Sale people are sometimes just dreamers. They dream of getting
this big commission check, buying this fancy car, offering a better life for
their family, and sometimes being given their moment of fame by assessing the President Club, 5 days in Hawaii with the CEO of their company. Dreaming in good
and keep them moving, but if you ask them what they really do to make it happen,
they usually answer “I work hard”. The bad news is that “Working hard is not
enough”.
Take a reality check! Look at your numbers and stop fooling your-self. Let’s say you have to sign $6M a year, or $500K a month. To do simple math based on my 20 years of sales experience, that means you should have about $1500K in advanced phases in your sales funnel, and you should identify $4M of new opportunities every month. Your global funnel should be around $10.5M. (I will explain the math in another post).
If you are no there yet, what can you do to actually make your numbers. There are only 5 solutions (that is the good news; you know what you can do!).
- Increase the overall value of your funnel
- Focus on larger deals
- Cut your sales cycle
- Keep your margin high
- Improve your hit ratio
- Increase the overall value of your funnel.
Selling is a number game. If you consistently sign 30% of your deals, the more you have the better! Instead of putting $4M of new opportunities in your funnel every month, put $6M or $8M.You will mechanically sign more business. How to do it? Raise your activity level, go to networking events, launch email campaigns, organize seminars or develop local channels and partners that will bring you more leads.The bigger your funnel, the better.
- Focus on larger deals.
The sales effort is often pretty much the same to sign a $200K than to sign a $1M one. Target large accounts in which the initial deal will be bigger and the chance to have repeat business is higher. Select the targeted accounts you want to penetrate this year per market segment, and wisely use all the ways to open the door: Google, Zoominfo, LinkedIn and why not Facebook or Twitter. Identify the key players, learn who they are, contact them directly or via your network with a sound customized value proposition. The time where you have to sleep in your car on their parking lot to grab them first thing is the morning is over. You can learn a lot about them seating at your desk and open the (back) door with a good hook. Be smart!
- Cut your sales cycle.
Keep it moving, maintain a high momentum. Put yourself in the “end of the quarter” spirit every single day. Be creative and close your business faster: don’t wait they call you back, do it yourself! Don’t wait 2 weeks to send your proposal, send it today! Don’t lose 3 days before returning a call, do it now! Reducing the sales cycle from a 6 to 4 month average will bring you 33% more business at the end of the year!
- Keep your margin high.
Unless your sell commodity products, resist to jumping into a price war. One way to improve your top line is to sell with a higher price (less discount = higher margin). How can you do it? By selling the value, by explaining to your customer what his payback (ROI) will be and by focusing his attention on the benefits he will get rather than just the features you are offering. Tell him he is not going to live with a discount but with a company (yours), its services and its solutions. Getting satisfied on the long run is worth a premium, and this is thanks to this premium that your company makes such an outstanding job in customer satisfaction
- Improve your hit ratio.
The average I have noticed over the year is 27%. Make it 40%, 45%! How? First by selecting and focusing on the accounts with the best odd to need your product (demographics and psychographics). Then by leveraging active references. Your customers are the best sales people ever! Finally by developing a strategic approach in these targeted accounts, challenging your positioning vs. your competitors, understanding what people need and also what people want, leveraging your strengths, mitigating your weaknesses, blocking your competition, developing sponsors and finally helping your customers (not the company but the people you meet) to win. This is all from “Strategic Selling”, the best sales program I attended and also delivered as a trainer.
Now it is time for you to do the math, take a look at the tough numbers, removed from your funnel all the deals that you have kept over there for months to “feel good” but that are deadly stuck (you know you are not going to close them any time soon, aren't you?). Yes, it is time to be scared by its emptiness and change your game, push it and keep it to the next level, the only one that can make you successful. Work harder, yes, but now work smarter than before.
