Category Archives for "Sales Management"

In this article, leading Sales Expert Andy Preston explains why most salespeople and business owners struggle to convert their sales opportunities….. and often end up ‘warming’ up business for their competition…….……Continue reading

In this article, leading Sales Expert Andy Preston explains 7 simple ways that enable you to get (and stay) well ahead of your competitors this year….. and what you need to be doing to ensure customers are coming to you, rather than going to your competition…..Continue reading

In this article, leading Sales Expert Andy Preston explains what the successful sales leaders and salespeople are implementing right now to make sure they have a great year this year!….Continue reading

In this article, leading sales expert Andy Preston talks about the problem of Poor Prospecting, and how to spot if any of your team are guilty of it……Continue reading

In the ‘Sales Failure!’ series, leading Sales Expert Andy Preston takes real-life examples of ineffective selling, and uses them as tools to learn how you can avoid the same mistakes, and what to do instead to improve your own sales results….Continue reading

In this article, leading Sales Expert Andy Preston explains how to take the incoming enquiries you get for your business….. and turn more of them into orders…..Continue reading

In this article, leading Sales Expert Andy Preston talks about the death of Account Management… and in particular, how many Sales Leaders failure to recognise this vital point – and how this then causes problems in their sales process, their recruitment process and how it negatively impacts on the activity, behaviour and ultimately the sales figures of their sales team!….. Continue reading

In this article, leading Sales Expert Andy Preston explains why you’re not currently converting enough enquiries into customers…..and what you can do about it to get the results you deserve……..

One of the things I’m noticing at the moment is that businesses aren’t converting enough of their sales leads into business. Let’s face it, if someone has taken the trouble to enquire with you, then you should be getting a high conversion rate from that, right? That isn’t always happening right now.

In addition, many companies right now have what I would call ‘non-salespeople’ doing activities that would be traditionally handled by a salesperson. This may be due to things bring ‘tight’, a new focus on ‘new business’, staff leaving (or being made redundant), so their activities now get passed to other people.

What Do I Mean By ‘Non-Salespeople?’

This means for example in some cases that marketing staff are making cold calls for appointments, customer service staff are making outbound sales calls and the worst thing ever – admin staff are taking incoming sales enquiries!!!

Think about it. You’ve paid all that money for advertising, networking, marketing, or whatever lead generation method you use to ‘earn’ that sales enquiry. Then the person taking it has little or no sales ability, little or no training in what’s needed to convert it into a sale, and has no idea how much business they could be losing through their lack of understanding!

How scary is that? Even people employed in a sales role don’t always handle sales enquiries as well as they could, so what chance has a ‘non salesperson’ got?

So, below are some reasons why you’re currently not converting as many sales enquiries as you could be – and what you can do to get them back on track!

Reason Number 1 – You Don’t Respond Quickly Enough

For any incoming sales enquiry right now, responding could mean the difference between you converting that enquiry into a customer, and missing out on the business to one of your competitors.

Right now, people have more choice than ever before, and more companies are desperate for their business than ever before – so are you prepared to let one of your competitors get business that could have been yours?

Ask yourself – how fast do you currently get back to your sales enquiries? And then, how could you speed that up?

Reason Number 2 – You Only Take The ‘Specification’

This is another example of poor handling of a sales call. This is where the person taking the incoming sales enquiry only asks questions that get the specification, or the details that they need in order to quote for the work.

Bizarrely, this is what most companies train the staff responsible for taking the sales enquiries to do! So those staff give a quotation without asking anything about buying motivation, current supplier, other quotes, buying timescales or other information that would help them secure the business.

It’s almost like the business equivalent of giving a quotation, crossing their fingers, clicking their heels together 3 times and ‘hoping’ that the person rings them back to place the order!! Is that really the way we want to treat those precious sales enquiries in the current business climate?

Reason Number 3 – You Fail To Qualify The Opportunity Properly

Another thing that seems to get missed when staff are handling sales enquiries is understanding the full cope of the potential opportunity. This has been made worse by the customer service people and poor sales trainers in the past that have banged on about ‘you must treat every customer the same’. What a load of old rubbish!!

Should a printing company treat differently a customer who buys £50 worth of business cards once a year, compared to a company that spends £25,000 on their annual print requirements? Of course they should! Now of course both customers should receive good service, but would you want to ask different questions of these 2 different enquiries? Would your sales process change based on their potential spend? Would you service the account differently? Of course you would!

The problem is, you need to qualify the potential opportunity first – so start doing it!

Reason Number 4 – You Don’t Take Control Of The Situation

Another mistake most people make is that they don’t control the situation properly. Once the potential customer has put the phone down (or walked out of the shop in a retail context) – if you haven’t defined or agreed the ‘next steps’, you’ve just lost control of the sales situation.

