Proactive Pipeline Management
Here’s where it starts. A true Sales Professional only sells to people/companies that can benefit from one’s product/service. Once we have determined that there is indeed a fit, it’s in the interest of both the salesperson and the prospect to move forward together. This, then, is where the process of Proactive Pipeline Management begins, and here is how it is done.
Every sales professional should maintain two baskets, one is for prospects and the second is clients. Connecting the two is a conduit called customers. An added benefit is to view an additional conduit from clients into the prospect basket, which are the valuable referrals. See depiction below-
Prospects are people who we have never done business with previously. Customers are occasional buyers, or people who buy one product from us when we offer much more. Clients are the best, buying regularly from us and doing a significant amount of business with us, along several product lines. Professional sales people build what I call a Clientele, which results in not having to worry about paying their house payment, car payment, and lifestyle payments. These professionals have ensured themselves a continuing cash flow/income, and therefore can consistently act in the best interests of the client, instead of “having to sell” to make one’s monthly payments! This is a key competitive advantage that the Top 10% have over the majority of selling competitors. An extra benefit of building a Clientele is they tend to be a great source for Referrals, which is the richest opportunity for a Sales Professional.
The process of Proactive Pipeline Management should be performed at least once a month, although my most robust growing clients are doing the process weekly. I call it “INSPECT THE BASKETS”, and here is how it’s done. Someone (Sales Manager) meets with the Sales Professional and asks who is the number 1 prospect, when they were last touched, how often they have been touched in the last 90 days, in what ways they have been touched, and asks “what standing in the way of them becoming a customer?”. Once this account is thoroughly reviewed, then Prospect #2 is reviewed similarly, and on down the list. I would recommend going at least 20 deep in the Prospect basket. Next reviewed are the Customers, in the exact same fashion. Again, going at least 20 deep. We then move on to the same process with the Clients, inquiring how we can win even more business from them, where both Client and Seller can benefit. Last, we should have a process of regularly asking for Referrals, and the best source is often our happy Clients. If a Sales Person does not have a Sales Manager providing this on an ongoing basis, it is in their best interests to enlist someone who will. Be sure to have someone who is strong and demanding, which will pay the greatest dividends to you.
This one simple Process – INSPECT THE BASKETS – will translate into higher sales, greater bonding with your customers/clients, and increased income for the Sales Professional. Remember the old adage- Inspect what you expect!
$ales UP – The above discussion of Inspect the Baskets is but one of many key sales systems and processes that should be done regularly between the sales person and the sales manager. I’d like to invite you to try a free 30 day test of $alesUP, my new cloud-based dashboard that drives goal achievement, systems for best sales practices, and sales team accountability. Just text “yes” to 818181 or call 1-888-909-4787 and we will get you up and running. For a quick review, visit www.jackdaly247.com.
BOOK REVIEW-CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
Two more terrific books that I would classify as “must reads” this month, Free the Idea Monkey… to focus on what matters most! by Mike Maddock and Video Marketing For Dummies by Kevin Daum.
Free the Idea Monkey… to focus on what matters most! The answer to this question could help you make-or lose-millions of dollars. More importantly, your answer will make the difference between a ‘fulfilling, world-changing career or a soul-sucking frustrating job’. Mike is a friend and proven leader. In this funny, engaging and practical book, Mike shows other leaders and companies how to strike the essential and critical balance between their creative, divergent Idea Monkeys and their focused and convergent (Ring) Leaders. It’s full of stories and illustrations that you can put to use immediately, here is the Amazon link.
Video Marketing For Dummies by Kevin Daum offers savvy advice for adding video to your marketing plan. Video marketing is rapidly gaining popularity in online marketing and this fun-but-practical guide presents you with all aspects of video marketing from planning to production to distribution. You’ll learn how to create a video strategy, produce an effective video, put it online, and get your video to the right consumers so you can help your business succeed. Here is the Amazon link.
PUT VIDEO TO WORK FOR YOU!– As a followup to Kevin Daum’s book on the power of video, here are a couple of my short clips we are sharing with our community regularly as we build and extend the “Jack Daly” brand- enjoy!
IN THE NEWS
In a previous newsletter I strongly recommended the autobiography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. Here is a terrific article by said author with the big takeaways from Steve- truly great take-aways. The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs from HBR…
From FORBES magazine in April come these “Jeff Bezo’s Top Ten Maxims, Decoded. Worth some serious thought from the founder/CEO of Amazon come these pearls.
- Base your strategy on things that won’t change.
- Obsess over customers.
- We are willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time.
- There are two kinds of companies: those that try to charge more and those that work to charge less. We will be the second.
- Determine what your customers need, and work backwards.
- Our culture is friendly and intense, put if push comes to shove we’ll settle for intense.
- If you want to be inventive, you have to be willing to fail.
- In the old world, you devoted 30% of your time to building a great service and 70% of your time to shouting about it. In the new world, that inverts.
- Everyone has to be able to work in a call center.
- This is day 1 for the internet. We still have so much to learn.
ANSWER TO GROWING YOUR REVENUES
It seems the consistent question as I make my travels- ” How can I grow my revenues?”. For most businesses, it’s actually a simple formula: Grow your sales force in quantity and quality! One of the key steps to doing this is to always be recruiting. Of utmost importance is to ‘have a list’ of between 10-15 sales people you would have a strong desire to be on your team. Even if you only are looking for ‘just one’, a list of 10-15 is essential (more on that in a bit). While we would prefer these candidates to have our industry experience, it is not necessary. Confirmed through my audiences, when asked to choose between a 3rd/4th quarter industry experienced person vs. a 1st/2nd quarter unrelated industry, my audiences overwhelmingly go with the later. We can teach the ‘right person’ the business easier than rehabilitate the former. Key in the search is to have a position profile, which is not a job description. Rather, it is a list of the personal characteristics of what makes a super star salesperson in your industry/your company. Once in hand, get it out in the community far and wide.
