The holidays have begun…time to get stressed out…time for more anxiety on top of your job.
Even with all the planning and stress that planning adds around the holidays most can’t help but to think about what you are thankful for. You most likely have things that you are thankful for in your personal and professional lives. Here is what I am thankful for as a sales rep. Hope you get a good laugh 🙂
1. A one call close.
They don’t happen that often but they do happen. Keep your ears open and listen for signs in your calls that could lead you to qualify them quickly and get them in fast. I would say this happens to me about once a year…but hey it does happen!
2. A great teed up opportunity where your business development rep has done a great job qualifying the prospect.
Just like you would like a well qualified lead and appointment to help speed up the sales process, so would your business development rep. They don’t want a long sales process either. Arm them with what you think a good qualified opportunity is and explain why. Don’t just tell them what your qualification requirements are but explain to them why. Really help them understand why these things you are asking them to get in a qualification call are important to the sales process. If you just give them a list of things you want them to check off on a connect call they won’t understand why they are doing that.
3. Happy customers.
Happy customers are something you should be thankful for because it helps you really feel like you know what you are doing. Sales is hard. It takes time to get good at understanding what makes a good customer. Stay in touch with your Account Managers and the service side of your organization to get a good understanding of what makes a happy customer and why. You should keep a list of your customers and understand why they are happy or not happy. Why are they doing good or not doing as good as you thought they would do when you were in the sales process.
4. Really understanding and knowing your product or service you sell inside and out.
How well do you know what you are selling? No, really…ask yourself this. Do you constantly try to learn new things about what your product or service does? If you can honestly say yes to this you are ahead of a lot of other reps at your company. A lot of reps are stuck in their ways and don’t focus on their own growth around what they sell. If you spend some time every day trying to get better at what you sell you will start to know more than the people sitting around you. The more you know about what you are selling the better you will be as a sales rep.
5. Learning something new everyday from your prospects as well as your colleagues.
In meetings with prospects you should be forcing yourself to learn something from them. Yes, your main job is to teach them something that your product or service could help them with. But, they have something to teach you as well. Keep your eyes and ears open for nuggets they are telling you about the market you sell into. If they talk about things they are seeing in their space remember these things and when you have a similar selling situation in the future use this information to your benefit.
Same thing goes for your colleagues. Your colleagues can always teach you something. Be thankful for their knowledge and try to soak some of it up each day.
6. A prospect who is open to an exploratory call and doesn’t get angry with me when I try to understand their business goals to see how I can help them.
Those meetings where you want to hit your head on the desk, we all have them. You are wondering why the prospect is being so hard on you and why they aren’t cooperating with your process. Remember, this is “your process,” not theirs. Ask them what they want out of the call and see if that might calm them down and help them open up to your questions. Explain to them why you are asking them the questions you are asking them and clarify why you think these questions will help you help them.
7. When a prospect doesn’t ask me for a discount.
Isn’t it wonderful when you have a sales process where the prospect is not trying to get something out of you? It is always a luxury when they don’t lead with now what can you do for me? What I would love to say is, you can see how much your product costs on our website, why do you think you are so fancy and special that you should be deserving of a discount. Our product costs the amount you are quoted at for a reason.
8. A prospect who asks really, really good questions and really genuinely wants to learn something from you.
This is my favorite type of call. Days where I have consecutive meetings where I get off the phone saying to myself wow, that was awesome. The reason why I usually say something went well is because the person on the other end of the phone was present in the meeting, they were asking great questions that were relevant to what I sell. They were paying attention and were active in a discussion. Be aware of these types of prospects because they will most likely be really good customers because they are in the buying process for a real reason and want to make sure that you do what you say you do.
9. Finding a wonderful fit for our product and what we can help someone do better.
The real joy as a sales person is finding an amazing fit for your product or service. The icing on the cake would be when you know it, and they know it! That is THE BEST FEELING a sales rep can have. The moment where I feel “it clicking” for both of us. That is why I do what I do. It sounds dorky but I honestly get very, very excited when I know that someone sees they are a genuinely great fit for what I sell and they are telling me why. That makes my day.
10. Hitting quota! NO- going over your quota requirements.
We are in sales for many different reasons but at the end of the day you will always have a quota requirement that you need to hit to keep your job. 🙂 The times where you hit quota always feel great but the times that REALLY feel great are when you over achieve your goals. You came in WAY over your requirement. That feels good because you know you are going to make some money, but really what I am thankful for in this situation is that I have done a good job. I have brought on great customers that will be happy. When you overachieve your goals you are typically doing something right. People who do the wrong thing consistently and aren’t keeping the end goal in mind of happy customers will likely not hit their goals or go over their goals.
People ask me how to hit quota consistency. My answer is simple. Do your job. Do your job well. If you are always trying hard and working for the good of the potential customer then you will hit your quota and probably go beyond it. Don’t worry about the number all month. Worry about doing a great job every single day in all parts of the sales process. Each part of the sales process is important. If you consistently do the right thing and are really just trying to help your prospects you will reach your goals.