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Avoid Sales Burnout: Lessons Learned from Death of a Salesman
Arthur Miller's 1949 play ‘“Death of a Salesman” is about what happens when a salesman, Willy Loman, fails to accept...
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"Vote Early, Vote Often" was coined by Al Capone to make fun of the "less than honest" past political practices. I'm not suggesting you use any "questionable" practices, however, in my experience, "early and often" can result in expanding your sales pipeline and putting a little more "green" in your pocket.
Many times our prospects and clients are focused on measuring sales lead metrics around Meetings Scheduled or Qualified Leads.
I agree -- These call results are the absolute best. However, often times you might be calling prospects but the timing is off or they do not have a compelling reason to try your product at that time.
There is something to be said for the “early and often” factor though. And it’s what you do with these Follow Ups or these Referral Connects that really matters.
As a real world example, here is how one early lead generated from a sales prospecting session in March 2013 resulted in a Sale at the end of Q1 2014.
March 2013
- Spoke with the top Marketing executive on an Live Conversation Automation Sales Prospecting Session.
- The prospect was impressed with the outbound calling technology I was using to get him/her live and agreed our value prop was strong
- Unfortunately, there was not a compelling reason at that time. Their sales team was not really “sales forward” and there were no real concerns around marketing program effectiveness etc.
- Over the next 2-3 quarters, I consistently maintained contact with my prospect. This consisted of many voicemails, conversations and email.
Mid-February 2014
- I received a call from my contact that a new Sales VP was hired. (Key Trigger Event). Was told I would be introduced to this person.
- Held a discovery call and demo with the Sales VP, Marketing executives among others. Discussed their challenges which had to do with lead conversion rates.
Mid-March 2014
- Client Ran a 7-10 day trial. Trial Results exceeded Established Trial Criteria.
March 31 2014
- Closed the Deal!
- Wrapped up Q1 with a nice win!
Moral of the story?
- Stay meticulous -- Stay on top of all your sales and marketing generated activities – there might be Gold there.
- If you start having conversations with your sales prospects and accounts early and often, who is more likely to win the business? You or your competitor? In the example above, I did not even have a competitor.
Now, Go get em!