During a recent coaching session with one of my clients, we discussed his sales team’s key behaviors and activities. Like most companies, their customers’ buying habits were heavily limited to procuring products only when necessary. Hmmm. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned how passionate I am about resolving sales-driven issues; my mind turns into a processor, and it’s very much “Assess, Strategize, and Resolve!”. My mental computations landed on one solution: forget reactive sales and practice proactive sales behavior. This topic covers a lot of ground, so this will be a two-part blog. Grab some coffee, and let’s process what this means together.
Proactive Sales for Auxiliary Products
As with most companies, this client’s product offerings were heavily limited to clients buying products only when necessary. In truth, most of their products are not required for the day-to-day operations of a business. They were, however, vital for fixing issues or problems that pop up unexpectedly.
What does this mean for their sales team? Should they channel Tom Cruise and Mission Impossible and rappel in their clients’ offices after hours to create havoc and mayhem to get calls? Yeah, definitely NOT. The challenge with this type of sales process is that reactive sales, sitting around and waiting for their clients to have some bad luck and then contacting them…is NOT sustainable.
A proactive sales strategy is the only way to go for auxiliary products. You can’t wait for the client to come to you; you’ve got to practice these three steps for success:
- Focus on critical proactive activities daily and weekly to be top of mind of those you serve.
- Be consistent and serve without expectation.
- Become the best at serving those customers.
Let’s break this down further below.
Focus On Key Proactive Activities Daily And Weekly
You may need to do some Mission Impossible maneuvers by doing some more reconnaissance on your clients and competitors within your industry. The mission you’ve been assigned, should you accept it, requires the following steps:
- Knowing who your key prospects or clients in your territory or vertical market segment are. Create a list and commit it to memory. This will guide your plan of attack.
- Create a daily and weekly schedule to visit those key people consistently with purposeful intent.
- Don’t just drop by if you have an existing relationship with them. Respect their time and schedule a meeting in advance. As simple as it is, this professional courtesy shows that you know their time and your time is important.
- If you’re not familiar with new targets, erm, I mean prospective customers, while en route to your preset appointments, drop by new prospects to introduce yourself. Focus on initiating a relationship, then follow up with a meeting request.
Here are some other tidbits I recommend you incorporate in your sales execution:
- I personally like to schedule all my meetings a week in advance. That way my current week is always full.
- Ask your current clients if they can introduce you to specific prospects should they be acquaintances.
- Understand that to successfully sustain hitting those high targets will require you to treat all of this as a daily and weekly system.
Be Consistent And Serve Value Without Expectation
The biggest issue with proactive behaviors and activities is that people habitually stop practicing the system once they start experiencing success. You cannot stop practicing the proactive sales system even when you are busy selling and taking orders.
NEVER listen to that little voice in your head that says, “I am too busy selling and taking orders now that I don’t have time to be proactive and visit my clients.” It’s self-sabotage of the highest order and will make your business go bust. Building a consistent relationship with your prospective and current clients and then serving them without expectation is the ONLY way to stay on top.
In next week’s post, I’ll run through a few tips and tricks to keep you on target.
Can’t wait to pick this up with you next week!
Sales professionals have to stay ahead of the game by widening their knowledge. Stop by my Amazon page to check out my bestselling books, The Sales Leaders Playbook and Serve Up, Coach Down.
