Please rank yourself on the following:
Assess your own networking skills by answering Yes or No for the following questions then use the table below to get your score.
Table for scoring
0 – 5 Yes’s - The best time to start to build your network is today.
6 – 10 Yes’s - You are a pretty good networker. Keep going.
11 or more Yes’s - You know what networking is about. Inspire others to do the same.
Questions
Yes or No
- I’m interested in people and make an effort to find out what makes them tic
- I don’t like talking about myself, but can do, confidently, if need be
- I have developed a system for recording all the contacts I meet and refer back to it regularly
- Every working day I make phone calls to existing and new contact
- I am excellent at remembering names and little details about people
- I have a system for staying in touch with people
- I make an effort to link others and provide referrals
- I’m an excellent listener
- I’ve formed my own networking group and we meet regularly
- I turn up to a lot of events and functions (applying the Woody Allen rule – 80% of life is just turning up)
- I have referred work to people in my network in the past 3 months
- I read widely and get involved with different associations and groups
- I look for opportunities to speak at events
- People who know me would consider me more of a giver than a taker
- I embrace social networking tools, focusing on giving ideas and value to my network
Your score
To survive as a sales professional in a tough economy you have to decide which way to go?
On the one hand you can argue a case that you should chase down more opportunities because the economy is slower. Widen the top of your sales funnel to ensure you end up with at least the same results as last year. Make more calls, do more meetings, ask for more referrals. Less will be converted, so more shots will help you hit your numbers.
On the other hand it can be argued that you should sharpen your focus. Spend more time working on the opportunities that are most likely to be converted. Be like Bruce Lee. Have laser like focus. Hone in on your very best opportunities and don’t waste your valuable time chasing low probability deals.
I guess it depends on what your selling and to whom.
Whatever you do , don’t waste your selling time on opportunities you are unlikely to convert. Use your radar and intuition to be in the right place at the right time.
Neil Rackham, author of the famous book SPIN selling favours laser like focus.
Hear and see him in action here
I was doing some work last week with a team who are not very good at following up on opportunities that are in their sales pipeline. This is costing them thousands of $’s every month in missed commissions
Sales Managers love looking at pipelines. They think this helps them to predict what may be coming up in future business.
Of equal importance to what is going in to your pipeline is how are you plugging your pipe for leaks?
Stop the pipe from leaking
If you want to plug your leaks you need discipline and strong follow up systems. In Business to Business selling today’s sale is based on your activity levels over the past 3-6 months.
The best sales people I work with have high activity levels, but more importantly they are great at plugging leaks. They know:
- Who to follow up with
- How to ensure they dont forget to follow up at the right time
- How to position their follow up meeting, call, SMS, twitter or email
- When to follow up
If you want to more successful in sales I suggest double your follow up efforts. It doesn’t matter what system you use, as long as it works.
Double your follow up and I predict you’ll half the number of leaks in your pipe.
Each day I suggest you should aim for 10 people you can be following up with. These should be in your CRM, diary , notebook, blackberry or whatever you use to track your movements.
Jeffrey Gitomer knows a bit about all of this. Check him out here: http://www.gitomer.com/
How do you know if sales training will work?
Why do companies invest so much money in something that can be so difficult to measure?
What proof really exists that it will work?
The above 3 questions are not easy to answer. I often say to my clients if you were a racehorse trainer and had 10 horses to train how would you decide to invest your time and money? Would you allocate 10% of your time to each horse or would it be better to allocate the majority of your time to the top 2 or 3? Maybe get rid of the non performers or send them off to the fair ground to give pony rides to little children.
What to consider when developing sales people
- Positive Attitude
- History of embracing new ideas
- Willingness to learn
- Can handle rejection
- Strong desire to succeed for a variety of reasons (cash flow / debt / status / ego )
- Proof that they are adopting the changes you are working on
- Results - How long do you give them before you let them go?
For more on high performing sales people and the importance of handling rejection click here
What do you think about sales training? Do you think it can make a difference?
