The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

We all know how difficult it can be to set an appointment with a prospect these days, and the last thing we would want to do is let that appointment slip away after making multiple contacts in order to secure it.

The question always seems to come up about whether a salesperson should confirm that appointment before making the call or not. I have sales professionals who argue on both sides of the question.

So, let’s compare the reasons for confirming or not confirming.

In the past media sales organizations employed a tried and true approach to solving dips in revenue. Here’s a summary of the approach: 

When revenue is down, develop a product, service, or tactic, and sell more!

Unfortunately, these days this approach is more tired and untrue than tried and true.

Selling more is not the solution to the current challenges faced by media organizations because it’s a new day, and it is not filled with rainbows and unicorns. The declines faced by media sales organizations today are consistent enough to be called the new reality!

- MOTIVATION -

"THE MOST UNPROFITABLE ITEM EVER MANUFACTURED IS AN EXCUSE"

-JOHN MASON

- AROUND THE WEB -

<< If you only read one thing >>

Disqualifying Prospects: 50+ Sales Leaders Share Their Best Methods — Sales Hacker

• Identify
• Select
• Discover
• Advise
• Close

… just to hear "NO!"

What Happens When a Client or Prospect says NO? What’s Next?

This is the last video of the three-part series on time management. In the first video, I touched on how to identify and eliminate distractions that are getting in the way of your productivity. In the second video, I talked about ways you can prioritize and organize all of the various tasks and goals that you need to accomplish—both at work and at home—to create that work-life balance. 

Today, I'm going to talk more about what Hubspot says takes up 13 hours of our week on average: EMAIL. 

We need email. It's not like we can do without it altogether. It's essential in our business communication, and many of us rely on it for our personal communications as well. So, what can you do to help minimize distractions by email alone to help you with time management?

- MOTIVATION -

"SUCCESS IS WALKING FROM FAILURE TO FAILURE WITH NO LOSS OF ENTHUSIASM"

-WINSTON CHURCHILL

- AROUND THE WEB -

<< If you only read one thing >>

How a Multi-Channel Approach to Prospecting Influenced 73% of our Sales Pipeline — Hubspot

We all have needs, and those needs drive us to spend time and money addressing them. In sales, we count on the needs of our prospects and clients to motivate them to buy. For decades, it has been a good sales process to focus on client needs. Needs are good, but they are not the complete picture.

Learning about client needs used to set the better salespeople apart from the package pushers.

On a personal level, we don’t focus on our needs to solve a problem. We focus on what we want. When we’re hungry, we focus on getting food, when we’re tired we focus on getting some sleep, and if we need to hit a goal this quarter, we focus on getting the next sale.

Selling a new target account is not an easy task. Many things have to fall in place—here’s a list of some of the obstacles:

• Selecting a quality prospect.
• Developing the trust of the prospect.
• Getting an appointment.
• Conducting a needs analysis that leads to an opportunity (and cash).
• Developing a solution robust enough to get results, yet not so large it scares away the prospect.
• Overcoming objections.
• Closing the deal! 

Getting a renewal from a new customer starts with getting results on the initial campaign, and using a campaign launch brief will set you up to increase your renewals before your clients’ campaigns even kick off.

Today, I'm sharing part 2 of this 3-part series on time management. The first topic I touched on was distractions and helping to identify your own distractions to minimize those that are costing you the most productivity in the workplace.

Today, I want to talk about organization, and primarily, prioritization, and how this can benefit you both at home and at work. 

At The Center for Sales Strategy, LeadG2, and Up Your Culture, we are firm believers in work-life balance. It's extremely important to the health of the organization and to your health as an individual contributor to the organization. It benefits you to maintain that work-life balance, and make sure you're creating that organization and prioritization on both sides of the equation.