Breaking Records In Broke Times: Moving from Search Engine Saturation To Sales Domination
Breaking Records In Broke Times![200x200-laptop_money[1]](http://www.saleaccelerator.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/200x200-laptop_money1-150x150.jpg "200x200-laptop_money[1]")
11 Sensible Tips For Peak Sales Performance
Tip 1. Separate the industry being slow from you being slow. Only when times are slow in your specific business are you tempted to pay too much attention to the market. Keep yourself from being sucked into the crowd as this inhibits your ability to hold you or your team accountable for much of anything. When that happens you are being the effect of your market. You need to learn to be the cause not the effect if you’re going to flourish in down times.
Tip 2. Own the reality that market share is market share. In any given month more products and services are sold in the worst of markets than you have sold in your best month. How much market share would it take for you to be successful in a down time? You’ll find that if you do the math there is more hope than most would think. As long as there is a market to have a bigger share of there is a path to success.
Tip 3. Be comfortable taking market share. No one wants to see their competitor’s kid go to a crappy college because you cleaned their clock. Get comfortable with the idea and don’t just tell yourself you’re cool with it because most psychological evaluations of business owners show this to be a major issue. In our business we pick only one business per market area, declare our loyalty and then I go to work on the competition. Until I started asking about this hot button, I found that often businesses would actually feel bad about what I was doing to their buddies across and down the street. Science isn’t going to start experimenting with the idea of giving artificial birth to Test Tube Car Buying Babies anytime soon so get used to taking the market share you need.
Tip 4. Don’t use money to manipulate the sales staff into performing better. Believe it or not money is the least effective motivator in the world. Duty by contrast is the highest. Debate all you want and the facts are still the same. Ask anyone who has a career that puts their life at risk if they do it for the money and you’ll learn quickly that it just doesn’t stir the motivational Koolaid. When times are down and you’re trying to rally peak performance, you need to inspire a sense of duty, community and teamwork. Money will follow.
Tip 5. Leave the pay plan alone unless you’re positive it’s the right move. One of the most successful businesses I’ve ever seen or heard about changed his pay plan in 2001 during a dismal season. He changed a sales bonus level from 18 cars to 20. Within 72 hours he lost 90% of his top performing sales people, which lead to the managers and so on. 6 years later they still have not had a single month at the volume of their average month prior to the holocaust. Always remember the golden rule. Never ever mess with the pay plan in poor times.
Tip 6. Tap into your archive deals and orphan owners database like a keg at a frat house. Most businesses could live off this list for 2 years if they knew how to effectively work it.
Tip 7. Effectively handle your finance customers if you have them. During down times this is an area that can make all the difference but you have to approach it the right way. It’s not a quick fix and businesses that take the shot gun approach to financing can make a mess in a hurry.
Tip 8. Join a dang business 20 group! If your goal is to take yourself down any other road than the “business as our forefathers did it” path, then you need to be in a progressive business 20 group. I’m not talking about the factory groups. I’m talking about the cool kind. I’ve never met a business that was active in 20 groups that wasn’t successful and wise beyond their years. It’s a happy hour investment and just a common sense requirement in down times or any other time for that matter. A good 20 group defines the meaning of “I need you to help me to help you to help yourself.”
Tip 9. Mystery shop the competition personally and make it a requirement for everyone else. Remember that with low tides come low markets and low markets require more market share if your going to win. The biggest common sense key to getting started down the “club the competition” path is to put your self in a position to know exactly which club to use.
Tip 10. Know the truth about goal setting. A goal is typically a number you’ve never hit before or hit during certain conditions or during certain months etc. Most people look at goals as unattainable even if they’re not that lofty. The more the goal is glamorized the less chance you have of hitting it. It’s just one of those psychological things. So how do you hit the goal? Raise it. If you have a goal of hitting 200 units, raise it to 250 even if the store hasn’t come close. Launch a couple of initiatives and announce that 200 is just no longer an acceptable Super Bowl ring. Change all the internal promo and you’ll find that you hit your original goal much faster even in down times.
Tip 11. Remember most businesses that comprise your competition will be dealing with down times by over stressing the sales staff, which leads to anxiety, which in turn leads to poor performance. While they’re inside brow beating each other remember that the customers are outside and focus your efforts accordingly and you’ll win big.