If you just give them your quotation, or hand/send them your literature and then leave them to their own devices, they’re probably going to buy somewhere else, or not at all! If they’ve bothered to take the time to call you, send an enquiry over the internet, or arrive in your showroom then right now is the opportunity. Not tomorrow, not the day after, not next week – but right now.

So if you can’t take advantage of this opportunity, then you have to define the ‘next steps’, what will happen in what sequence and get them ‘locked in’ to you, rather than letting them go off ‘shopping’ and comparing prices with you and the competition – or against their existing supplier!

Reason Number 5 – You Don’t Follow Up

There is no excuse for this! ‘I was too busy’ doesn’t cut it. ‘I got caught up in other things’ doesn’t cut it. ‘Well they’d come back to me if they wanted it, wouldn’t they?’ is just plain stupid!

If you’ve bothered to take the enquiry in the first place, and weren’t able to convert them into a customer on that occasion, yet you know they’re interested enough in what you do to have enquired in the first place, why on earth wouldn’t you bother to follow it up?

If you’re guilty of this one, you might as well email over all your sales enquiries to your competition, because you’re giving them the business as it is! Follow up each enquiry quickly, and secure the business for you and your company, rather than giving it to someone else!

Follow the tips above and watch your sales soar! I look forward to hearing how you get on……..

I was booked to speak at a client conference recently on the Vaal River, on the border of the Free State in South Africa. It was my first trip to the Vaal River, a very beautiful part of South Africa.

It’s always interesting when I work with clients that sell through Channel Partners, rather than selling direct to the end client themselves. Selling as a Channel Partner has some distinct differences than when you’re selling your own products and services.

So here are some tips on Selling as a Channel Partner.

(Note: These tips are based on you being the Channel Partner yourself – if you’re the Vendor interested in how I work with clients who ‘sell through the channel’, then please contact me here…)

Andy’s Sales Tip Number 1 – Don’t Be Afraid To Lean On The Vendor Where Possible!

This is the bit where most Channel Partners go wrong – right at the beginning! Don’t be afraid to lean on the Vendor if necessary! Most will be only too happy to help!

Most vendors will be only too happy to support their Channel Partners. Whether that’s with face-to-face joint visits, telephone or marketing support.

It’s often a good idea to ‘wheel in’ the vendor to face-to-face meetings, to add some ‘firepower’ and gravitas to your own organisation.It can also help when there are multiple people attending from the potential client, and there’s only one or two of you!

Plus, and documentation and marketing material is likely to be better produced by the vendor in most cases, and therefore gives a more favourable impression to the client, and increases your chance of winning the business! So don’t be afraid to lean on the vendor where you can!

Andy’s Sales Lesson Number 2 – Don’t Forget To Sell Yourself However!

Even though it’s a good idea to lean on the vendor when you can, that doesn’t mean you can forget about selling yourself!

You still need to get across to the prospect why they should work with YOU! Especially if you are pitching against other agents/channel partners for the same vendor as you! Or similar offerings from a different vendor/partner.

You need to establish YOUR credibility. Why they should choose you over the other people wanting the work. Your experience. Your expertise. Make yourself and what you’re offering irresistible (or as close as possible to!)

And the more potential suppliers the prospect is looking at, the more important this is!

Andy’s Sales Lesson Number 3 –Stay In Control

Staying in control isn’t easy in Sales. Especially when you’re a channel partner, and involving your vendor now has 3 parties involved in the sales situation!

You still need to take responsibility for taking control and guiding the sales process however. The vendor is there to assist you, not to replace you! They shouldn’t be taking over the sales process, you should still be leading and controlling it!

You need to control the sales process. Where you are at.
What the next step is. What you need to do to get there.
And gain commitment from the prospect to going there too.

Follow the tips above and start to sell like a Stand-Out Salesperson!

Andy talks about Credibility (filmed ‘on the road’ next to the Vaal River, South Africa)

How important is credibility in Sales? Business credibility and also personal credibility? And how do we increase it?

Andy’s Global Sales Tips are filmed on Andy’s travels on whatever equipment is close to hand! Be that Phone, iPad, DSLR or whatever. We’ve gone for ‘quality of information’ over ‘quality of video’ in most cases.

More professional quality videos and clips are on other videos of Andy elsewhere. This is about quality of information and speed.

The video below is a YouTube video. If you are one of our clients that has YouTube blocked, there is a Vimeo version below that, that you should be able to see.
Contact us here if you have any problems accessing these. Enjoy!

For those of you that have YouTube blocked on your computers, there is a Vimeo version below too. Again, contact us here if you have any problems accessing these.