I received a great question in my inbox last week that was from a salesman whose results were taking a dip yet his sales closing ratio was just as high as normal, the pipeline was a full as it ever was and his appointment setting ratios were higher than normal. 

"Please help me identify where I am going wrong Sean?" was his plea!

Here are my thoughts on this…

Personally, I’m a numbers junkie. I like to know every single stat and number of my selling.

Why?

Well, that’s easy.

You see, if you can split out your sales process into 8 different steps (for example) and you can measure each one then when I’m not getting the results I want I can analyse each one of those steps and see where the bottlenecks are.

I’m not just talking about the bog standard steps either. I mean EVERY STEP.

Too many sales people go through a "slump" where their number of closed sales are not what they should be. So what do they do? Well, they start to muck about with their presentation and how they close and they tinker with little things here and there.

The bottom line is that they do not know where the problem is so they guess. Well, with a well thought out sales process, one which you can measure, these bottlenecks can easily be identified.

For example, the problem might not be in the sales presentation at all - that ratio might be just has high as normal. The problem might not be the number of prospects in the pipeline either. The problem might not be with the number of appointments set too.

"So where is the bloomin problem?" I hear you cry.

Well the problem might have been that your decision makers were cancelling the appointments that you had set with them and because you were so busy busy busy, something like that could have gone un-noticed. So many "lost sales" fall under the radar.

So on  the face of it your appointment setting ratios are still the same, your closing ratios are still the same yet your number of actual closed deals is falling.

Something like unfulfilled appointments can slip through the net undetected. They might go unrecorded for example.

So what would this mean?

Well, it might mean that you are selling too hard in your cold calls. By this I mean that the prospect agrees to a meeting just to get you off the phone and then cancels later on.

You need to understand every step of your sales process not matter how small or trivial and then you need to measure that step.

Something trivial looking like just improving the number of returned calls you get when leaving voice messages can make you an additional 5-10 sales per year just by changing the message you leave everything else being equal.

What you need to do next is:

• Go somewhere quiet and map out your end to end sales process in as much detail as you can - leave nothing out!
• Take steps to measure the numbers and ratios at each stage
• Consistently review your figures at each stage so you know what’s working and what isn’t

Happy Selling! (and measuring!)

Sean

Sean McPheat

The UK’s #1 Authority On Modern Day Selling

Telephone: 0800 849 6732

“We all have what we call our “Rules of Sales” such as “follow the law of averages” or “People buy people”. Sean, what would be your definitive list of the rules of sales?”

That was a recent question that I received from a Sales Manager. Here are my thoughts:

I do have a firm set of sales rules and you will see how they match with the above advice. The rules are ‘BASIC’. Just follow them. I don’t have room to get into too much detail, but here’s a brief idea.

B.A.S.I.C.

If you’re willing to demonstrate each of the following principles every working day, you will succeed.

B – Believe, A – Ask, S – S.O.S, I – I.T., C – Care

B – Believe: First you have to completely and passionately believe in what you sell. You have to believe enough to be able to sell your product to your mother or other loved ones. Insist they buy, sell it to them at full price and feel good about making the full commission. Number one-totally believes.

A – Ask: Ask for the order with strength and conviction and be consistent. As you can see you can only really do this if you completely believe.

S – SOS (The Science of Selling): S.O.S. Is about understanding the mathematics of your profession: the numbers, the equations. You have to know how you are paid. By that, I don’t mean what your pay or commission is, what I’m referring to is how you actually EARN it in the first place. What is your time worth! You must understand your closing average, your average sales and your average earnings. You need to be able to attach an exact monetary figure to every sales call and activity you undertake. You need to know not only how much you earn when you make a sale, but what you earn when you’re NOT selling.

I – I.T.: In today’s marketplace, a sales professional must become an expert with industry specific technology. You have to become an expert with a good CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Software Tools, Time Management Tools and more. You have to be a skilled user of Productivity Enhancement Technology too.

C – Care: You must care deeply about what you do and how you do it. You must care for your customers. When customer’s can see that you are pushing them and that your persistence is due to the fact that you do care it will all come together.

Just follow the BASIC’s

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

Looking for sales training or sales management training?
Call 0800 849 6732