Sales Success: An Art and a Science

By John Boyens, Boyens Group (and TMSA Affiliate member)

To ensure Sales Success month-in and month-out sales professionals must master the art as well as the science of selling!  Most salespeople focus on the art of selling.  The art includes building rapport, creating personal relationships, good communication skills, etc.  All very important!  Equally important is the science of selling.  The science includes the creation of individual success formulas, establishing activity levels and most importantly following a sales processes that is repeatable and scalable. Our Productive Selling Zone® is a 5-step, consultative sales and sales management process that ensures buyer/seller alignment. The 5 steps are:

1. Lead Generation
2. Pre-Calling Planning
3. Assessment of the Current Situation/Uncovering of Needs
4. Linking your Unique Capabilities
5. Cost Justifying/Negotiating/Closing

Let me take each step one at a time.  How do you get leads?  Are they company generated of self-generated? Here are some examples of company generated leads:

• Web-based
• Marketing lists
• Direct Marketing
• Social Media feeds
• Advertising
• In-store
• Call-ins

Here are examples of self-generated leads:

• Referrals
• Cold calls
• Networking
• LinkedIn
• Industry Associations/Trade shows
• Chambers of Commerce

Once you get a lead it is important to quickly qualify/disqualify the opportunity.  Once qualified make sure you establish a practice of effective, pre-calling planning.  Successful salespeople:

• Look in their CRM system to see if there is any history with a specific person and/or company
• They spend some time on the prospect’s website
• They look them up on LinkedIn
• They use their favorite search engine (e.g., Google) to look up the prospect’s name as well as the company name

After doing pre-call research successful salespeople schedule a meeting (or a call) where they:

• Uncover/prioritize need
• Learn who the decision makers are
• How they make decisions
• What the competitive landscape looks like

The next step is to link your unique capabilities/solutions.

Lastly, successful salespeople:

• Are prepared to cost-justify their solution (even if they’re more expensive)
• Can handle any/all objections thrown their way (Price, Happy with the Current Vendor, Budget, etc.)
• Negotiate/Close the business

Are you enjoying the success you deserve in sales? For more information contact the Boyens Group®. www.boyens.com or (615) 395-0200.