SalesScore

When drumming up new business, do you prospect at random or do you have a strategic plan?  Below are 5 key benefits of having a selling system.

       1.  Repetition – The more you repeat a process, the more proficient you become at that process. It’s difficult to master anything without repetition. Do you want the doctor whose surgical procedure is a little different every time to operate on you? Or, would you prefer the doctor who has honed his skills and process through repetition.

       2.  Control – It’s extremely difficult to control anything, including a sales process, if you don’t know where you’re going or how you’re going to get there. Sales professionals who do not have a selling strategy usually relinquish control to the prospect. Thus, the prospect who is in control of their buying cycle is also now in control of the selling process. You become a passenger who is along for the ride.

       3.  Shorten the selling cycle – Without a strategy or a process, you are wandering aimlessly through the selling cycle. However, with a strategy or plan of attack, since you know where you are going and what you hope to achieve, the journey is usually much shorter.

       4.  Clear understanding – A strategy allows a salesperson to have a clear vision of where they stand each step of the way. It also clears up the mutual mystification, which can happen between sales professionals and prospects as to… what happens next?

       5.  Accident report – A strategy provides self-accountability and a mechanism for you to file an accident report. When you don’t make a sale, you can analyze what, when and how you went wrong. You can retrace your steps and learn from your mistakes.

Remember: You can’t manage what you can’t measure – a strategy is a measurement tool.