You want to do things differently this year, right? You want to blow your team’s number out. You want to get the results that you have been dreaming about. Here is another simple tip (a practice) that you can do right now (like today) to get your team to the top.
As a sales director, I was always thinking about what else I could do to support my team and how to increase our sales. As I was thinking about this one day, I decided that sending out an old fashioned hand-written mailer promoting how my company’s products would benefit our customers would be worth sending. So I called each of my reps and I got a list of twenty of their largest prospects that we had no traction with. I took it upon myself to draft a well-written letter with supporting information on how we could save the customer money and help them become more efficient with our applications.
Next, I took about an hour each morning to print out the mailers, lookup the correct contacts and mailing addresses. Finally, I went to the post office and mailed out approximately 160 pieces of mail! Why did I do this? I did it because I knew that this effort would only help with our cause and if I asked Marketing to do it, they would have told me “how busy they were.” I probably would have had 16 meetings to discuss this idea of doing a mailer. Then I would have waited six months before anything actually happened (if it did get done at all).
I don’t work this way. If you want to be #1, you have to do things differently than everyone else. Take the initiative yourself. Roll up your sleeves, get down in the trenches and make it happen. Most people won’t take on the effort though. They would rather “float” ideas around and have lots of meetings to discuss, only to see the ideas fizzle out. Don’t let bureaucracy slow you down with achieving your goals. Take ownership and make it happen yourself.
So back to the mailer. The result: not a single peep from any of the propects that I sent my letters to. But I didn’t lose any hope. Then one day early in the month of May, my salesperson, Justin, got a phone call from one of the prospects. He was interested in buying our product and had mentioned that he received a letter a couple of months ago from a “Patrick Allen.” I was thrilled! So what happens next: that client bought approximately $100,000 in software from us in the same month of May! It made Justin’s number and it was a significant boost to the team’s monthly quota achievement. I was so very proud of what I did to help my team and how it had paid off.
Just imagine, this was an extra $100,000 towards our number. I knew if I did a few more of these initiatives throughout the year that it could result in an extra $300,000 or so (or more) in additional revenue. This is how you get to the top. This is how you outplay your competition. It is the small, little things, that you personally do to get the job done that will pay off. So the next time when you have an idea, take action. Take the initiative and get things going now! Don’t lose steam by waiting or just talking about it. Roll up the sleeves and make it happen (today!)!
-Happy Selling!