By Terry Ledden - Sunday, June 28th, 2009

Successful organizations that regularly surpass their competition are those which continuously invest in achieving maximum performance from their sales team regardless of the prevailing market conditions.

Too often when times are good and new business is relatively easy to find, business owners and managers slip their grip on the reins. Less effort is expended on keeping the sales team lean, hungry and focused on prospecting and qualifying new business. The organization is already at a disadvantage before a market downturn rears it’s head, since it lacks the ingrained habits and behaviours its sales team needs to quickly adjust when closing sales becomes more difficult. This leaves management distracted by internal operations and scrambling to put the organization back on course when the economy sours, leaving more nimble competitors unchallenged in the marketplace.

So what should your business be doing now that it should have been doing all along to ensure your sales people are effective revenue generators and not just order takers waiting for the phone to ring? Consider the following points:

Always be qualifying

In a tight market overcrowded with aggressive competitors, the more effort you put into qualifying the prospect, the more you will differentiate yourself and the more quickly you can develop and close the opportunity. If the prospect measures up to your qualifying criteria, you can move forward, if not, you can move on to another opportunity.

What information should you uncover? Concentrate first on the quality of the fit between what you have to offer and the prospect’s problem, challenge, or goal. If the correlation is low, or you know that another company competing for the business can provide a better fit, it’s likely time to look for another opportunity.

When you adopt an “Always be Qualifying” strategy, poor quality prospects will be eliminated early and you’ll find yourself presenting to high quality prospects with whom you will almost always be closing.

Read more about closing versus qualifying.

And the answer is …

A text book strategy to obtain more information in order to understand a prospect’s true intentions and needs is to answer a question with a question. But apply this principle judiciously, otherwise, you may be perceived as manipulative or deflecting a question because you haven’t done your homework and can’t answer.

There are situations where it is OK to directly answer the prospect’s question. The rule is: answer the question when it can’t hurt you or it can help you.

It’s OK to tell a prospect what you do or how you can help from a conceptual or big picture standpoint. That can’t hurt you. What you should avoid is providing detailed explanations for specific solutions to problems that have yet to be fully defined. That will hurt you. There will be plenty of time for specifics and details if the opportunity progresses far enough along for a formal presentation or proposal.

Read more about giving the right answers.

Is your message relevant and believable?

You won’t capture a prospect’s attention with features and functions, regardless of how “Revolutionary,” “Tested,” or “Enhanced” they may be, unless, first and foremost, your product or service addresses a specific problem, concern, or challenge the prospect is grappling with. Discretionary spending for enhanced features is dead.

Your message must focus on those problems, concerns, and challenges. If you’re a telecommunications provider, rather than tout “widest coverage,” ask a problem-focused question. For instance, “Are some of your loved ones outside your calling area?” Rather than promote “lightening fast Internet connections,” ask; “Does it take longer to download your e-mail than it does to read it?”

To make the features and functions believable, tell the prospect HOW you deliver what those features and functions promise. Do you provide the widest cell phone coverage because you have more cell towers than any other company? Do you guarantee the fastest deliveries because any shipment with a destination over 250 kilometres away is shipped by air and delivered the next day? Is your software never obsolete because you provide free lifetime updates? If so, make those facts part of your message.

Read more about how to be relevant and believable.

Attitude Drives Results

Successful sales people have a diligent work ethic that is undaunted by the prevailing market conditions or the news of the day, no matter how bleak or depressing it may be. They remain consistent in their business development activities –  prospecting for new opportunities by networking, obtaining referrals, and doing something relatively unheard of today – making cold calls. That’s right – cold calls via telephone and in person.

Don’t adjust to existing market conditions by changing proactive business development behaviour. Instead, change focus and redirect your efforts to different opportunities. Bottom line, there’s still business out there and somebody’s going to get it. Why shouldn’t it be you?

Read more about having the right attitude.

Category: Expert Advice.
Industry: Technology, Retail, Services
Functional Area: Marketing
Tags: business development, closing, qualifying leads, Sales, sales performance, sales training