The Basics of Driving Sales

I’m always impressed when I meet amaz­ing sales­peo­ple and expe­ri­ence mas­ter­ful sales.

And, because many indus­tries are soft­er than they were before, we are hav­ing the same con­ver­sa­tion with lead­er­ship teams, every quar­ter, as we dig into and fig­ure out what they need to do to dri­ve more sales.

Almost always, the con­ver­sa­tion comes back to ensur­ing peo­ple are mas­ter­ing the basics:

• Are you doing enough of the right activities?
• Are you crys­tal clear and focused?
• Are you focused on our core customers?
• Are sales lead­ers involved with the front­line peo­ple – coach­ing, men­tor­ing and even sell­ing with them, side by side?
• Do peo­ple have enough of the right skill sets?

Make the Expe­ri­ence Amazing

When my daugh­ter and I recent­ly went into a store we were imme­di­ate­ly greet­ed by Julian, a nice young guy who com­ple­ment­ed us on how we were dressed (we were ready to go out for a nice din­ner) and then asked if we’d been to the store before.

We said we hadn’t but had heard about their prod­ucts. He then led us to a sink to show us how the prod­ucts work – a cleanser, scrub and lotion – on our hands. We were impressed.

After ask­ing about our favourite, he led us to a wall of prod­ucts to tell us about the fea­tures and ben­e­fits, and a buy-two-get-one-free offer.

Although we had no inten­tion of buy­ing any­thing, after such a great expe­ri­ence, we couldn’t help buy­ing not one but three prod­ucts. At the till, we were giv­en a gift.

Knowl­edge, Con­nec­tion, Authen­tic Delivery

I’m sure he was a top sell­ing sales­per­son. He knew his prod­uct, con­nect­ed well with his cus­tomers and was very authentic.

After com­ple­ment­ing him on his sales­man­ship and ask­ing if his com­pa­ny had trained him in his approach, he said he had only been giv­en a frame­work and told to get peo­ple to try the prod­uct. Very shy and reserved when he start­ed six months ago, he had built his skills, become much more con­fi­dent and made his pitch his own.

He said that the best thing he learned, as a sales­per­son, is that you have to want it more than the cus­tomer doesn’t.

That says it all.

The Chal­lenge

• Do your sales­peo­ple have a sys­tem that allows them to cre­ate an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence for your customers?
• If they do, great! Are they con­sis­tent­ly fol­low­ing that win­ning system?

Addi­tion­al Podcasts

• Four Ques­tions Lead­er­ship Teams Need to Ask Customers

Addi­tion­al Blogs

• Are You Obsessed with Your Customers?
• How to Keep Cus­tomers Hap­py by Antic­i­pat­ing Their Needs
• Deliv­er­ing Cus­tomer Delight
• Your Cus­tomer Expe­ri­ence Depends on the Lit­tle Things

Lawrence & Co’s work focus­es on sus­tain­able and enhanced growth for you and your busi­ness. Our diverse and expe­ri­enced group of advi­sors can help your lead­ers and exec­u­tive teams stay com­pet­i­tive through the use of var­i­ous learn­ing tools includ­ing work­shops, webi­na­rs, exec­u­tive retreats, or one-to-one coaching.

We help high-achiev­ing lead­ers to have it all – a great busi­ness and a reward­ing life. Con­tact us for sim­ple and impact­ful advice. No BS. No fluff.