 points for each ‘Kinda-sorta’, and 0 points for each ‘No’.
1. In the last 3 months I / my team has received coaching or mentoring focused on developing some aspect of our business skill set
2. In the last 6 months I / my team has devoted 1 full day to work on improving or developing some aspect of our business skill set
3. In the last 12 months I / my team has devoted at least ½ a day to business planning activities
Congratulations. You are now fully aware of how well you are sharpening your saw!
Where to begin your saw sharpening? The answer lies in the three questions above. Pick what you want to practice or get better at. Put aside a full day to practice it [this is an investment in time whose return is in dollars]. Create an agenda, and go to it. There are consultants of all stripes who can help you with this process if you wish.
I recently made an investment of one full day to work ‘on’ my business and my skills. At the start of the day my mind was on the million other things I felt I should be doing. At the end of that day, and into the next, and the next, my mind was on the great ideas for my business I generated as I sharpened my saw.
So, how do you get to Carnegie Hall? A little story for you...A man on the street in New York stops a passer by and asks, “Excuse me, how do you get to Carnegie Hall?” The passer by [who just happens to be a world renowned musician] replies, “Practice, practice, practice.”
Monday, November 2, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Handling the “No Budget” Objection
Ideas in this posting will help you: Save time in your sales process.
Your Buyer: “I’m sorry, I don’t have any budget to spend right now.”
You: “Oh really? I guess we will have to put this proposal on ice for now, huh?”
Ouch!! If you find yourself in a sales situation playing to this unfortunate ending, stop and do a quick rewind. There is an effective way to handle this common objection and maintain momentum on a revenue generating opportunity that threatens to grind to a halt.
Like others, the ‘No Budget’ objection often belies the true underlying concern. Behind ‘it may be “I don’t see that my problems are great enough to do anything about right now.” Or worse “I don’t see enough value in what you are offering to free up money to spend on it.”
Try this strategy:
Often budget can be found if a project is deemed to help a buyer avoid a big problem or capture a great upside opportunity. Demonstrate how you can help, in dollars and cents and an improved situation [that involves you].
Funds are regularly diverted from one project to another if the upside is determined to be big enough [I know of one buyer who put off hiring an FTE to divert those salary dollars to a project that was deemed to be of great upside to the company]. Your job is to articulate that upside clearly and compellingly.
Your Buyer: “I’m sorry, I don’t have any budget to spend right now.”
You: “Oh really? I guess we will have to put this proposal on ice for now, huh?”
Ouch!! If you find yourself in a sales situation playing to this unfortunate ending, stop and do a quick rewind. There is an effective way to handle this common objection and maintain momentum on a revenue generating opportunity that threatens to grind to a halt.
Like others, the ‘No Budget’ objection often belies the true underlying concern. Behind ‘it may be “I don’t see that my problems are great enough to do anything about right now.” Or worse “I don’t see enough value in what you are offering to free up money to spend on it.”
Try this strategy:
Put the buyer’s stated lack of funds aside for the moment.
Focus on displaying that their current needs are significant, and there are real downstream implications of not addressing them now.
Show convincingly that you are uniquely qualified to help them avoid those implications.
Often budget can be found if a project is deemed to help a buyer avoid a big problem or capture a great upside opportunity. Demonstrate how you can help, in dollars and cents and an improved situation [that involves you].
Funds are regularly diverted from one project to another if the upside is determined to be big enough [I know of one buyer who put off hiring an FTE to divert those salary dollars to a project that was deemed to be of great upside to the company]. Your job is to articulate that upside clearly and compellingly.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Eliminating Sales Peaks and Valleys
Ideas in this posting will help you: Make Money
Life in business is sooooo good when sales are happening. Why though does it seem that sales – and the precious revenue that they generate – often comes in peaks of activity and valley’s of inactivity? Let’s look at why this happens, and how to avoid it.
I was speaking to a colleague of mine the other day, a successful consultant with a thriving practice. He is well regarded and published regularly in one of the country’s largest newspapers. I was surprised to learn that his practice suffered from revenue peaks and valleys. How could this be?
