GlobalBX

Without realising it, everyone in business, at every level, operates with a range of ‘starting points’…concerning how they think and feel about key issues, such as building relationships and creating sales success. Here is a range of starting points for you to test yourself on…

1. All of your competitors are highly intelligent and hard working. It doesn’t matter if you think that certain rivals are weak, it is critical to assume that they are all in fact ‘Titans’…and that they are attending meetings this very day to figure out how to steal your customers, and to protect their own customers from your clutches. This does not detract from specific feedback that you may possess, from research or from customers, indicating that certain competitors are defective in one or more areas…thus allowing you to build strengths where they are weak. This particular starting point merely asks you to ‘imagine’ that all contenders are strong and getting stronger, so that you or you and your team are never found guilty of being complacent and smug.

2. All prospects are sick and tired of being approached by ‘aspiring new suppliers’. This starting point must spur you to be different and valuable in your market moves, and to appreciate that the cause of market unrest in this area is based on a high rate of awful approaches and presentations. Most ‘would-be’ suppliers want to talk about their companies and their products, when in fact the prospects already have satisfactory suppliers…plus the only company and products the prospects care about are their own! The market is sick of listening to stories about apparent duplications, so make sure your propositions are relevant, valuable…and a priority!

3. All prospects and ‘partially developed customers’ need new suppliers. This is not a contradiction of point 2, it is a separate and critical starting point that concerns the fact that 90% of all incumbent suppliers are happy to possess their customers…but they rarely, if ever, do anything to drive new and better results for their customers! That said, most customers are unaware of what they are missing out on from their ‘chosen’ suppliers, and so the lesson is to approach with respect for what they do now…and then offer ideas on how to improve results in the future, starting tomorrow!

4. All customers and prospects are desperately keen to improve their business performance. This starting point should motivate you to ask ‘if this is true, why don’t they ask their suppliers for more help?’, and the answer (as indicated in point 3.) is that they have been conditioned not to expect performance improvement ideas from suppliers. Accordingly, customers and prospects turn to consultants and other external sources for such advice, so the lesson here is to stop selling items and selling intelligence…and then charge for the items! In other words, always sell far more than you charge for.

5. Most sales people are capable of significant improvements in motivation, behaviour and results. If management consistently treats sales people as professionals, also arms them with dynamic business development tools and then trains and rewards them to perform at higher levels…then the sales people will either respond or cash in their chips, knowing that the game is up. In my experience, most sales people of every variety (employee, agent or franchisee) are treated cordially and occasionally ‘offered’ help…but in effect they are left to their own devices. This is suicidal because most sales people don’t have any distinctive devices, which is why they need to be treated differently and better!

If your sales performance, or ‘ending’, is not good, then improve the quality of your starting points!