The 2 Things you HAVE to do if you are going to be successful in Sales

Whether you run your own business or work for someone who owns a business, there is no way around it. You and your company need SALES to survive.

Repeat, regular, new, referred and any other category of sales are the lifeblood of any business and without the buzz of orders coming into your business, you are in trouble.

The very successful businesses do that really clever thing of selling their product or service for more than what it costs to make or deliver their service and so make that beautiful word called PROFIT. If you don’t sell enough of what you have to cover the costs of making what you sell then over time you will run into problems.

You might be reading this and thinking ‘what the hell are you on about James, this is a business basic and I know all of this’ but before you press that cross on the browser tab and look for a video of a cat on a skateboard to cheer you up’ give me 2 more minutes of your time. I promise you it’s worth it 🙂 .

Since Roman times when the concept of running a business was created, the need to sell a product or service has been one which has fascinated many people. Book after book has been written on how to ensure you can sell more effectively and a quick google search for sales training or sales tips will provide you with a myriad of different companies keen to show you their way to do things.

Each will have different ideas on what you need to do or say in order to win business and I am not going to say any of these ‘experts’ are right or wrong with their approach. They all have value and all have merits but there are 2 things which I believe EVERY SINGLE SALES EXPERT in the world would agree with me that you HAVE to do in order to achieve sales on a regular basis.

• You have to have a sales plan and process
• You have to take the actions set out in your plan.

A plan and process sets out what you are going to try and make happen, who will do it and when by. In its most simplest form it is defining ‘When person x enquires about our product, Y person will send Z information back to them’ and of course the larger the product or value then this plan can get more complex.

We all know however that having a plan is one thing, ensuring you deliver on the plan is another and in pretty much every aspect of business, if you don’t do the actions you don’t get the results.

For sure you will need scripts, techniques, training, collateral, content and a whole host of other tools to achieve success but I will challenge any business out there that if you apply these methods WITHOUT points 1 and 2 above you will not achieve consistent sales results.

Since I launched our Business Accelerator test in July, out of the hundreds of people who have completed the test, 78% of those people told me that their goal was to ‘Increase Sales’ and so I know that achieving Sales is a key issue for lots of different businesses.

What has amazed and being honest dumbfounded me though is that from these hundreds of different companies only 42% of them have actually implemented a sales plan and structured process. Yes that’s right, nearly 3 out of every 5 businesses that we have engaged with have said ‘we don’t have a structured plan and process to ensure sales’ happen and guess what, over 58% of those companies have also said that they are not hitting the sales targets and goals they have set!

I believe in the modern business world that we live in that these statistics are amazing. They are even more amazing when you consider how easy it is to implement simple technology which can provide a plan and remind you to take actions required to deliver on the plan!

I have been working with a few of our Growth Academy customers over the last few weeks on strengthening the sales processes they have and ensuring that the process they have for handling new sales opportunities is water tight. These guys already understand the importance of winning new sales and also understand that by implementing the right systems and the right services they will get results.

But as our test results show, there are many businesses out there that simply don’t do this and as a result they are not getting the results and rewards that they want and deserve!

You cannot and will not achieve sales success on a regular basis without having a plan and without taking action. If you can commit yourself to having a plan and being disciplined enough to implementing that plan you are on the way. If you invest in the help and systems to ensure your plans are delivered week on week then you will get results!

Modern day sales is different to what it was and there are now a myriad of tools that you can use to attract, nurture and engage with clients to make them keen to buy from you. We all know that 81% of business customers start their purchase cycles with a web search, and 90% of buyers say when they are ready to buy, “they’ll find you”.

If they find you though and you don’t respond to them or have a plan on how to respond to them you’re not only going to miss out but you’re also going to hurt your brand and company reputation!

If you want some help on ensuring your sales processes and plans are in good shape then give us a call. We can ensure you are a success in the modern day world of sales!!