Anyone with a revenue generation responsibility has seen this cycle before. Sales pick up, and things are great. So great in fact that the development of ‘net new’ business falls by the wayside as the intricacies of closing and implementing existing sales commands more and more time. Before you know it those deals have closed, and precious few new sales opportunities are behind them. Sales have peaked and you are now on a rocket ride down into a valley. This is a four ticket ride, but it sure isn’t any fun! How do you avoid this unpleasant journey?
Here are a few ways you and your team can solve the revenue peaks and valleys cycle:
Don’t stop selling. Ever
The jazz for most salespeople is in closing deals, full of high fives, adrenaline, and dollar signs. Prospecting, not so much. Ensure to book – and honour - an appointment with yourself every week for business development work. Even when at your busiest closing and implementing deals, set aside at least 10% of your work week for finding new sales opportunities. Keeping this appointment with yourself will ensure your sales follow a steady, rather than peaks and valleys, trajectory.
Watch your sales activity dashboard
Sometimes you don’t realize you are entering a revenue valley until you are in it. Do your best to predict your sales future by keeping an eye on the level of business development activity of you and your sales team. When activity levels of those things that cause sales to happen – prospecting phone calls, face to face sales calls, proposals presented – fall, you can bet that a few weeks or months later sales revenue will follow. Keep a keen eye on your dashboard. If you don’t have a dashboard, create one. Encourage and reward those on your team who maintain their business development focus in busy times. Remind those that don’t to book and keep that regular business development appointment.
Employ the ‘Mid-deal Next deal’ Strategy
The best place to develop new business is with existing customers who know and like you. The best time to sow those seeds is when implementing on an existing project or sale with them as you are already actively engaged with key decision makers and implementers. Use this opportunity to identify new ways you can help them related to the work you are currently doing. Developing new business ‘mid-deal’ rather than waiting until the end will set up the ‘next deal’ to close much sooner and shorten or eliminate a revenue valley.
Life in business is sooooo good when sales are happening. Why though does it seem that sales – and the precious revenue that they generate – often comes in peaks of activity and valley’s of inactivity? Let’s look at why this happens, and how to avoid it.
I was speaking to a colleague of mine the other day, a successful consultant with a thriving practice. He is well regarded and published regularly in one of the country’s largest newspapers. I was surprised to learn that his practice suffered from revenue peaks and valleys. How could this be?
Anyone with a revenue generation responsibility has seen this cycle before. Sales pick up, and things are great. So great in fact that the development of ‘net new’ business falls by the wayside as the intricacies of closing and implementing existing sales commands more and more time. Before you know it those deals have closed, and precious few new sales opportunities are behind them. Sales have peaked and you are now on a rocket ride down into a valley. This is a four ticket ride, but it sure isn’t any fun! How do you avoid this unpleasant journey?
Here are a few ways you and your team can solve the revenue peaks and valleys cycle:
Don’t stop selling. Ever
The jazz for most salespeople is in closing deals, full of high fives, adrenaline, and dollar signs. Prospecting, not so much. Ensure to book – and honour - an appointment with yourself every week for business development work. Even when at your busiest closing and implementing deals, set aside at least 10% of your work week for finding new sales opportunities. Keeping this appointment with yourself will ensure your sales follow a steady, rather than peaks and valleys, trajectory.
Watch your sales activity dashboard
Sometimes you don’t realize you are entering a revenue valley until you are in it. Do your best to predict your sales future by keeping an eye on the level of business development activity of you and your sales team. When activity levels of those things that cause sales to happen – prospecting phone calls, face to face sales calls, proposals presented – fall, you can bet that a few weeks or months later sales revenue will follow. Keep a keen eye on your dashboard. If you don’t have a dashboard, create one. Encourage and reward those on your team who maintain their business development focus in busy times. Remind those that don’t to book and keep that regular business development appointment.
Employ the ‘Mid-deal Next deal’ Strategy
The best place to develop new business is with existing customers who know and like you. The best time to sow those seeds is when implementing on an existing project or sale with them as you are already actively engaged with key decision makers and implementers. Use this opportunity to identify new ways you can help them related to the work you are currently doing. Developing new business ‘mid-deal’ rather than waiting until the end will set up the ‘next deal’ to close much sooner and shorten or eliminate a revenue valley.
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