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Sales Best Practices During Pandemic

A near complete shutdown of the economy is an unprecedented event. This did not happen during the great depression, not as a result of any world war, nor ever before as a response to a contagious illness. But here we are. Focusing on the important big stuff and developing some best practices will go a long way to helping your sales organization survive, if not thrive, during the pandemic.

The World is Closed
Photographer: Edwin Hooper | Source: Unsplash

A solid sales team is important to any business. We typically devote most of our time to helping companies build great sales teams. If you’re in need of building your team, click HERE to learn more about what we do.

We do, however, talk with some of our larger clients about issues outside the scope of our sales recruitment coaching. I have included some ideas on best practices during a pandemic that we have discussed over the last few weeks.

  • Focus on customer relationships. Retaining your base of regular customers will prove lifesaving for your business. Of course you need to get new business and your competitors who are not focusing on their customer relationships might well be a good target for getting it. Strengthen your customer relationships to make them a tough target for your competitor.
  • Adjust your pitching process. Adapt your offerings to address specific pain points of your prospects. They likely have more time now and perhaps product demonstrations or free trial periods might attract interest. When things return to normal, these prospects might want to keep a valuable product you’ve introduced.
  • Offer flexible terms. Money is tight for most businesses, likely including yours. Minimizing the pain of more drains on cashflow will not only help your prospects, it will also let them know you’re trying to shepherd them through the current environment.

Selling is a challenging profession even in good times. COVID19 is making it an increasingly tricky game. Helping your sales team develop new best practices will go a long way toward recovering the ground lost to the shutdown.

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Talent Acquisition

Nick Saban and The Process or “What Sales Managers Need to Do to Get Back on Track”

Nick Saban, the winningest coach in the history of football, doesn’t refer to it much. But ask any one of his assistants and players what makes University of Alabama football. Without hesitation they’ll say, “The Process.”

Anyone who’s followed me for the last 20 years knows that great sports and great sales happen the same way. Individual performers who don’t make excuses. It’s all about “the buck stops here, baby.”

… great sports and great sales happen the same way. Individual performers who don’t make excuses. It’s all about “the buck stops here, baby.”

2020 has been a bear for most businesses. And if you’re a sales manager figuring out where to go from here, this post is for you.

Quoting Coach Saban:

“Don’t think about winning the SEC Championship. Don’t think about the national championship. Think about what you needed to do in this drill, on this play, in this moment. That’s the process: Let’s think about what we can do today, the task at hand.”

Let’s think about what we can do today, the task at hand.

So what can you do right now? If you’re a Sales Manager you know your sales team has got quality performers and also-rans. The also-rans might be nice guys and gals, but in today’s tough environment the also-rans are dead.

Its only the quality people you’ve recruited who have a chance to make something happen. This is going to be a tough sales environment going forward and you need more quality on your team.

Great coaches like great sales managers pay a lot of attention to recruiting.

You’re heard me say dozens of times the job is Recruit, train and motivate. Do you have salespeople on your team who have failed to respond to training and motivating? It’s time to recruit.

And the good news is this is the best time I’ve seen in the last decade to look for real sales talent.

this is the best time I’ve seen in the last decade to look for real sales talent.

How do you go about it so you don’t end up hiring another big-talker salesperson who doesn’t do the work?

We’ve put together a short quiz that will show you the easist and quickest way to find a quality salesperson. You want someone who does the work, who picks up the phone. No excuses. This quiz will take you less that two minutes to complete. Click the link below and take the quiz. You’ll find the quickest and most effective way to get quality on your sales team.

Find out why we’re the only sales hiring system with a one-year performance guarantee. Click below to take the short quiz now.

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Talent Acquisition

Why Top-Performing Sales Managers Build a Bench

Building a sales team, filled with salespeople who do the work is the goal of all great sales managers.

It really does happen. I’ve seen many dozens of sales teams run by great sales managers. The majority of their salespeople are producers.

Years ago, I had a conversation with one of the smartest entrepreneurs I’ve ever met that sticks in my mind.

Tony Renda, Sr owned a group of 13 radio stations. Tony had started out in sales management, as so many great entrepreneurs do.

Every one of his 13 stations was a top billing station in their market.

He told me his secret for building great sales teams in his stations.

He said, “When I visit my stations I always ask the sales manager to show me his bench. Does he have a list of sales applicants he’s recently interviewed? Is he proactively looking for new sales talent and does he have a system for building a team? If not, he’d better shape up.”

It’s sad but true that too many sales managers look at sales hiring with dread. It’s the thing you do when you HAVE TO, not as an ongoing strategy for improving.

Tony said, “If there had been a system like yours when I was a sales manager it would have made it so much easier. Your system does all the work. All the sales manager has to do is write a good ad and run it and your Advanced Hiring System does the rest for them.

Today there is no excuse for lack of continuous improvement in sales departments.

Remember the definition of the job of sales manager. “Recruit, train and motivate a sales team.”

Recruit comes first. It is the most leverageable of the functions of sales manager.

Training and motivating are important. But if you don’t have the right salespeople on your team, you are “Brick Polishing.” And in case you don’t know, you can polish a brick from now until doomsday, but it will never get shiny. A weak sales hire will never get strong.

The Advanced Hiring System AAPS Profiler Sequence is in use in more than 2000 companies. We’ve put together a short survey to help you decide the quickest way to improve the quality of your sales team. Take the survey to find the best way to build a great sales team for your company.

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