Brian Tracy, the well-known motivational trainer and speaker, argues that the sale is made of 3 key activities in sequence:
- search for potential new customers
- sales presentation
- closing of the sale
If a seller invests 90% of his time in these three, says Tracy, he cannot fail.
Mhmm…
“I completely agree in half”… said a learned footballer in a Gialappa’s Band theme song…
…because if we talk about sales in the field TODAY, in 2016, and in particular B2B sales, this model risks taking us off the road.
I have read many of his books and followed some of his classes: Brian Tracy is a monument. But his concepts must be assimilated, not taken literally. It’s like studying at the Classical High School and then pretending to speak in ancient Greek or Latin. Everything must be brought up to date…
Let’s see the 3 activities one by one:
Searching for new potential customers (today we say lead generation)
In our view, it’s completely counterproductive nowadays for prospecting to be carried out by sellers.
It takes too much time and produces too much “waste”.
If you force a salesman to make lead generation, one of the two:
– he no longer sells on existing customers
– or he soon freaks out and resigns
Lead generation must be carried out by Marketing. Point. So, it has something measurable to deal with.
And sales just have to sell. Point. So, they can no longer have excuses that they have not had time to make the turnover.
I would never stop talking about the reorganization of the roles of Marketing – Lead Generation – Sales.
Sales presentation
In his model, Tracy also takes it almost for granted that the sale can, indeed SHOULD take place in the first visit.
If only the first visit were enough in B2B! It is not that we all still sell arrays of pots door to door in Nebraska…
Come and sell me in first visit a nice ERP software… or a 120,000 Euro solution per year for 5 years…
But Tracy is right about one thing, and here his teachings are GOLD: the first visit is fundamental, and it is poorly prepared and managed by the sellers.
What you need is a first visit strategy aimed at “selling” the next step, not closing an order immediately.
This is also a subject that deserves to be examined in depth, because lead CONVERSION in negotiations is a black hole in which the sales networks never want to look inside.
.
Closing of the sale
Closing techniques help (like chess). But if you’ve played poorly before, they’re still useless.
Similarly, in modern sales there’s not only the opening (i.e. the first visit) and closing (i.e. the final of the game with its techniques): there’s also a game center made of a thousand interactions and colors.
And managing the sales cycle is another thing that many sellers don’t know how to do well.
The techniques of closing the sale are useful, but only at the end: first you have to master the management strategies of the sales cycle.
This too, in fact, is a theme responsible for blurring many orders, without even understanding why.
***
For now, there’s too much on the plate.
The fact is that Marketing, Lead Generation and Sales offer so many ideas, that as soon as you touch one topic, another ten move, like a domino effect.
That’s why we decided to divide future insights into pills.
We’ll continue to sell services. We’ll continue to sell infoproducts. And the points for reflection will continue in these our daily articles.
But in addition, every month:
- We’ll select some “hot” topics that will be EXAMINED and APPROVED in the printed newsletter
- It’ll be a professional updating file for those who deal with Marketing and Sales
- for those who want to focus their time on a distillate of things that can serve them immediately
- for those who want to spend a moment of Thinking Room
- and all this strictly only on paper, so that while you read, they don’t ping your emails and you are sheltered from digital sirens
