John Martin

When preparing for a sales task, focus primarily on what it will take to move to the next step in the sales process. Recognize the possibility of roadblocks and detours, but don’t dwell on them. Be prepared…but not over-prepared. You’ll find that you can get more done more quickly.

On Monday morning, you look at your calendar for the week, and there it is, with a big red circle around it - a reminder that your territory expansion plan is due on the sales manager's desk by Friday morning. You've completed much of the preliminary work; but you still have a dozen or so customers to contact, some figures to compile, and a spreadsheet analysis to prepare.

Selling success is the result of knowing what to do…and doing what you know. It requires action. It doesn’t require having a “perfect” plan, asking “perfect” questions, or giving “perfect” answers. Most often, “good enough” is, in fact, good enough.

Your mindset has more to do with your success than almost any other single element. There are plenty of salespeople who possess extensive product knowledge, have numerous influential business contacts, are well-spoken, and have appealing personalities, yet their sale performances are average… sometimes, only marginally acceptable.

Having a big pipeline of “prospects” is typically seen as desirable. The more prospects you put into the pipeline, the more will eventually emerge as customers. At least that’s the theory.

Building a successful selling career isn’t about making waves—making big sales. Selling is about developing relationships that produce streams of ongoing business and referrals. And often, those relationships start with a ripple—a small sale.

It’s easy to accept things with which you agree. It’s quite another thing, however, to accept things with which you don’t agree or perhaps are unfamiliar.

If you examine the day-to-day conversations that take place in the business arena (or almost any setting), you’ll discover examples of miscommunication and non-communication occurring in varying degrees. Conversations will contain distortions, deletions, and generalizations.

Imagine that you are halfway through your quarterly quota period, but the sales you’ve closed thus far represent just over 30% of your quota. You’re clearly behind. What do you do?

The prospect, appearing eager to make a decision, asked for a presentation.

You invested a significant amount of time and energy developing it.