Maintain the Momentum
Now all you need to do is keep moving forward. Success in sales, like in most things, is largely defined by momentum. Continuing to push forward.
In my experience, sales isn’t about goals. Sure, you likely have quotas or sales targets, and you should certainly set personal goals for yourself.
But sales success is more about process. Take the right journey and the destination typically takes care of itself. And a successful journey, like a process, benefits greatly from forward momentum.
There is a famous story about the Antarctic explorers Roald Amundsen and Robert Scott that nicely illustrates this. Scott bolted for the pole in a mad rush while Amundsen plodded along at a disciplined and consistent daily distance each day, sunny or bitter cold. No more, no less. Like clockwork.
The obvious moral. Keep working. More sales die from negligence than overzealous attention. Your job is to stay proactive and engaged.
That means following through on the commitments made from the meeting. And ideally, get to it early. If you said you’d get them something by Friday, send it to them on Thursday.
You dutifully made a plan in Step #2. And that plan changed or advanced as a result of this latest sales call. It’s simple. Continue to execute. Follow up.
The good news here is that these first nine steps have established momentum. You’re moving forward. All you need to do now is keep going.
But wait, you say. The sales call went poorly, and the customer isn’t interested, or can’t move forward, or isn’t a good candidate for your solution.
That is sales. It comes with the territory. But at the risk of being pollyannaish, it’s still moment. And growth. And an opportunity to learn and improve on the process.
Learn to love the process. Keep the momentum. If it’s not that deal, it will be the next.
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Admittedly, there are certainly more than ten steps that you can take to optimize a sales call. But this is an excellent place to start developing a set of sales habits and reinforcing a repeatable process. Ten simple habits to build on. Start with these. They can take you far.