I don’t know about your experience but I’m hearing so much economic doom and gloom that I think it must be time for me to give up and quit. The newspapers and television networks have convinced me (and almost everyone else) that we’re in a hopeless situation. I really wanted my business to prosper and grow in 2009 but I must be an idiot for believing there is any chance for success. I guess it’s time to turn off the lights, lock the doors and wait patiently for the economy to improve.
Or is it?
Maybe business development professionals everywhere need to answer these four questions (honestly) before tossing in the towel.
#1. How does this “recession” actually affect you?
The National Bureau of Economic Research defines a recession as three quarters of falling real gross domestic product. This might be fascinating stuff to some people, but I can’t directly correlate “real gross domestic product” to my sales effectiveness.
Can you?
Even during a recession companies still have to buy goods and services. They may buy different, they may buy less, but they still have to buy. If you can’t convince prospects that what you’re offering is a solid investment with meaningful return, then maybe the problem lies closer to home.
#2. Do you really believe you’re on your customer’s speed dial?
Customers are nervous just like everyone else; they’re reading the same headlines that you are. Sitting in the office waiting for them to call you isn’t going to help you meet your goals.
Reach out and contact everyone you’ve ever done business with. Show up with valuable ideas, offer help, look for referrals and ask for their business. This isn’t open season to “call and check-in” but it’s a great time to re-connect and nourish all of your existing relationships.
This may sound like a lot of work because it is. Very few people ever drift into greatness; it requires action.
What are you waiting for?
#3. Are you as good as you could be?
Many sales people think that once they’ve taken a professional selling course, they’re essentially done with learning. That may be OK if someday your closing question becomes: Will that be paper or plastic?
Success as a sales professional requires skill, knowledge, attitude and purpose. If you’re not consistently developing yourself in these areas then you’re going backwards. There is no status quo.
There are more development tools available for today’s sales professional than ever before. Books, podcasts, tele-seminars, live training programs, webinars, personal coaches, downloads, sales portals and much more. You can’t wait for your boss or organization to take responsibility for your success. It’s up to YOU!
It takes courage to admit you can be better and confidence to believe you can change. It takes nothing at all to create excuses.
#4. How much energy are you wasting on things you can’t control?
The world surrounds us with headlines about inflation, bailouts, credit crisis, mortgage fiasco, recession, debt, jobless claims and on and on.
Are you concerned? I know that I am. But I don’t have much control over what is happening in the headlines, so why get tied up in knots?
This is a valuable lesson I learned as a kid on the farm. It’s a tough life and it sure doesn’t get easier if you worry all the time about whether or not it’s going to rain. All you can do is take care of the equipment, prepare the land, plant the seed, fertilize the fields and wait for the harvest.
And running your sales business isn’t much different.
- Take care of the equipment (invest in yourself)
- Prepare the land (make yourself known in all of your accounts)
- Plant the seed (add value with every contact)
- Fertilize the fields (take care of your customers)
- Wait for the harvest (if you do everything else right, the business will follow)
Speaking of Sales is about finding, winning and keeping customers for life. If that’s part of your job, then you won’t want to miss the next issue.
Until then,
Tim
Tim Wackel
tim@timwackel.com
214.369.7722
Tim Wackel is hired by sales executives who want their teams to
blow the number away. Tim’s “no excuses” programs
are insightful, engaging and focused on providing real world strategies
that salespeople can (and will!) implement right away. Sales teams
from BMC Software, Cisco, Fossil, Hewlett Packard, Allstate, Thomson
Reuters, Raytheon, Pricewaterhouse-Coopers, Catalina Marketing,
Philips Medical Systems, Red Hat and TXU Energy count on Tim to
help them create more success in business and in life.
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