Sales Success Strategies for EVERY economy: Top Tips From 3 Professionals

September 28, 2009 at 11:32 am | Posted in Adrian Miller Sales Training, Adrian's Network, entrepreneurship, sales, Sales Training, small business, teleclass | Leave a comment
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This is going to be fun. I’m running a free teleseminar with Laura Allen and Sydney Barrows. It’s going to be fab so please try to participate.  Email me at amiller@adrianmiller.com for the dial-in details:

Join us in a fast paced, high energy program in which we delve into the good, the bad and the ugly of sales and customer experience.

Laura, Sydney and Adrian are experienced speakers, authors and trainers with a range of hands-on experience and practical information that will help you to transform your business development, client retention AND your bottom line.

This one-hour program will include time for your questions and thoughts.

Be prepared to come away with:

–Actionable tactics to help you sell more successfully

–Learn the 4 key steps to creating a clear, concise and compelling 15SecondPitch
Having a great 15SecondPitch can help you prospect more effectively. Whether you are making new connections face to face, online or over the phone, it’s important to be able to explain, who you are and what you do. If you don’t grab their attention in the first 15 seconds, you’ll lose them for good.

–Best of class practices to build your business in a way that enables you to stand apart from the competition. Consumers are weary of generic buying experiences and more and more are seeking to have a meaningful, memorable, fun, interesting and/or exciting Experience during the selection and buying process.  Prospects and customers are hoping to have an EXPERIENCE that makes them feel pleased about making the purchase AND makes them feel good about making the purchase from YOU!

–Cost-effective and time efficient touch point management so that you can always stay on the grid.  Let’s face it, you spend a lot of time networking and developing leads and prospects. If you don’t stay on the grid through what might be a lengthy sales cycle, you cannot recognize any ROI from your selling efforts.

And more….

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Are Your Prospects More Dead Than Alive

September 20, 2009 at 8:54 pm | Posted in Adrian Miller Sales Training, Adrian's Network, entrepreneurship, sales, Sales Training, small business | Leave a comment

Do you hold on to old leads and prospects that are extremely aged, however not more viable or qualified.

Why is that?

Sales reps are loathe to shed old leads.  They hold on for what it’s worth to contacts and leads that have not shown any progress or positive indications for months and even years.

Still, these names remain in the pipeline just waiting for the day that they, well, resurrect themselves. Sometimes we even kid ourselves and believe that they have more life than they truly have. And sometimes they even keep us from being more aggressive and prospecting for brand new leads. We continue to kick these old tires while our sales results keep falling lower and lower.

Assuming that you’ve done all that you can to convert these prospects into folks that are truly interested in your product or service, then it is time to clean them out and put them into their own separate category.

I mean if you’ve screened and qualified, presented value and benefits and have been persistent and it has all been for naught, it is time to let go and move on to other names with more potential. Spend your time planting new seeds for these old, and apparently disinterested leads, are not going to move forward.

Clogging up a sales pipeline with prospects that are going nowhere is self-destructive. Be honest with yourself. Continually assess who is in your pipeline and ask yourself: what is the percentage likelihood that this prospect will close AND within what time frame.

By doing this you will have better control over your flow of prospects and their conversion to new business.

And isn’t that what you want?

My Sales Pipeline is Constipated

September 10, 2009 at 7:51 am | Posted in Adrian Miller Sales Training, Adrian's Network, entrepreneurship, Marketing, Networking, sales, Sales & Technology, Sales Training, small business | 3 Comments

The analysts are, in increasing numbers, starting to tout the end of the recession, but for most of us, it still seems quite slow out there. Even if you’re the most talented salesperson, you probably have noticed that an annoying number of your prospects are stuck in your pipeline. Ok, it’s not the most polite way to phrase this, but you could be suffering from a case of sales constipation. No, a swig of milk of magnesia isn’t going to do the job here, but there are strategies to get you moving along again. Here’s how:

Keep Filling and Replenishing Your Pipeline

You want to make sure that your pipeline is continuously being filled and replenished with qualified prospects. By always having individuals at different stages of the sales process, you’ll consistently have some that are coming through as new business.

Stay On Their Grid

The sales cycle has become much longer for almost everyone. It can be easy to drop off of a prospect’s radar if you’re not diligent about your touch-point management. Fine-tune a program that utilizes phone, email, snail mail, as well as the three I’s – invitations, introductions, and information.

Don’t Give Up

Patience is needed more than ever right now. Yes, you might feel like throwing in the towel with a prospect who seems to relish sitting on the fence and stringing you along. You might even feel like expressing your personal opinion to them about their inability to make a decision. However, keep this in mind. You will never reclaim any of your return on time if you give up. So, hang in there. You’ll be glad that you did.

Realize That It Might Not Be the Economy

The recession has become a great excuse for prospects who just don’t want to tell you that they didn’t see value in what you were offering. Find out if this is what’s causing the stall. If it is a cash flow issue, you might need to hang on a little longer. If it’s really a problem with how you presented your product or service, you might need to refine your own strategies and techniques.

Don’t fall into the trap of blaming everything on the economy. There are salespeople who are successfully acquiring new business each and every day. By following these four steps, you’ll help jumpstart your pipeline to get you back on track as the recession subsides.

Sales Tips for Q4

September 8, 2009 at 11:43 am | Posted in Adrian Miller Sales Training, Adrian's Network, entrepreneurship, Marketing, Networking, sales, Sales Training, small business | Leave a comment

We’re closing in on Q4 and, for most folks, this has been a difficult year (to say the least). As we head into this all important final quarter of 09, we should all make a vow to end the year on top.  Yes, revenues might be down and clients might be more difficult to obtain. Still, if you follow these tried and true success techniques, the end of the year might be more positive than you ever imagined.

1.  Stay Close to Your Prospects and Clients.  This can’t be reiterated enough. Spending time, money and energy developing prospects and servicing clients only to allow them to “fall off the grid” is a sure recipe for disaster. Staying close, staying relevant, staying ahead of the curve so you KNOW what to present to them and when….well, these are all strategies to keep you top of mind and considered a valuable business resource just when they are eliminating their “vendors” and other folks they consider to be dispensible.

2. Keep Current. Just when you think you know everything there is to know about your clients and prospects, there are changes and these changes can alter the very relationship you have or are striving to develop.  Rather than finding out TOO LATE about upcoming changes, be diligent about continually probing to find out what’s happening with your prospect’s or client’s company, personnel changes, business growth plans, marketing initiatives and more.

3.  Stay Visible. Now is not the time to disappear and hide from view. Review your budget for Q4 and then make certain to deploy highly synchronized sales, marketing, PR and networking initiatives. These DO NOT have to be expensive (see www.adriansnetwork.com for extremely cost-effective and results-driven networking!)

By keeping these three things in the forefront of your mind you will be able to keep pace in Q4 and end the year on a productive note. Yes, revenues might be down but your productivity must stay up so that you can be strong and viable when the economy turns around.

The best time to start is now.

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