joe zente,z3,zthree,tab,tab austin,the alternative board,grow your sales,sales performance,double your profit

In a few moments, I will share a secret that will allow you to grow your sales and double your profit in less than one year. I am consistently amazed at the incredibly small percentage of people that know this secret. The secret is simple to execute, requires no financial investment and will save you tons of time. 

For most people, the easiest (and most comfortable) parts of selling are:

• Giving Presentations

• Creating Proposals

• Offering Product Demos

• Talking about your Company Benefits and Advantages

• Attempting to Demonstrate Value

• Providing References

• Lunches, Happy-hours and Golfing with Prospects

• Research, email and other electronic communication

• Visiting with Peers

Some salespeople also love to hang out at networking, aka: not working, events.

Although these comfortable activities are preferred and enjoyable for most people, they are also the least important, differentiated and effective part of selling. In the minds of Buyers, these activities are also the most boring. They are commodities.

In order to talk, present, and demonstrate, one requires knowledge - knowledge of your company, product, industry, competition and more. Companies invest billions every year training their salespeople to become experts on their products, benefits, and industry.  Training takes time. Talking takes time. Demos take time. Creating proposals takes time. 

Time = Money. Expensive money. Goodbye Profit.

I’m not disparaging training. In fact, I’m a huge fan of training, the right kind of training.  I’m simply sharing some obvious observations regarding proportionality. Product training, client training, demos and presentations are highly over-rated; they create ineffective behavior and cost companies dearly.

If you could create the same volume of sales in half the time, what would happen to your margins? Also, how much additional (high margin) revenue could you create with the additional time you saved?

Over the course of my career, I’ve managed, trained and coached many thousands of salespeople and business owners, and I meet many new ones each week. When we meet and discuss their selling approach, I quickly learn that some use a selling process, but most don’t. I also quickly learn that just about every one spends 2 to 5 times as much time and money on generating a sale than is necessary. By focusing on the activities they know and like, versus the effective activities that create trust, credibility, differentiation and results, they dramatically diminish their sales growth and profit.

I promised to share the profit secret, so here goes…

When it comes to selling: Stop Being the Expert and Shut-Up.  

If you want to grow your sales and keep more profit, focus on this Effective Selling List:

• Stop being the expert. Start making the prospect the expert.

• Stop talking. Start listening.

• Stop convincing. Start learning.

• Stop visiting with peers. Start visiting with decision makers.

• Stop presenting. Start understanding.

Great salespeople and owners understand that these are key activities that lead to effective selling and superior performance.

Please notice that nothing on this list requires product knowledge or experience. Every one of these activities requires less time, less training, and fewer resources than the previous, comfortable list of ineffective activities.

Challenge each person on your team to place their fears and ego aside and to replace expertise and convincing with child-like curiosity, integrity and sincerity. Start today!

Less time, more sales, increased profit.

Happy Hunting,

Joe 

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2014.   All Rights Reserved.