ok, now what do I do to sell? 

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Wed, May 13, 2020

Bird Dressed-For-Winter 050920With last weekend's nasty weatha' at the NH beach and even more snow stopping my planned Saturday mornin' trip to Winhall/Bondville VT, I took the time to post to my 6,700 LinkedIn friends my "Six Best Sales Practices for Selling Normally in Abnormal Times",

This comes from a webinar with I shared with Laurie White, President of the Providence Chamber of Commerce, and her superb members. 

I thought that the questions raised from these real-life business owners and salespeople were perfect examples of what it takes to work and survive on the front line in these chaotic times.  

This Monday I dialed into the 2020 Virtual World Medical Innovation Forum spending various snippets of time listening when I could during this day-long event to an outstanding worldwide webinar conducted by Mass General Brigham.  Thousands of people from 15 countries involving 50+ worldwide clinical and business leaders as speakers.  I thought that the content was absolutely superb with many of the lessons, best practices and operating themes immediately adaptable to our own businesses outside of healthcare.  

  • We need to be open with much more honest and direct collaboration, not just "better communication".
  • We don’t even know yet what "The New Normal" is! 
  • We will be totally reimagining healthcare; everything is on the table.  
  • We are building the plane while it’s flying since we have no other choice in order to survive!
  • We are going 10 times faster than ever before, and now we need to move even much faster.
  • The future is an explosive use of working virtually and online, and we are never going back.

What's does this mean to me Today?  3 things

1. Sell to the moment!
Our sales plans need to be only "Activity Plans" totally focused from tomorrow all the way to June 30th!
This year, July 4th will have an entirely new meaning since the summer will totally redefine how we market, how we follow up, and how we actually sell and close deals.  The phrase "a long hot summer" will define and take on an entirely new meaning for us as business leaders as we move through what I believe will be a very difficult period of 60 days.  

AIM 30 on Thursday Recalibratinkg Sales WebinarNot only does this theme of "sell to the moment" apply to the world of Sales, it doubly applies to the world of Marketing, which is evolving at an even greater velocity than Sales.  Over the next 6 and 12 months, we will be running short sprints in a race to complete the adoption of digital tools to run our businesses and our marketing and sales processes all aimed at creating much more straight line and more meaningful discussions with our prospects and customers.  

Join me at the Associated Industries of Massachusetts webinar here tomorrow, Thursday, the 13th, at 11:00 for more ideas on re-calibrating your sales and selling normally during these abnormal times.  https://bit.ly/3cxhNsk.  

 

2. Just Do More!
do more 2.Imagine a virtual stick and tomorrow morning scratch out a performance line in the sand for where you want to be in 45, 90 and then another 90 days ending up at the end of December.  That becomes your personal and your company's baseline that you and your team have agreed to for these various times periods with your most important focus on the time between today and July 4th.  

You're then going to repeat that same process around the 25th of June and then plan out from that point to Labor Day. 

Now with those baselines defined, ask yourself and your team, what would it take to do 10% more?  Impossible to do 10% more?  I doubt it...even considering the long hot summer.  

 

3.  Practice total trust in your team, your company and in your customers.

  • No more negativity by assessing blame and just complaining.  
  • No more walking on eggshells refusing to deal with the tough issues & decisions.
  • No more empty "feel-good" phrases with no reality as to what do I do tomorrow. 

Trust in Sales-6If in a time of both personal and business chaos, which in many cases right now deals with actual life and death and the downsizing and closing of thousands of businesses, if we cannot be totally honest and define real trust among ourselves, our employees and our customers, then there's a much bigger and much more fundamental underlying problem in the management of the business. 

If that's the case, then it's our responsibility to immediately cut the kinks out of the rope and either throw them out or repurpose them, and then retie the knot into something much stronger and without the kinks that are getting in the way and slowing us down right now!  When we put these comments into activities that we need to take now in order to survive, it's actually not that difficult to move ahead.  

 

Jack and Tufts Entrepreneurship Center -1If at any time, you have a need for a confidential sounding board management coaching or for Sales or Marketing stuff, just connect with me at any time.  Text or email me, and I will quickly set up a call.  I'm a pretty good listener.  Obviously, no cost, just an opportunity to listen intently and make a few recommendations based on decades of experience.

Be safe and positive today!
Hopefully "see" you at the AIM Webinar at 11.

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Tags: Making Tough Choices, sales management productivity, selling trust, sales motivation, 2020 sales plans, writing sales plans, sales readiness