Colleen’s Blog

For the most part I have had nothing but extraordinary service while in the UK. These hotel and taxi practices are not difficult to replicate nor are they expensive to implement. They will encourage repeat business and increase profits from referrals. Why aren’t more service providers catering to customers in this way?

I have a question for you. Do you really know where your revenue comes from? Most businesses can probably answer that question pretty quickly. It's obvious, right? Not so fast. Recently, we've been involved in a very large sales reorganization. There are three sales teams, a channel sales team, a field sales team and an inside sales team. It was always assumed that the field sales team was the main revenue engine. After all, they were the ones going out, finding leads and closing business. But, we uncovered something interesting...

You offer a great service and haven't received any complaints. Yet, you still feel a void between yourself and your client. Emails and calls are short and to the point, and you may even feel anxious about your client ending the business relationship unexpectedly. You never really know where you stand with your client, professionally and personally. Have you felt like this before? Many salespeople and business owners have. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. What truly defines a great salesperson isn't what happens during the sales process, but what happens afterwards.

Say that three times fast. Pipeline management does not have to be avoided like a confusing tongue twister. In fact, managing and reviewing your pipeline are among your most important tasks as a salesperson. They help you prioritize what activities to complete each month, as well as give you an accurate indication of how healthy your sales pipeline truly is. Here are a few steps that can make your reviews and management more effective:

You can discuss sales strategies, ideas, tips and methods to no end. You can set sales targets for your team to hit, implement a promising new strategy and motivate your sales reps with morning huddles. But, when the day starts, it's up to your team to do the work and create the results. Salespeople don't always struggle due to weak strategy, at times poor productivity habits will seriously hinder their progress as well. Let’s cut to the chase. The best way for your team to achieve true productivity in their work day is to ask them to cut off all inbound access. Now, before your jaw drops too low, let me clarify that you should only ask that they do so temporarily, ideally an hour or two each day. Consider asking them to turn their phone to silent or completely turning it off. They will also benefit from logging out of their email inbox while they work through important tasks. When your team is focusing on outbound business development prospecting, they should not have to deal with distracting, time consuming tasks which take the focus out of their work day. It's great to be able to multitask, but your team will always be able to accomplish more by laser focusing on the task at hand. Want a perfect example of how this simple tweak in productivity can benefit your team?