Your sales are down and leads are rare. The phone's not ringing. Let's blame marketing!
If you join this band wagon to rationalize your poor sales results, you need to step up and take responsibility for your own fate. It's amazing how often sales teams play the victim here. They blame the marketing department, team or an individual, for their lack of sales.

Good sales people can close, but few "step up" for even more sales from that close. Yet stepping up should be one of the easiest accomplishments in sales - that is if you know how to build the staircase.
Do it by applying a leadership tool I have taught thousands of leaders worldwide during the past 20 years. The tool is simply to foster a particular viewpoint, which is this: Challenge people not simply to do a task but to take leadership of that task.

Selling. Cold calls, introductions, interviews, appointments, proposals, referrals, call cycles, building rapport, listening, asking for the order, overcoming objections, closing the sale, and rejection. There's a lot to know about the business of selling. No wonder many people are a bit overwhelmed when they are asked to do it.

The best way to get a new customer is to clearly identifywho you want to do business with and then get in front of them. They canthen see what you look like, possibly see what your product looks like and alsoexamine any data or statistics you might have. It gives you the idealopportunity to start building a positive working relationship with your potentialcustomer.

The temptation to use straight (100%) commission plans never goes away: "Let's put our salespeople on 100 percent commission. Then, if they don't perform, we're not out any money." For small, start-up organizations, the lure is irresistible, especially when money is tight and the company or the products they sell have no track record in the market.

A number of sales "Gurus" have promoted the theory that states, "concentrating strictly on your top level premier accounts (some even quantify that by stating your top twenty) will provide you with as much growth and profit as you can possibly handle." This is often stated regardless of individual and corporate strategic initiatives. This position is based on the following facts and assumptions.

Bill Borders stepped up onto the podium. He had just been introduced as the new Vice President of Sales for Kiechler Building Supplies. As he looked out at the fifty seven faces staring back at him, time seemed to stop and everyone was motionless. Bills mind wandered. This wasn't a nervous reaction; it was more of a reality check.

Imagine increasing your business earnings by 30, 40, or 50%.And this just by putting into use a fundamental truth of life. Manygreat men of history have used this truth in turning aroundtheir fortunes.

You're a small company with a good product. You are confident that the product can sell, but you don't have the financial resources to hire a team of fifty salespeople to market and sell the product for you. You also don't have the staff resources to support those that purchase the product. How do you make your good idea and good product create success for you?

Does the competition drive you crazy? Are they relentless about taking your clients away? Are customer loyalties becoming a thing of the past?
In our ever changing world, it seems securing business these days comes down to, who will provide the most services at the lowest possible price.