Do you reinvent the wheel on each sales call?

If you are an inexperienced sales person or even a longtime sales veteran, you may become frustrated with your sales because it seems like every sales call/meeting is completely different. This is one of the things I hated about selling. I felt out of control and struggled with finding new prospects, tried to sell current contacts and usually delivered long thought out and well designed proposals. What a waste of time! Especially when each time was different in how we approached the sale.

Boy did those days suck! Although, I knew a lot of companies that needed my help, I used to try and drag them kicking and screaming to convert them to my way of thinking. Obviously this never works. So I reached a time, after doing this for years and years, that I decided there had to be a better way.

I started doing research on how to create a sales system or process. I knew that if I had a routine I followed on each and every sale, I would get closer to closing a deal with time and I would have something that I could consistently improve. The problem was I sucked at sales and so creating my own sales system was a big challenge. I searched google, amazon, barnes and noble and the like to find solutions in this area, with very little luck.

I ran across Emyth and took some of their courses because they are the “systems” company. Although, I highly recommend Emyth as a business related resource, I did not get the skills to develop a sales system from the small training package I went through.

A few years later, I met Rick Roberge of Kurlan Associates. Kurlan uses a sales system called Baseline Selling, following baseball concepts. You know… go to first, then to second, then to third, then run home to score (close a deal). This was an easy to remember and use system that you could nearly use a check list to make sure you hit each step before moving on. Wow, what a change! Here’s how it played out: Step one was to do a sales evaluation. Then we moved onto training and weekly coaching working on my weaknesses. In 3-6 months things started clicking and within the first year I tripled my revenue.

This success happened partly because of the sales system and partly because of the ongoing commitment to changing my bad habits and turning them into new and better habits. This system was, what I would have called, costly when I started but looking back it was the best investment I have made in my company. Today, I am partnering with Rick Roberge to help others solve issues like this. If you are tired of dealing with some of the issues I have mentioned or you have your own sales issues, I would invite you to check out a webinar we are rolling out next week focused on the alignment of sales and marketing. Check it out and I hope to see you there!