| Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. |
 |
|
[
Home ] [
Subscribe ] [
Previous Newsletters ] 8 Steps to Help you Attain this Years Sales Quota!
Do You Feel You Are
Pushing a Rock
In Greek mythology, there is a legend that the gods became mad at a criminal by the name of Sisyphus, the son of the king of Thessaly. As punishment for his deeds, he was sentenced to continuously roll a boulder up a hill for eternity. Trying to move forecasted sales opportunities forward can feel that way. Here are 8 action steps you can take to move business deals ahead.
1. Find your prospect's pain and be a doctor! In today's economy, prospects are buying products and services that improve corporate earnings. It is the pain that gets the funding. Clients are paying for surgery, not band-aids. During your client discovery conversations, you must focus on finding the prospect's biggest pain so you can be a doctor and fix it with your product or service. If you don't know what your prospect's biggest wound is, then you will not get the deal. People are spending money, but only on high priority projects. Be the doctor, find the pain, and fix it. 2. Talk to prospects with titles of VP or higher. Mid-level managers and directors in small privately-owned firms and Fortune 1000 companies are not the decision makers. Bypass them immediately and go directly to VP's or above. My general rule of thumb in sales is, if the person you're dealing with does not have at least a VP title, then you do not have a qualified prospect for your sales forecast. 3. Hand-deliver every proposal and discuss it in person. When selling products and services, set up an appointment to hand-deliver your proposal and discuss the business details. Email and overnight delivery services have reduced the personal closing techniques and sales skills of salespeople during the last fifteen years. You need to walk through the proposal in person with the prospect to keep the one-to-one relationship perpetuating forward as you deal with the prospect's objections. Hand-deliver all proposals and you will close more deals. 4. Offer pricing options over time to initiate purchases. Companies need to offer better financing terms to their prospects to spur purchases. As long as you are comfortable with the prospect's business viability, stretching payments over time (while delivering the product or service on the original schedule) may close a tabled deal. 5. Cut up your offering into time pieces. Another method to reduce the prospect's up-front investment is to cut your project's price point into smaller more digestible pieces. Find out what your prospect's current budget cycle is and spread their investment over multiple fiscal quarters (i.e., Phase 1 during Q2, Phase 2 during Q3, etc.) 6. Turn your product into a service. At times, companies postpone capital investments that have been assigned as a budget item because of their perceived high cost. To bypass the capital budget item issue, turn your product into a service and sell it as a cash flow investment option (i.e., selling application software as a multiple-year license that is paid monthly, etc.). 7. Offer a discount that is attached to a specific date. Giving customers a real discount to close business by a specific date may push a hesitating buyer to invest now instead of later. However, it must be a real discount and the date needs to be enforced. Letting the client buy later at the discount price makes you lose all credibility. (P.S. Remind your CFO that discounting to get revenue is better than having no revenue.) 8. Give a bonus and add value. People who make buying decisions are just like you and I. They buy houses and cars and vacations. Like you and I, they want a great deal. One way to repackage your price point is to give something for free (tied to a purchase date) that clients value highly (i.e., sell an 18-month maintenance agreement for a 12-month price or give them a free service, etc.).
Selling has never been easy. To grow sales, successful firms need to modify their corporate business model to maximize revenue. These eight suggestions should help.
"A mediocre salesperson tells. A good salesperson
explains. A superior salesperson demonstrates. A great
salesperson inspires the buyers to see the benefits as their
own." |
 Available for Strategy Engagements and Training Workshops Rick Erling offers sales team training, executive coaching, sales and marketing best practices workshops, and business strategy engagements in North America and abroad tailored to clients' needs. The CxO Group, LLC is a member of The Value Forward Network, a world-wide management consortium of strategic advisors who integrate strategy, marketing and sales methodology into one outbound revenue capture program to increase corporate revenue. Through premeditated strategic and tactical processes, the firm helps senior management increase corporate performance...
For more information, please visit:
http://www.thecxogroup.com
P.S. Please share
this newsletter with 3 or 4 of your friends or
colleagues who you think will benefit from it.
 We take out all the risks with our 100% guarantee If for any reason, regardless of what it is, you decide that our seminar or workshops are not what you expected, then just return your materials and get a full 100% refund of your registration fees. Aligning Sales and Marketing with Business Strategy
CLICK NOW for your FREE Sales and Marketing Scorecard
Assessment ($150 Value)
Evaluate Your Revenue Capture Success! The new Sales and Marketing Scorecard is a management business assessment tool designed to help you to evaluate your firm's revenue capture success and compare your current operating model against industry best practices to help your company achieve its peak performance. The scorecard contains 100 questions on your sales and marketing methodology and supplies recommended best practices to increase your business success. The FIRST 15 people to request the Scorecard will receive it FREE, complements of The CxO Group! Business Performance Improvement Specialists
Specialists in Sales
and Marketing Advisement
The Value Forward MethodAccelerating Business Performance and Making Revenue Capture a Company Responsibility The CxO
Group, LLC
The FIRST 15 people to request the Sales and Marketing Scorecard will receive it FREE, complements of The CxO Group!
Request your FREE Scorecard ($150.00 Value) Today! |
.jpg)