Joe da Silva | Speaker | Trainer | Coach
~ If you are no better tomorrow than you were yesterday, then you've wasted today.
Recently, I was asked if I would shadow an individual while making calls and report back to the Sales Manager as to how our program could make them more productive. This was an unusual request, as I do the shadowing after the program for a day to make sure implementation of the program has happened. However, I knew the manager quite well and, therefore, agreed.
We did not even make the first call as the challenges were immediately evident.
It has been said: “The sweetest sound is hearing your name from another’s lips.” However, how do you feel when that name is pronounced incorrectly or not even your name? Does it bring all sorts of negative emotions about the person uttering it? Do you feel that person does not really care about you is not very good at paying attention to details? Do you feel that your prospects or clients would be any different?
Very recently during Challenge Night, where individuals bring their challenges to a session of The Action Suite and as a collective, we work on solutions for them, we do a Challenge Night quarterly and someone brought up the challenge of ‘cold calls.’
There seems to exist a belief that there is a magical ‘process’ to sales out there and that if you work with certain coaches, they will give you the secret formula and ‘process’ to make your future in the sales world incredibly successful. You will have so much money that you will fly in private jets everywhere, eat at the finest restaurants and lounge in luxury on your 200’ yacht because of this magical sales ‘process.’
One of the foundational steps in any sales professional’s arsenal is that; people buy from those that they like, trust and remind them of themselves. Therefore, why does it seem to be impossible to build trust with our prospects and even clients?
It may not be something that you are necessarily doing, but there are some that are tainting the whole profession by doing some of the following. In other words: “One bad apple does spoil the whole bunch.” Make sure you are not one of those bad apples.
Last week I was fishing off Port Renfrew located on the West Coast of Vancouver Island North of Victoria. It occurred to me while out on the boat, very early in the morning, the metaphor that is used many times in business; ‘fishing for clients.’ This analogy may bring some clarity about why you may not be ‘hocking’ the clients that you may be going after.
