Colleen’s Blog

How discoverable are you to new clients and prospects? In this day and age, you need multiple avenues to expand your outreach. It’s no longer good enough to simply pick up the phone or send emails. You require a fusion of different approaches that are executed consistently to create real growth in your business. <-- Click To Tweet How many of the following are your regularly engaging in?

Is this the start to 2015 you wanted? We’re quickly approaching the last week of January. By now, you can probably gauge your start to 2015. Have you accomplished your goals for January? Are you hitting weekly sales targets at a better pace than in 2014? If you aren’t off to the start that you hoped, there’s good news. There’s still time to regroup and have a fantastic first quarter! Unfortunately, too many people enter a new year without a plan. There’s absolutely a new sense of hope and desire to have a better year, but most people are not willing to change any of their habits. They believe that simply letting their calendar refresh will somehow change their results. Then, after about a month into a new year, they look around and see nothing has changed and give up on their goals completely. Don’t let this happen to you.

Could your sales team be suffering from a dangerous virus? Like it or not, we’re now hearing more coughing and sneezing than normal, and commercials are filled with daytime and nighttime medication advertisements to protect you and your family from the flu. But, the virus I want to address this week has nothing to do with the flu. This virus can't be cured with a few sick days. It lasts longer than the flu and it has the potential to erode your entire sales team (and your sales) if you let it linger.

Are you doing enough to build your current relationships? When you close a sale with a new client, you create a new relationship that needs to be nurtured. All too often, salespeople make a sale and then move to the next prospect. When a salesperson continues this trend long term, their client retention is going to fail...it’s inevitable! I hope you’re considering ways to increase your sales in 2015. But, as you know, client retention is just as important as client acquisition. Here are a few tips to help you maintain and build your current relationships in the New Year:

“This year is going to be MY year.” Almost without fail, each year we all hear phrases like this leading into January. It’s a good thing. It shows that most people have a genuine interest in being successful. Unfortunately, interest alone is not enough to follow through with creating real success. You must develop an unwavering commitment to your success and follow through by taking serious action. Over the years, I have worked with and observed many successful salespeople. By successful, I mean they are pulling in at least $500k or more in personal income each year. Find one of these successful salespeople - better yet, find five of them. Take note of the things that they all have in common with each other. Yes, there will be some differences in their style, methods and philosophies. After all, they’re different people! But, if you can pinpoint their similarities, you can absorb those traits and emulate their daily activities to bring you success as well. Keep in mind that the people you model should be people whose results you admire in business, and outside of business. As we all know, a healthy income means very little if you’re always stressed and unable to enjoy personal time. <-- Click To Tweet To help out your cause, here are a few similarities that I have found exist in the successful salespeople that I have observed:

As salespeople, we spend many hours investing in our own knowledge. Workshops, conferences, coaching, books...the list goes on! The best sellers are always looking for new ways to increase their knowledge and expose themselves to new information. This is such an essential key for massive success in sales, but it won’t do you any good if you lack perhaps the most important ingredient in business, which is honesty. To be fair - the majority of salespeople aren’t “dishonest” people. But, it’s safe to say that many salespeople extend or bend the truth to either belittle the competition or make up for weaknesses in their own product or service. Don’t be one of the many!

Are your client and prospect conversations often turning into a form of verbal combat? All too often salespeople get so wrapped up in being right that they completely forget to acknowledge their clients' feelings and opinions. Demonstrating acknowledgement is a key step in continuing a conversation instead of jumping straight into an argument! <-- Click To Tweet When you acknowledge your client’s opinion (even if it differs from your own) you demonstrate empathy to the way your buyer feels. This automatically puts them in a better, more relaxed state of mind because you’re showing your client that you understand their concerns and you’re willing to find a solution. You also show that you’re less concerned about being right and more concerned about being fair.

In sales, our focus is often set on making the next sale. But, our current client base should never be neglected for the sake of closing another deal  Always nurture and build relationships within your current customer base. You want to keep them happy because not only does it feel good to deliver quality to your clients, but they will also be more likely to refer you to others, which helps drive more sales for your business. As I see it, all customers want the same 13 things from you. Accomplish them all and you will develop a loyal profitable customer who will refer you to everyone they know:

It’s a simple fact...there are some customers that you must fire if you want to remain profitable. To be fair - some of these customers are sold products and services that are not beneficial for them. It can be easy to get carried away with the thrill of making a sale, but to avoid these situations, it’s important to only sell your services to customers who can truly benefit from using them. Other problem customers could have been the right type of clients at the beginning of the relationship, but due to personality changes and/or changes in corporate policies, are no longer as profitable as they used to be. Stop working with these two client types: