With apologies to his 9th grade English teacher, Bill uses this week’s blog to admonish salespeople for the sin of believing they have no time in the day or week to move the sales needle by first examining the definition of the word, Selling, and then providing the keys to making it happen.
Yes, “Never Not” would make my ninth-grade English teacher, Mr. Fitzgerald, go mad (although, that bar was set pretty low, to begin with). But still…
“I just don’t have enough time in the day” is one of those statements salespeople make to justify either the lack of planning or the lack of execution or both. There IS time but they are either using it to do something else or have not prepared their day/week properly.
Or both.
Let’s first look at the definition of “selling.” Sometimes, selling can be prospecting using the telephone. This requires a list of people to call and, ideally, an idea of where they are in your prospecting process (which 90% of you don’t have, that the blog for another day). Other times, selling means stopping into a new business, one you’ve never been to before (a.k.a. cold calling). Sometimes selling can mean speaking to your existing accounts about products and services they currently do not buy from you. And finally, selling might mean creating a list of people to check in with as a way of furthering your relationship with them. All of these activities move the sales needle. The trick is to take a look at the week ahead and choose which form of selling will work best, given your existing workload, appointments, priorities, and even personal obligations.
For example…
Let’s say you are extremely busy. You are planning to be out on the road every day for various reasons. Anytime you spend at your office will likely be taken up by coordinating jobs already in-house and you see no opportunity, no window where you can focus on prospecting. In that case, your best choice might be to plan on making phone calls to old customers, existing customers, and those people in your network just to check-in. This, too, is a form of sales and might be all you have time for. You make a call on your way to an appointment. You arrive early and while you are sitting in the parking lot, you make a call. A midmorning cup of coffee would taste great and while you are waiting in the drive-through, you make a call.
You have time but you have to think ahead, look ahead, and prepare.
