Jul/090
Sales Professional Time Allocation
Time is money!
All sales professionals have the same amount of time to sell (24hrs/7 days a week)? How they spend their precious time can make a big difference.
According to a survey conducted by CSO (Chief Sales Officer Insights) only 35.7% of the average sales person’s time is spent in face to face selling. Arguably the most important use of a sales professional’s time allocation.
Certainly there are other tasks: administration, quote preparation, generating leads, meetings, etc. that require an expenditure of time.
Are you aware and monitor where your and your team’s time is spent? Do you condone where the time is spent? Do you coach sales professionals to increase valuable face to face selling time?
One obvious area to examine is the use of technology (CRMs, laptops, cell phones, webinars, etc.) to reduce manual processes, thus increasing face to face sales time. www.nealabc.com
Jul/090
Know Your Customer’s Perspective
Most entrepreneurs, CEOs, and sales managers focus internally on their products or services and try to figure out how to make them more appealing to a customer.
This product “pushing” mentality, at least from the seller’s perspective is not in concert with today’s consultative sales approach. Customers want to engage in problem solving vs. product flash.
As a result, knowing your customer from their perspective is the only perspective that counts.
Management needs to help their sales professionals understand customer’s wants and needs both present and future. This requires more of an inquisitive approach, asking more probing questions and understanding the customer’s entire business proposition.
This macro view allows specific products or services to create more value when connected to the customer’s situation. www.nealabc.com