Accentuate the Positive
If you've noticed the economy
is less than ideal, you're paying attention. You may have also noticed
that salespeople have responded differently to the challenge. Here's how
one successful manager is doing her part to keep her staff and herself
motivated to succeed with their selling challenges.
Your
attitude sells. In today's bad economy it's easy to hear
doom and gloom. It's also easy to keep passing it along in the
conversations you have with your customers. It's also too easy to keep
focusing on negatives when you sell. Another approach is to choose to look
at a situation from a positive point of view.
Jill Almaguer is the
District Sales Manager for Wireless Equipment Manufacturers for Agilent
Technologies (http://www.agilent.com/). Her team was
trying to sell to a past customer who happened to be very interested in
Agilent's competition. Agilent's competition had an advantage. The
customer was giving Agilent's competition more time than Agilent to be
considered. Instead of approaching the customer with a negative attitude,
Mrs. Almaguer coached her staff to look at the positive. Instead of
complaining about the unfair advantage that their competition had, Ms.
Almaguer asked her staff to think of how the customer had benefited from
working in the past with Agilent. This was going to be the subject of the
sales call. They would focus on the benefits Agilent brought to the
customer and ask for another opportunity to work together on the new
project. They would emphasize past accomplishments and look to the future
to do more.
Her customer will
appreciate her strategy. Who wants to hear one more example of what
they've been doing wrong? It's stressful for you and your customers when
you focus only on the negative outcomes of what you're doing. Instead,
take advantage of the opportunities to show them what is working well.
Get rid of more negatives. It's stressful
selling in a slow economy. You should not be adding to the stresses. You
can eliminate time wasters that reduce your productivity. Mrs. Almaguer
notices that she is more productive when she organizes certain tasks
together. She says, "I try to return my calls in one block of time. I also
block out time for my e-mail. I read and reply at once and I notice it
saves me time rather than reading a few e-mails and going back later."
Think of the activities you're doing throughout the day and see if you
could save time by working them in a block of time.
Also examine what is taking
up most of your free time. If it's television, ask yourself if the time
investment is paying you returns. If you need to catch the news, ask
yourself if you can get it in your car to and from work or from a
newspaper? If you set some goals on how you want to spend your time, you
may avoid getting into the traps of some of the time wasters. By making
the time for what you want to do, you'll have less time to fill with empty
activities like television. Goals can also serve as a source of motivation
during difficult times.
This isn't the first time
we've had slow times and it won't be the last. As a salesperson it's your
job to keep your customer focused on their performance in the future. What
better time is it than now for them to buy your products or services? When
the economy quickly rebounds, as it often does, you can make sure your
customers are ready to keep up the pace.
Maura Schreier-Fleming is president of
Best@Selling (http://www.bestatselling.com/).
She works with business and sales professionals at company and trade
association meetings to make selling easier and more productive. She is
the author of the book Real-World
Selling for Out-of-this-World Results. She can be reached at 972
380 0200 or info@BestatSelling.com.
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