Guest Column: Accelerate Sales Now: Four Powerful Steps

Guest Column: Accelerate Sales Now: Four Powerful Steps

Bill Zipp is a member of my global Private Roster Mentor Program.

Accelerate Sales Now: Four Powerful Steps

by Bill Zipp

“Russia,” Winston Churchill once said, “is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” The same could be said by the typical business leader when it comes to understanding sales. Most view it as some magical world of superstars and rainmakers and are held hostage by these so-called magicians, who, more often than not, fail to pull a rabbit out of the hat. The end result is inconsistent revenue generation and limited business growth.

The truth is, sales is not magic. Like production, accounting, and customer service, sales is a process that can be recorded and tracked. And since it can be recorded and tracked, it can also be improved. Dramatically. Here are four sales accelerators that solve this riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Use them to grow your business in the new year, or, if you are a business consultant, to help your clients grow their business.

ACCELERATOR ONE: Strategic Sales Triggers

Most salespeople approach one account one way and another account in a totally different way, with no rhyme or reason for each. This lack of a defined sales process creates gross inconsistencies and severely limits revenue generation. From first contact with a prospect to satisfied customer, your company’s sequence of sales events must be written down step by step. And, like a great recipe, it must be worked, re-worked, and worked again until it’s perfect.

This, however, is not what will accelerate sales. Here’s what will. Analyze your sales process and look for places where the buyer can take action in it. That’s right, the buyer. In most sales interactions sellers take all the action until it’s time to close, and then the buyer is asked to act. This is wrong-headed. At every stage of the sales process there should be specific, reasonable steps of action a buyer is asked to take that leads logically to the close. These steps are what I call sales triggers.

Here’s how triggers accelerate sales. First, by taking action as soon as possible and not  just at the close of the sale, buyers become engaged with your products and services and, as a result, are much more likely to purchase them. As they become engaged with your products and services, your competitors’ options become less attractive because they’ve had a real, tangible experience with you. Third, buying objections are minimized because you’ve been dealing with them little by little with each trigger and not as one big roadblock at the end of the sale. And fourth, time in the sales funnel is dramatically reduced because buyers are actively involved in the process, driving it with you.

Additionally, by asking your buyers to do something, not just say something, you learn how serious they are about actually buying. Sales conversations are rife with politically correct statements made by buyers to sellers so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings. Sales triggers eliminate this silliness. If a buyer does not take a reasonable action that you request as part of the buying process, you learn something about their true intentions, freeing you to pursue more viable opportunities, also accelerating sales.

Effective sales triggers are varied and creative. Here are some proven ideas: a graphic artist asking a buyer to start a clip file of logos they like, a leadership consultant conducting an up-front assessment, a software provider offering free downloads and complementary training in using the software. A sales trigger could even be a low or moderately priced item, like a book, a teleseminar, or a set of rendered drawings, that leads logically to a larger sale. In this way you actually get paid for marketing to your economic buyer.

ACCELERATOR TWO: Train to Your Sales Triggers

It’s not enough to have sales triggers in place, all your sellers must be trained in using them so they are executed flawlessly. This is where most sales training goes awry. Whenever I am asked by a client to provide sales training, the first question out of my mouth is, “Tell me about your triggers.” Why? Because sales training that’s not focused on helping salespeople move buyers through the process by their taking action is a profound waste.

Effective sales training, then, begins with analysis of the sales process and the strategic steps of action buyers need to take to keep them engaged. Generic, off the shelf sales training, or sales training with a predetermined system irrespective of your process, just will not do. You’re wasting your time and you’re wasting your money. Effective sales training continues by practicing the talk tracks that motivate buyers to take the actions being asked of them. In most cases this will mean handling objections, albeit small at first, with grace and firmness. And, finally, effective sales training stays the course until your triggers are fully mastered, not jumping to the flavor of the month that the sales industry produces en masse.

ACCELERATOR THREE: Market to Your Sales Triggers

Let’s be honest, marketing and sales rarely work together. They live in two different worlds, the artists and the hunters of the tribe. In some companies they’re mortal enemies. What a waste! While marketing and sales are different professional disciplines, for the sake of your business’ health, they must get married and they must get along. The fact of the matter is, sales needs marketing. Sellers without good marketers struggle to get first appointments and waste valuable time on labor-intensive outbound activities (known as cold calls). Not only that, but marketing that is coordinated with established sales triggers keeps buyers fully engaged in the process, and, as a result, closes more sales.

And that’s the role of marketing, to bring qualified leads into the sales pipeline and to keep them there until the deal gets done. Every dollar spent on it must be evaluated by this criteria: did it increase sales? Millions of marketing dollars are wasted every year trying to make companies look hip, cool, and funky in the mind of the general public. Don’t do it. Know exactly who your economic buyer is and exactly what grabs their attention. Talk to them honestly and authentically, and they’ll return the favor. Then spend the rest of of your marketing money on keeping your current customers satisfied, generating even more sales through referral business.

ACCELERATOR FOUR: Forecast from Your Sales Triggers

Most businesses, if they look at their financials at all, use lagging indicators instead of leading indicators to determine their financial health. That is, they rely on what’s happened in the past and not what’s going to happen in the future to run their company. That would be like driving a car by looking at the rear view mirror instead of through the windshield. Well-defined sales triggers change all that. It allows you to create accurate forecasting formulas based on a percentage grade given to the trigger multiplied by the dollar size of a deal in the pipeline. For instance, a $10,000 deal with a client who’s completed an informational webinar may receive a 75% grade, or $7,500 of forecast revenue.

When you do this consistently for every trigger and every deal in your pipeline, over time you develop extremely accurate sales forecasting formulas. You also remove subjectivity from the forecasting process. You’ve heard words like this a thousand times, “I just know this deal will close. I’ve got a good feeling about it!” Good feelings are not the basis for running a business. Either a buyer has taken action or they have not, that’s what moves them along in the process. End of discussion.

Using formulas like this, I have a client who knows 60 days from now within 5-10% what sales revenue will come in to his company. This is powerful information. He used to know just the last week of the month what monies were coming in and couldn’t do anything about it. Now he can manage inventory when sales are high and allocate resources to meet demand. He can also adjust when sales are low and ameliorate its impact on the business. An accurate sales forecast based on well-defined sales triggers provides an important leading indicator to run your business and accelerate sales. Like taking your blood pressure or knowing your pulse at resting, it’s one of the vital signs that can help you monitor your company’s financial health.

Bill Zipp is an expert on the growth of small and medium-sized companies. Bill helps these firms become thriving, successful organizations by sharpening their focus on strategic essentials, expanding their leadership capacity, and accelerating sales. You can listen to his weekly podcast, Zipp on Sales at http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bill-zipp/id478985121, and read his business blog at http://www.billzipp.com/blog.