Doing sales is easy, right? What the heck is doing sales anyways? So many engineering type brains wonder: why do we pay sales-people? What do they do all day? The answer is: not much… just everything.
Losing at sales is easy. Make a call, get rejected, give up, repeat. Very few sales-people do this… so their day gets FILLED with NOT GIVING UP! That’s what you are paying the sales-person for: persistence.
Winning at sales is hard. I used to sell aerial photographs of peoples homes, now I’ve sold Killer NICs, Stock, and “the Karmaback viral marketing program”… each progressively harder. Here is a few of the things “I do all day”… and your sales-person should be doing too:
- Manage dozens/hundreds of contacts and leads: reaching out to them via email and phone to set up pitches, keep them updated, etc.
- Do 2 or 3 hour-long sales calls per day.
- Research existing leads before each call & email to be up to date on their business and products.
- Research new leads & beg friends for more leads.
- Build custom presentations & custom proposals & custom contracts for each lead & prospect.
- Learn/Practice everything about own company/products
- Beg for more assets, more demos, etc.
- ….I could go on and on….
In summary, Winning at Sales takes a Sales Dog! A hound that never gives up, never loses faith, always wags his tail, and works DAMN HARD!
It's all about the ability to take rejection and move one. As a great sales person once told me, "no" is the begining of the conversation.