Action is the key

As we look at the talents and skills of a sales person one of the key skills is the ability to talk or communicate effectively in creative and enthusiastic ways to paint a picture that creates the desire to own our product. This skill is a crucial part of any sales presentation. This also flows over into other areas of our day and can be just as destructive as it can be helpful. Sales people love to talk. They love to present ideas, to solve problems, to plan for success. Where we often fail is in taking action on these ideas.

For example I have seen countless sales people struggling to reach their goals and when asked about their activity they go on about their new plan to streamline their selling process or their new tools that will help them sell once implemented. Inevitable we come to the pesky question "tell me about your daily selling activities". "How many sales presentations are you giving? How many calls are you making? This is where we can very often quickly identify a primary missing element "action".

Sales people will begin to paint the picture of when these new plans and tools kick in how wonderful everything will be. How many new sales will come in and how deep their pipeline will run. When I hear this I always think of a line from a sales video I watched a long time ago where the trainer said "when your numbers are down set down whatever you are doing and pick up the phone nothing solves sales issues like presenting your product or service to more people."

This is so true and I am sure all of us can relate to a list of things that we fully intend on doing Monday morning that remains virtually untouched on Friday because we were distracted by other tasks that we truly felt were important at the time. Later as we look at our list we realize that we focused on the wrong Items, burned through the week, and need to push our list off to the next week. Then the cycle begins again.

Build your plan during non-sales time, write it down, organize your day, and then when the click strikes the beginning hour for selling, take action, start dialing the phone or knocking on doors. Don't wait until the time is right. Don't send those email first, just start calling on prospects. There is no substitution for old fashioned action. Track your activities, adjust where necessary and possible, but most of all call on prospects. The best goal to set is how many prospects you will call on this week or this month. The old saying will always hold true "the more people you present to the more people you will sell".

Also remember this as sales people one way or another we get paid to sell and to produce revenue so anytime we are not presenting our product to a potential client we are unemployed!