The reason you need a list of 10-15 candidates is that people you would like on your list are folks not currently looking for a new job- they are happy where they presently are. However, odds are, over the next 12 months, one or more will enter the market due to “life happens”. This is where the industry one is working in has big problems; or the company you are happy with has problems; or the culture changes; or the company is sold and one is not happy with the new owners; or someone gets promoted to be one’s boss and you don’t get along; or the compensation plan changes and you preferred the former plan; and the list of “life happens” goes on and on. The key is to be courting these candidates on a regular monthly basis. Their tendency is to go with those who have been courting them along the way.
This recruiting energy is a significant time consumer and is critical to the growth of your sales/revenues. It is a key component of the Sales Manager. Good hunting!
One of the impediments to allocating sufficient time to this key recruiting activity is what I call “the three sins of sales management”, and it holds most small-medium sized companies back from the sales growth they desire. See if you are a sinner:
- CEO/owner/entrepreneur is also the Sales Manager- problem here is you are performing each job part-time, which means you have elected to grow your business part-time.
- Promote the best sales person to be the Sales Manager, which often ends in having a mediocre Sales Manager and the loss of your best performer. And, this is typically the best it gets, with many other downfalls to come.
- Take (b) above AND have them continue selling to their existing clients, again resulting in a part-time Sales Manager, at best.
If you are currently guilty of any of these 3 sins and desire for a solution, text GROW to 818181 or email and we will gladly provide you some direction and guidance. Growing your revenues should not be a part-time endeavor!
TAKING ACTION! – A look at what others are DOING!
The frustrating part of what I do as a speaker/teacher is relying on others to “take action”. Frustrating especially when you hear about the challenges of a tightened economy, and yet too many folks not taking the actions needed to WIN. Check these examples of others, and then ask yourself why you aren’t “making things happen”..
Dear Jack,
I wanted to express my sincere thanks for your passion, enthusiasm and the straight-forward style in which you made me realize how I can improve my life.
Since your meeting last week on Friday May 4th 2012, I took up your challenge of implementing three things in the seminar and doubled it.
Last week I implemented the following changes into my life:
- Change Voice-mail every day including weekends and ensure it is a positive experience for everyone who calls. My goal is to make people want to call even if they don’t have a reason too.
- I incorporated style identification and interests into my customer contact database.
- Incorporated the 6 categories of questions into my pre-call research. Along with the essential questions: What do I know?, What do I need to know? What do I need to get on the table?
- I incorporated your suggestion of viewing our prospecting system as Client, Customer and Prospect and setting up my funnel accordingly.
- I created a dashboard and recorded my monthly goals on the dashboard for each Client and Customer/Prospect to make communication with my boss effective, efficient and most importantly – measurable.
- I updated my Linkedin profile to ensure I was at 100%.
- I strived to one more thing each day after being ready to finish my day.
This week I am planning on implementing the following ideas from your seminar
- A customer touch-point system that continues to ensure constant communication with each of my new customers to ensure we are thought of for new product and engineering designs.
- I will create and start using my money-bag.
Best Regards,
Mark Trenbeth
DAHL BROTHERS (CANADA) LIMITED
UPCOMING WORKSHOP & SUMMITS
- June 19 — Dallas, TX
- June 22 — Baton Rouge, LA
- June 29 — Houston, TX
- August 15 — Montreal, QB
- August 24 — San Francisco, CA
- August 31 — Milwaukee, WI
- September 13 — Chicago, IL
- October 4 — Washington D.C. 2 Day Summit
- October 4 — Washington D.C. Management Summit
- October 5 — Washington D.C. Sales Summit
Where in the World is Jack?
By Author Name
Here’s the schedule of cities I will be conducting programs in over the next few months (some for clients, others are open seat workshops.) I may have flexibility in my scheduling for lunch, dinner or more should someone have an interest. If you see I’m headed to your part of the world, feel free to email jennifer@jackdaly.net
- June- Dallas, Chicago, Baton Rouge, Vancouver, Houston and Milwaukee.
- July- Los Angeles, Paris and Spain
- August- Australia, Montreal, San Diego, Washington D.C, Raleigh and Milwaukee.
- September- Omaha, Chicago, Detroit, United Kingdom, Russia.
“ONE MORE THING”- I recently delivered a full day Sales Workshop in Toronto and one of the participants shared with me that she had been listening to one of my audio CD’s titled “Jack Me Up”, which is a composite of the key takeaways from this full day workshop. She indicated that I suggested on the audio that as you near the end of your day, if you then elected to do just “one more thing”, like an extra call or touch for example, and were to do that each day, you would be amazed how much more you would accomplish. She had been doing this for several months now with great results, and I encourage all our readers to give it a try. There are many other simple and effective take-aways on this audio, and as an added encouragement, I’m offering this audio at more than 50% discount for $20 through the month of June. Just call Jennifer at 888-298-6868 or email her at jennifer@jackdaly.net and place your order.
If any article in this newsletter would be of interest to your co-workers, customers or clients we would appreciate having you forward it along.
