Posted by JuJuan Buford @JSBUFORD
You've paid the price. After 2 months or 2 years of blood sweat and tears you've built a network of prospects, clients, referrers, affinity partners, and hopefully brand advocates - clients who are wildly appreciative of your wares and your attention to servicing them. You've reached a point whereas you have so many prospects that you've invested in a contact manager to help you sort your prospects, among other useful applications of a good CRM (customer relationship manager):
A Prospects = Prospects that are already very much motivated to buy what you're offering; have enough disposable income to easily afford the 5 Star treatment; and appreciate your professional approach.
B Prospects = Prospects that require some education regarding how conducting business with you can improve their lives; have disposable income; and arrive on time for the appointment.
C Prospects = Prospects that need or require your assistance, but choose to wait until the engine light, brake pads, and the I'm overheating and in imminent danger of breaking down light alerts them before they make a decision; working with them might cost you more than you're going to earn (it's a non-profit endeavor); arriving on time would be a good start.
You have more appointments on the calendar than you have time to get around to, and you're considering increasing your prices, pivoting to offer services or products that appeal to a wealthier demographic, and or transitioning into a different industry altogether. The reality of the matter is it's time to scale and bring on additional talent to help improve how you deliver your value proposition to the market, and you're becoming stressed by all of the aforementioned success you're having.
Every successful sales professional or business consultant has experienced this issue at one point in time or another. And if it isn't resolved it becomes a vicious cycle whereas entrepreneurs find themselves vacillating between burnout and retreat. Hiring an administrative assistant helps for a little while. Bringing on sales professionals offer temporary relief, until they're poached by a higher compensation package, or gasp, superior leadership.
What's the solve?
Not, paying for the latest, greatest contact manager. You can hire the best talent in the world, and it won't matter. Pivot? You'll earn more, but end up in the same conundrum if you're ambitious and progress driven.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
*Albert Einstein*
Mindset of a Sales Professional
- You learn the product better than everyone else
- You perfect your presentation, and become a master at consumer behavior
- You exhibit or grow a hypersensitive sense of empathy (if you're a PRO), and emotional IQ, aka EQ
- Your business dealings stop being transaction based at some point, and becomes relationship based
- You develop unique and highly effective prospecting techniques, and specialized strategies to solicit and encourage buying decisions.
All really cool stuff. However, you can't train you. Make people you. Create yous.
Mindset of Business Builders
- Use tools that others can employ to present pertinent information
- They are students of their products and services, and teachers of systems
- They are empathetic and develop higher EQ regarding the needs of their team members and clients
- They find ways to solicit their team members to be the best version of themselves
- They develop highly effective and consistent probing techniques that increase the proficiency of the team.
- They sacrifice short term production, for long term volume and efficacy. In other words, they dedicate time to work on the important, while maintaining attention on the immediate.
- They realize that talent does win games (sometimes you just have to do what you have to do as a leader, and exhibit unabashed excellence), but teams win championships.
- They leverage tools and events to duplicate success. The simpler the better.
JuJuan Buford is a Detroit native, entrepreneur, business development professional, and writer dedicated to helping families, entrepreneurs, and business owners establish thriving enterprises, achieve financial independence, and build lives of satisfaction.
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