When I am asked to diagnose why an individual or sales team are not performing at optimum levels, I usually ask four very straightforward questions:
- Are they visiting/talking to enough clients/prospects? In other words are they proactive and are their activity levels high? I call this CCT as a percentage of TWT (customer contact time as a percentage of total working time). But, be warned: We should never believe that activity alone will guarantee success. We can all be busy fools.
- Are they talking to the right people within those client/prospect organizations? Are they able to first identify and then penetrate to the formal DMU (decision-making unit) and reach the man (the person or people with the money, authority and need)?
- Are they saying/doing the right things? This really refers to how strong their selling skills are. How broad is their commercial bandwidth?
- And finally, what is the predominant attitude? This one small thing makes such a big difference. In fact, attitude drives everything else.
From these four questions, I can usually diagnose a sales problem. Hopefully, by asking yourself these questions, you will be able to shine a light on the path toward reaching your full potential.
