As the price of a barrel of oil rises above $110 and talk of five dollar gallons of gasoline are closer to becoming a reality than not, I'm getting a lot of inquiries from sales professionals and sales managers on how to maintain production during what some are considering an uncertain economy.
In helping businesses become what I like to consider championship caliber I've been continuing to reflect on what makes sports' champions. I've noticed there are four components that sales professionals and sales teams can borrow from the sports world; practice, prepare, perform and post-practice. Let's take a look at each:
1) Practice
Athletes spend at least three-to-five times the amount of time on the practice field than they do performing in a game. For sales professionals it is reversed. A little while back I wrote an entire article on this topic. A sales professionals practice comes in the way of role-playing exercises. Of the four components to create a sales champion outlined in this article, this is the second least applied strategy.
It has been my experience that few sales managers and sales professionals spend time in this area. Instead, precious time in sales meetings is spent on going over the numbers, reviewing the status of each sales person's prospects within their business' sales cycle, checking everyone's pipeline, etc. Little time is spent on role-playing recent, real life, on -the-job scenarios that the individual sales team members have experienced.
This area is where many sales managers could improve their team's performance most rapidly. Sales teams may spend only a few days a year in refining their sales skills and presentations but many spend a lot of time in the sales meetings I described above.
I recommend that every sales meeting invest at least 30-minutes in role-playing exercises.
2) Prepare
This is a strategy in which few, if any, sales professionals invest any time. Yet, it is imperative that sales professionals prepare for their sales call beyond putting together their power point presentation, fact sheets and contracts.
Preparation must include time to focus on the sales call using relaxation and visualization techniques. In the sales person's mind and imagination the sales presentation and follow-on discussion should be role-played so that all (or most) of the potential objections are reviewed and addressed in a professional manner. During the performance part of the sales presentation there should be few, if any, surprises when it comes to addressing objections.
A person's imagination is a powerful tool and is why most professional and Olympic athletes prepare for their event in the mind first. Sales professionals should do the same.
3) Perform
This is show time where the sale professional earns his keep by building a trusting relationship and delivering a powerful, positive performance that closes the deal. Just like an athlete this is when they put the numbers on the board.
4) Post-Practice
After the performance sports teams review game films to look for things they did well and the things they can do better. Sales professionals must do the same by doing what I call post-practice. By this I mean debriefing each sales call immediately afterward when it is still fresh in one's mind.
After every sales presentation or phone call the sales professional should take a couple of minutes to review what they did well and what they can do better. They should keep a log of these debriefing sessions so that they can review a bunch of them together and begin to notice patterns that can be corrected.
This powerful process when followed will allow many of the items on the "could have done better" column to move to the "what I did well column" after less than thirty days. It's a solid way to track improvements in the sales professionals habits of thinking, feeling and acting to guarantee they will always be getting better.
When sales managers work with their individual sales professionals to consistently apply the four-P's process outlined above, they will be well on their way to "Creating a Championship Sales Team."