10 minutes to sales sucess

They say, “Experience is the best teacher”. 

Well, it most certainly is not! If only experience were to teach people, there would have been no repeat offenders of any kind.  The reality is – it is not the experience itself, but the time you take to reflect on the experience that teaches you valuable lessons.

This is one area where most sales and marketing professionals miss the boat. Most of them operate like talking bill boards, programmed to follow a certain routine like:

Present to prospect 1 – Fail – Present to prospect 2 – Fail – Present to prospect 3 and so on.

If they took just 10 minutes to analyze their calls, they would move up the learning curve much faster.

Let me show you a simple way to analyze your calls.

Step 1: Recall successful calls

Pick up a case where you have succeeded in getting business.

This might sound counter intuitive. Most people advise you to see ‘what went wrong’ in the cases where you failed. The danger is – you might find too many answers to that question. After all, there are a million ways to fail in a sales presentation. But, there are only a few predictable ways in which you can achieve consistent success. So, it makes sense to learn what worked and repeat it.

Step 2: Analyze the call in detail

The second step is to answer these questions, keeping the successful sale in mind:

Analyze product benefit: How has your product made the life better for the customer?

Was he able to minimize his errors? Was he able to save on his costs? Was he able to feel more confident about himself? The answers will tell you the key benefits to focus on – in your next presentation.

Analyze objections: What were the objections raised by him, before he said ‘Yes’ to your offer?

Did he compare your product with his existing option? Was he even aware of the impact of his problems? How did you overcome his objections? The answers will equip you for your next presentation.

Analyze the source: How did you find him in the first place?

Was he referred to you by your existing customer? Did you fix the appointment by cold calling? What was the database used to find the prospect? What was the script used to fix the appointment? This will help you find more prospects with higher chances of conversion.

This simple analysis takes no more than 10 minutes. But it will help you repeat your success consistently. Happy selling!