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Taking Action with Jack Daly ( February 2019 )

Feb 6, 2019
Newsletter

I tell my audiences every day that the key to success is taking action. Take a minute to look over this weeks featured articles and videos that highlight the different ways you might take action and have it positively benefit your bottom line……

Why You Should Sell to Fewer People to Increase Your Sales by Bruce Eckfeldt

Most early stage companies chase anyone with money. However, if you truly want to scale you need to learn how to say ‘no’ to a lot more prospects.

People hire me to scale their businesses. And they’re not just looking for 10 to 15 percent growth a year. My clients want to grow 50 to 100 percent a year or more. While this kind of growth is not easy, it’s very doable for many businesses. The challenge is that if they want to grow at these rates, they need to change the way they do things. And that change can be tough.

One of the toughest changes they need to make is who they prospect and sell to. Typically, I find that most businesses with one to 10 million dollars in revenues use what I call chameleon selling. This is where they hunt for leads and then customize and adjust their products and services to the needs of whatever prospects they find. While you can build a good business this way, you won’t build a scalable business.

In order to grow systematically, you need to focus on a small, limited set of products and services that serve the needs of a target set of customers. This is the only way you can hone your processes proficiently, find talent efficiently, and train your people effectively, and consistently deliver a quality product or service.

When working with companies who want to scale, I typically start by defining their ideal customer by looking at past customers and finding companies who have been profitable, easy to serve, and promoters for the business.

Once I have a good set of example ideal customers, we can ask a series of questions that define our ideal target customer. Any prospect who doesn’t fit this profile should be de-prioritized in the funnel, regardless of how attractive they look.

1. How would you pick your ideal customer out of a crowd?

The first thing we look at is demographics. What does your ideal customer look like externally. What car do they drive, what school did they go to, how big is there business, in what industry are they, or in what geography are they located? These are things I find in industry reports or through some good Google searching.

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What You Should Do in the 10 Seconds Before Any Sales Call by Lisa Earle and Elizabeth McLeod

What do you do in the 10 seconds before a big sales call? Review your deck? Think about how much you want it to close? Make sure your hands aren’t sweaty?

The 10 seconds before a sales call is one of the most critical moments in the entire sales process. It’s your window of opportunity to choose your mental talk track. Your headspace, the conversation you have with yourself, impacts every facet of your interaction with your customer.

The data from our study of over 200 sales organizations revealed salespeople whose mental talk track is about the customer’s goals outsell salespeople whose mental talk track is about closing the deal. Said another way, salespeople with a relentless focus on improving their customers’ condition outsell salespeople who are focused on targets and quotas. It’s ironic, focusing less on you (and your sale) and more on the customer (and their goals) drives more revenue.

But what makes sense intellectually can be emotionally challenging when there’s a deal in play. Salespeople live or die by the number. If you’re in sales yourself, your manager is probably reminding you of this on a daily basis. But in those 10 critical seconds before the call, you need to quiet the quota chatter, and focus on your customer.

Mentally shifting from your agenda to your customer will improve your win rate. Here’s why: Human beings are constantly reading each other. We continually scan others to discern their intent. Most of this is done unconsciously. Potential clients are picking up clues from you and responding to without either of you even realizing it.

Here’s a three-step technique we use with clients to help salespeople to get their head into starting their interactions to ensure they get into a sales call, confident, calm, and focused on the customer:

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EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

2019 Workshop Schedule- REGISTER TODAY

  • Feb 19 & 20 Sales & Management Summit Toronto, ON
  • April 10- Full day sales workshop Denver
  • April 16 & 17- Sales and Management Summit Vancouver
  • May 21 & 22-Sales and Management Summit Washington DC
  • May 23- Full day sales workshop Newark
  • Aug 16 – Full Dales workshop Los Angeles
  • Aug 23- Full day sales workshop Calgary
  • Aug 27- Full day Sales workshop San Antonio
  • Oct 3 & 4- Sales and Management Summit Chicago
  • Dec 12 & 13- Sales and Management Summit Charlotte

SALES MANAGER FORUM

We have 3 open spots for our third year in this highly sought out group of 12 Sales Managers, meeting three times yearly for two days of intensive, deep dive on all issues of Sales Management. More info available at https://jackdaly.net/sales-manager-forum/; if interested to see if you qualify, reach out to [email protected] or call 888-298-6868. Be prepared to get “Jack’dUp”.

168 by Jack Daly

It’s a number we should all know and protect. Each week we all began with the same amount, 168 hours. Some of us are getting way more out of our 168 than others. A few tips on how to optimize yours:

a. Focus on high payoff activities (HPA’s). Our estimate is that sales people are spending less than 50% of their time on activities that generate business. Identify those activities that do (HPA’s), and get rid of all else. Either have someone else do the non HPA’s; outsource them from the company; or, just stop doing them.

b. Know what your hourly rate is. Even a 100% commission only sales rep has an hourly rate. Just keep track of how many hours you work on a day to day basis; add them up for the month; take the money earned for the month and divide by the hours for your hourly rate. Just knowing the rate will help you change your behavior in how you invest your time. Either getting off the phone quicker, making sure meetings go quickly or not held at all, and keener focus on HPA’s will generate increased business!

c. Hire an assistant (or more than one).

d. For every YES, say NO a minimum of 4 times.

e. Rather than working from a “to do” list, work from your calendar on an appointment basis, similar to a Doctor’s day.

Start being the person other’s remark about how you get so much done in a day!

Here is what our Clients have said about Jack...

Have you attended one of Jack Daly’s sales workshops or seen one of Jack’s keynotes? We’d love to hear from you! Let us know!