Jim Marshall

No one needs to tell you that sales is a tough business: the rejection, the dead ends, the endless price quotes and proposals that often don’t lead to anything.

If you’re reading this article, chances are you’ve already achieved a certain level of success as a Sales Manager or Department Head. You’re a highly-productive leader, people look to you for your guidance and wisdom, and you’ve worked long and hard to get to where you are.

If you know anyone who works in a highly-specialized or technical field, you know that their people speak the same language and follow a fairly specific process: Accountants follow government-mandated rules and guidelines to file a tax return, or they run the risk of penalties and fines, Architects and engineers adhere to proven metrics and methodologies in designing and constructing projects, Marketers have ways to measure the success – or failure - of a new campaign, rather than by trial and error.

You’re just finishing your sales meeting with a terrific prospect. You’ve done your needs analysis, you asked good questions and got lots of information, answered all the objections and made your presentation. Now, the pressure is on you to get the prospect to agree to terms and ink the deal.

What was the last major purchase you made – one that represented a significant investment on your part? Chances are, you went through an extensive decision-making process: What are my options? Should I buy now, or should I keep looking? How, exactly, is this purchase going to benefit me and my family? Does my family even need to be consulted before I write the check?

It’s the end of the month or the end of the quarter, you’ve exceeded your budget and met all your goals, and you’re expecting a nice, fat commission check. Now, the meter goes back to zero, your boss has raised your quota and you don’t have enough qualified prospects in your pipeline. So, what is your prospecting plan for the next month?

Think for a moment about the best sales presentation you’ve ever made: you did your research on the prospect, you put together a killer PowerPoint deck, you gave them all your reasons to buy, tons of features and benefits, and you even cut them a deal on the price. But the prospect didn’t buy! Why?

Think about the sales calls you went on or the presentations you’ve made over the last 30 days. Some of those calls or presentations should have turned into “pending” orders, but they just haven’t happened yet. Do you know when they’re going to close or exactly what’s going to happen next? Often, that’s not the case.

Think for a moment about your friends and family. My guess is it’s pretty easy to have a conversation with people you know and have something in common with. Bottom line is that they trust you. But how do we establish trust with prospective clients and customers we don’t know, and why is that important?

Have you ever thought about a “big-ticket” item that you would love to have purchased – maybe a new sports car or an exotic vacation – but you just couldn’t afford it right now? Conversely, maybe you’ve been faced with an “unbudgeted expense” and, somehow, you found the money to fix the problem? Your sales prospects face those same choices when considering whether to purchase your product or service.