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There are three ways a sales person can increase his or her productivity. They are:
1) Increasing the number of demos or presentations done each week
2) Increasing your closing percentage
3) Increasing your dollar per sale or profitability per sale
So before we get into specific techniques, let’s take a look at your specific efficiency and effectiveness in these three areas. Often times, a sales person can double or triple his or her productivity by simply “tweaking” a few technical steps and also by eliminating wasted time!
1) Increasing your demos/presentations done each week and looking at your “Non-Sales related Activities”
How much of your week is REALLY spent “pitching” your product? For example, in several industries, the average sales person spends only 3 to 5 hours per week doing “face to face” presentations. The other 35 to 37 hours of the week are spent doing “non-sales related activities” or what we call NSA.
YOU DON’T MAKE YOUR MONEY WITH NSA.
YOU MAKE YOUR MONEY CLOSING DEALS!
So we HIGLY recommend you take a clear look at how much “REAL” sales time you’re accomplishing each week and quickly get rid of the NSA crap! NSA, whether it’s drive-time, cold-calling, filling-out paperwork, sitting in meetings, doing thousands of “call-backs,” etc. is the biggest enemy to a productive sales person.
Our most seasoned and successful sales people understand the value of their time. In fact, one of our top producers recently moved into a home-office to purposely stay away from our corporate environment. She would tell us how much time was wasted by people approaching her to “chat” and she would invariably get “sucked” into meetings and helping with NSA stuff around the office! Since she moved home, her productivity has reached NEW HEIGHTS! She can now spend a majority of her week talking and pitching new and current customers! She LOVES it!
So even without becoming a “better” technical sales person, you can often increase your numbers simply by accomplishing more presentations or “sales time!”
How many presentations do you average per week right now? If you currently do two appointments per week, could you boost it to three? (33% increase in sales). If you currently do three, could you boost it to four? (25% increase in sales). In other words, start swapping the NSA for REAL QUALITY PRESENTATION OR “PITCHING TIME”
2) Increasing your closing percentage or “closing ratio”
The second way you can increase your productivity is by closing MORE of the presentations you currently close. If you currently have a 10% closing ratio, you could double your productivity by moving it to 20%. If it’s currently 20%, move it to 30%, etc! Believe it or not, by following our sales cycle and sales script, we’ve had MANY sales people average an 80% PLUS closing ratio (usually accomplished on the first presentation with NO PRESSURE!). Let me repeat: we’ve had MANY sales people average over 80% PLUS closing ration! In fact, our average closing ratio has exceeded 50% for the 12 years we’ve been in business!
So the lower your current closing ratio is, the MORE ROOM for improvement! AND, if you don’t know your closing ratio, then you have an excellent place to start! Simply record how many presentations you make per week, and how many you close ‘on the spot’ and how many you eventually close, how many say ‘no’ and how many never make a decision. You will start learning a lot about your technical skills as well as having a gage for knowing whether you’re improving or going the wrong way (yikes!)
Improving Your Closing Ratio via a Sales Cycle and Sales Script
We covered in our Beginning Sales Training the advantages to following a sales cycle and faithfully using a proven sales script. Let’s first discuss where you are with these. First, do you follow a systematic approach to EACH presentation and follow a clearly defined cycle with each Prospect? And once you make your first contact with a Prospect, do you utilize a PROVEN sales script that you can rely on to provide consistency, confidence, and that allows you to focus your time on the Prospect and not yourself?
Do you know EXACTLY WHERE you should be at EACH step of the process? Do you help your Prospect follow you down a path to make a purchasing decision, or do you let your Prospect dictate the process?
If you’re still attempting to sell from a chaotic, unorganized approach, then you need to start by getting your presentation “house” in order.
And most importantly… Do you utilize our “Name-based Rapport” throughout your entire sales cycle? (hint- this is the single BIGGEST contributor to DRASTICALLY improving your closing ratio!)
3) Increasing your dollar per sale or profitability per sale
Do you find yourself having to sell three-times as much “stuff” to compete with the higher producers in your office? Do you EVEN know what your dollar per sale is? Is there an industry or company standard to which you can compare your averages to?
One of the single EASIEST ways to increase productivity is to simply sell “bigger packages” or products with a higher dollar per sale. This usually translates to a ‘belief barrier’ that you’ll have to break through to really experience success. We’ve repeatedly witnessed rookies with exceptional demo averages and decent closing ratios pale in comparison to the veterans in our company when it came to total productivity and revenue.
For example, if you sell real estate, what is an average sale? Is it a $100,000 home? A $150,000 home? An $80,000 home? What is it? What if you could DOUBLE your productivity and income simply by making a decision to go after “bigger dollar listings?” There are agents in our market who have built reputations for selling the “Ultra-high-end” homes. I seriously doubt these agents would even look at messing with a $150,000 home when they’re use to selling $750,000 to 10 MILLION dollar homes!
Or if you’re in office equipment sales, you could start selling the “bigger models” or combinations of models.
We discuss in our video several methods for increasing your dollar per sale!
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