He inquired if I could help him?

I asked, “How much time did he spend prospecting each week?”

He said,  “Maybe an hour on Friday afternoons, my important work for the week has been completed.”

I explain he had his priorities misaligned and he needed to put prospecting had the head of list each week. I suggested he set in his Outlook calendar or Google calendar a block of specific time and day that is sacred with no interruptions. Do not answer incoming calls, respond to emails, answer your door – just hunker down and prospect.

In today’s market place sales professionals must spend 20 – 50% of their waking hours filling their pipe line with new leads that turn into appointments and eventually become full fledge prospects and ultimately result in a sale.

There is no easy way around it!

If you are an owner, sales manager or sales professional focus on getting more appointments and keeping your sales funnel full of new opportunities.

This flow of potential customers will determine your success or failure in achieving your sales goals.  It’s not the big wins but the day to day wins that will will be the foundation for a solid sales pipeline. www.nealabc.com

Price has never been excluded from the equation. Perhaps there was a little less emphasis in the past, but always lurking near the surface.

Although we are in the most difficult economy in our lifetime hasn’t it always been about price, value and relationships?

Sales professionals can become pessimistic allowing the customer and themselves to obsess over price. World class sales professionals continue to dig deep and wide looking for opportunities to creatively bring value, innovation, cost reduction, and relationships to the sales process.

As owners, sales managers, and sales professionals we must all look introspectively and resist the tendency to fall prey to the price mantra.

Do you believe in your goods or services? If so challenge yourself to find the differentiators. Price will has always been and will always remain relative!  www.nealabc.com

Generating leads and following up on them is a tedious job yet a fundamental requirement for world class sales performance. Warm leads are precious and the process to turn them into initial appointments and true prospects needs to be consistent.

As the CEO or VP of Sales are you aware of the number of leads your sales people process each day, week, or month? Can you identify where the leads come from and how timely they are followed up on?

Statistics demonstrate that all too often sales people do not have enough leads at any one point in time to keep the pipeline filled; thus they have gaps or voids in the flow of legitimate prospects. Another critical issue is frequently sales professionals don’t follow up on “hot” leads in a timely fashion and loose the majority to competition.

Keeping your sales force focused on consistently generating leads and tracking their status via a CRM is one of the single most important task management can provide.   www.nealabc.com