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The Sales Buzz Issue 216 - Selling Time – Use it more effectively
October 30, 2013
Hi,

Selling Time – Use it more effectively

As a sales professional you only have a limited amount of selling time, a limited number of minutes in each day available to you for you to sell.

So the big question is: How do you make the most of your selling time.

The first answer to that question that I give to my sales teams is:

Target the prospects that you have the most chance of winning.

That simple statement may at first appear easy to follow and so obvious that you may be tempted to move off the page, but take a minute and think about this...

Like most sales people is your day full, is all your selling time taken up with sales activity, could you use some free time to increase your sales. This is the case with many sales people, let me give you an example.


One of my sales team has a really full diary. He’s dealing with loads of potential customers and as a result I think he is working too hard and needs to focus on the ones he can win.

He recently spent a lot of time on a large prospect that had a simple service.

He visited the site, assessed the prospect’s needs, had more meetings, and then presented his sales proposal.

After all that work, and time, he was beaten by a competitor who was prepared to provide this simple service at a much, lower price than we could.

His time would have been better spent on customers he had more chance of winning.

See where he went wrong...


So where did he go wrong?

Because the sales prospect wanted a simple service this opportunity did not play to our company strengths. Our position in the market place is that of a company that can provide intricate and complex services tailor made to the customer’s exact needs.

So while a simple straightforward proposal looks like an easy target for the sales person it is not always the best target prospect to invest their selling time on.


The problem with low hanging fruit is that everyone else can reach it and will be going for it at the same time.


Using your selling time more effectively

The sales training I give my teams presents ideas on using their selling time more effectively by targeting prospects that play to our strengths. I don’t want sales people wearing themselves out by working long hours.

I don’t want sales people working on too many prospects because they are trying to win every opportunity they see.

What I do want are my sales people targeting the prospects that we know we have a good chance of winning because their needs match our strengths.


Follow this sales training tip and make more use of your selling time:

Identify your strengths

Make a list of what you are good at. The company I work with are weak at the simple end of the market because we offer a quality service and our competitors who don’t can beat us on price. Our strengths are at the high end of the market where we act as a consultant for the customer and offer good after sales account management.

What are your company strengths?

It would be unusual if you were strong in all sectors of your market. So who are your target prospects, where should you invest your selling time?

What are you good at, and what sort of customer benefits? Is it high end or low end, complicated or simple, close by or international, custom made or off the shelf, take your time and identify your strengths.

See more sales training on the selling process on our website at Sales Tips...







I'm Stephen Craine from the website Sales-Training-Sales-Tips.com

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