Don't Just Succeed, Dominate
This is an excerpt from a speech I made at a sales conference
recently. It really was an exciting moment for me and the people were simply fantastic.
Sales conferences always afforded us great opportunities to meet,
interact and share experiences with one another. It is a powerful platform to
exchange ideas, sharpen each other, hone existing skills and learn new ones. We
always left the conferences feeling empowered and ready to ‘take on the world’.
The theme of this conference is ‘Dominate’. There is no better
time to reflect on this than now. We no long should be striving to succeed but
to dominate. We should be dominating. Hence the title of my short speech ‘Don’t
just succeed, dominate’. What would this title suggest to you – both as an
individual and as key members of the organisation? What will it mean to you as
a professional sales man?
You succeed when you meet or even exceed your targets. Meeting
your target is what I will call ‘business as usual’. That is, it is expected of
you to meet and exceed your targets. I called it ‘business as usual’ because
your targets are jointly agreed and resources are also allocated to enable you
achieve them. But when we talk about dominating, it goes beyond meeting your
targets to actually leading in the market. It is about your position in the
market, the size of the market you control, it’s about how relevant you are in
the market. It’s about thinking scale, it’s about thinking stakeholder value.
Overcome
the challenge of selling’. Selling the right Product/Service to
the right Customer at the right Time for the
right Price at the right Quality and through
the right Channel Consistently!
Focus on value
creation – solving problems.
Innovate in the
way we sell – our selling approach – there are two main sales approached –
conventional and consultative. Innovation and radical shift in mindset. It
calls for truthfully appraising ourselves and ensuring that we learn from past
experiences.
Take advantage of
the latest digital tools and technologies to improve the selling experience for
both sales teams and customers and become more
productive. Consumer-like User Interface – easy, intuitive, and
appealing
Be a true
professional salesman. Love your job, be passion, willing to work hard and
smart, be driven to succeed, have an optimistic outlook, be able to ask
questions and listen to customers, have a customer service orientation and
be physically and mentally prepared for life and the job
You've got to avoid the common mistakes we make as salespeople.
Some examples include; assuming
the problem that the prospect communicates is the real problem, thinking that
your sales “presentation” will seal the deal, talking too much, believing that
you can sell anybody anything, over-educating the prospect when you should be
selling, failing to remember that salespeople are decision makers, too and
reading minds and keeping your fingers crossed that a prospect doesn’t notice a
problem.
·
We must transit from selling to account management. This including
seeing your customer more as an account rather than a single purchase. You will
require knowledge of competitive tactics and
strategies to drive unique differentiation to reinforce exclusive benefits. You
will need to understand account team dynamics and your meetings must challenge
and provoke action-oriented thinking. You will need technology. It can be a powerful
enabler as a means of reinforcement, idea exchange, and accelerating core
account team effectiveness. Finally, executive leadership must continuously
champion and reinforce the value of Account Management to ensure its adoption
into the sales culture.
Dominating the market is a task that must be done. We must pay
attention to the market and make sure we truly lead. We must be better at better
at solving problems, move more volumes and post better profits, be more
efficient – sell more with less resource, manage the salesforce for value and
truly lead the market.
You’ve got to envision – Imagine dominance as a future possibility; visualize it and pick the picture real in your heart.
· Dissection is the second point. This is the action of dissecting the
business and selling process. You must understand the internal workings of your
business and organise your selling process thereby.
·
You must appreciate the importance of meeting deadlines.
·
You would definitely need to imbibe project management mind-set
· You’ve got to be deliberate about dominating. It should be a
choice you make and with your willpower behind it.
·
Support is very important. You selling efforts must be properly
aligned with the efforts and capacity / capabilities of the support functions.
·
You must be personally effective. Put your efforts, talents,
skills and quality use.
·
Be self-forgiving and build on success stories.
·
Finally, do not be quick to change a winning formula. Milk it,
innovate it and leverage it to the max.
With these, you will not only succeed in your career and as a business, but you will dominate. All the best.
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