Sales Techniques: Does It Make Sense To Keep Doing What Isn't Working?

Persistence is good, but not if you're persistently doing the wrong things. That's just being pig headed and stupid. But you do it because you allow yourself to be mislead into thinking that sales is a numbers game and that if you just keeping doing it you’ll eventually get what you want. n nSales is a numbers game for sales people who haven’t taken the time to set themselves up for success. If you don’t want to keep getting rejected and walking away without the money it’s time to learn how to set yourself up for sales success. That means you need to think about sales as a scientific process revolving around your skill set that you can develop for consistent success. nnThat probably sounds difficult and daunting to you. And I will tell you that it is difficult to create your perfect system, but it’s a whole lot easier than what you’re doing now. And it begins with the way you think about the entire sales process. nnStarting now I want you to begin to think about sales as a process that you need to develop for you. I want you to fail and fail fast so you’ll learn exactly how to succeed fast. Set your emotions aside because you’re an experimenter searching for the truth. nnFirst, identify exactly what isn’t working as quickly and cheaply as possible. In other words, until you have this figured out stay away from your top prospects and focus entirely on your average to low value prospects. This is an experiment that will determine your success so you want to gather as much data as possible. nnYou need to break down each portion of your sales process and know exactly when and where things go wrong for you. You also want to place a lot of your focus on anything and everything that shows any signs of promise. You gather this information from each and every appointment and you evaluate the date you’ve collected after each and every appointment. nnAllow yourself enough time between appointments to debrief yourself on the data you have. Replay the appointment in your mind and add any facts you didn’t capture in the notes you took during the appointment. Immediately begin to identify how you can adapt, adopt, and test on your very next appointment until you have a sales process that works for you. nnRuthlessly discard anything that isn’t working for you. Keep working through this process until you can consistently replicate the experience with every appointment. Pay special attention to what you’re learning about your prospects wants as you gather data because within their wants is the secret to your superior sales success.