During a sales slump: Part 1

Seven Deadly Sales Sins (and how to avoid them)

While the economy improves we are still in a tough selling climate. Many businesses find themselves stuck in a sales slump, and don’t know how to get out. John Glennon of Sandler Training in the BC Interior, helps businesses with just that problem.

“Many businesses are paralyzed in today’s difficult environment. They don’t have a system for success or forget what they actually know, and are merely reactive,” says Glennon, “This time can actually be a period of profit and productivity, but you must avoid knee jerk reactions that will keep your company in a rut.” Glennon offers these seven deadly sales sins to avoid now and forever:

1. Abandon your sales procedures. When sales slow down many businesses panic, forget what they know and start throwing ideas against the wall to see what sticks. They jump from activity to activity, neglecting their sales process. Stop there. A sales process tells you exactly what needs to happen in order to complete a sale. Imagine an emergency room. When a patient comes into triage the hospital doesn’t try multiple check-in procedures and leave their process to chance, or things would be chaos. There are procedures and orderly steps that need to be taken every single time in order to correctly treat a patient. The same is true in sales.

2. Focus on revenue only. If you want to frustrate a sales team, only focus on numbers. What you really need to consider is revenue and behaviors. To achieve your sales goal, your business needs to know which behaviors need take place in order to provide favorable sales results.

3. Stop prospecting. If you want to lose long-term sales, try focusing only on your current customers. When a business gets to a certain size, employees feel like they can relax are past needing to prospect. Don’t fall for this trap. Very few people like to prospect. You don’t have to like it; you just have to do it. While it is important not to neglect your existing customers, you always need to be on the lookout for new customers in anticipation of the peaks and valleys throughout the year.

Join us in two weeks for the final 4 sins.

John Glennon is the owner of Insight Sales Consulting Inc, the authorized Sandler Training Licensee for the Interior of British Columbia. He can be reached at [email protected], toll free at 1-866-645-2047 or view his website at www.glennon.sandler.com

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.