“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:
In our last column we looked at three of the Deadly Sales Sins (and how to avoid them) here are the next 4:
4. Eliminate marketing and advertising. When businesses see a decrease in sales, the first costs they tend to cut are marketing and advertising. That is a mistake. Now more than ever companies must create mindshare with customers and prospects. An often missed opportunity is simply following up on all leads that are generated through marketing. For instance, research shows that only 2 percent of leads at trade shows are followed up on. Simply following up on leads could allow you to come out of the slump stronger than your competitors.
5.Act like Hercules. If you really want to kill sales, create an atmosphere of learned helplessness. In fact, many sales managers do this and don’t even realize what they have done. The sales manager steps in and micro-manages the day-to-day processes of their sales teams to “save the day.” This tactic could backfire. Instead managers need to empower their sales people to close deals within parameters, and be responsible and accountable for their own progress.
6.Believe that you’re “past that.” If you want to drive a business into the ground, forget what you did that made the business successful. Remember what made clients and prospects fall in love with your company, then go back to that.
7.Stop planning for seasonal slowdowns. If you want to stay in a sales rut, don’t plan ahead for seasonal slowdowns. Leaders should anticipate months or times of year when sales trend down and feed the sales funnel before these occur. If you know your business will be slow during the holidays, feed your sales funnel now.
By avoiding these deadly sales sins you just may come out of 2012 stronger than ever.
About Sandler Training
Sandler Training is the leading provider of sales and management training with over 200 licensed trainers throughout the U.S. and internationally. The company provides a full range of sales and management training programs, with powerful coordination and customization benefits throughout its extensive franchise network. Among its many achievements, Sandler has been awarded the #1 ranking for training programs in Entrepreneur Magazine’s “Franchise 500” nine times since 1994, the most recent being for 2010. The company website is located at www.sandler.com
Copyright 2012 Sandler Training and Insight Sales Consulting Inc. All rights reserved.
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.