The last quarter’s sales numbers were posted online for the entire sales team to review. There was no hiding once the sales manager sent the email out to his entire team, and Darren hated seeing his name in the lowest 25%. What made him more confused was that he had been with the company for 14 years, yet three of the top five producers had less than half of his experience.
John's territory involves working with many prospects that ask for samples, demonstrations, proposals, references and all the usual items that buyers want from a vendor. Trying to appear accommodating and professional, John finds himself spending hours of time preparing, writing, setting up or sending all this information that he believes will help "convince" his prospect. Everyone appears very impressed with what John shows them, except it seems like they don't act on all that "interest" often enough. Although his results are okay, he cannot understand why all this activity is not leading to more orders.
THIS EVENT IS POSTPONED UNTIL LATER THIS YEAR.
The Growth Dynamics team has been reviewing our goals for 2021, planning for the remainder of the year and holding conversations about planning 2022. We think maybe you've been having them too, especially after our Mid-Year Check In Podcast from a few weeks ago. So now, we want to have them together and offer our coaching to help you get ready for the final months of 2021.
Sally and Sanjay were comparing notes after a very busy week out selling. Sally was exhausted, but at the same time pretty satisfied that her week was highly productive and would produce some nice revenue for the company and herself. Sanjay, on the other hand, was exhausted and uncertain about what actually happened to him and what success he created. As they compared “war stories” Sally could detail where she was with each prospect she engaged and exactly what the next steps were in the decision process. She could validate she was in control and her future was certain to be positive. Stunned to hear such detail and certainty, Sanjay couldn't comprehend how Sally managed to systematically get through the minefield his sales approach created. “You mean you don’t have all these problems I keep running into?” Sanjay queried. Sally looked at him and replied, “You only have to deal with them if you do not have a process to keep you out of them.”
Diane returned from the product demo certain that the features and benefits she shared with her prospect had wowed them. The buyer nodded when Diane asked if the product fit into the product categories they offered to their customer base, and everyone else that sat in on the meeting told her how much they liked what she had presented. She felt as good about this call as she had in a long time, but now six weeks later there was still no purchase order and the prospect had gone radio silent. How did their excitement turn into Diane's frustration?
This week Major League Baseball held its annual Home Run Derby. We've seen the home run derbies before. We watch them every year. They are always the same - each slugger tries to hit more home runs than the other sluggers in the contest. At the same time, they are always different and last night there were four stories that made this year's home run derby different from all the rest. Pete Alonso, Shohei Ohtani, Trey Mancini, and Juan Soto made the contest different. It is always the individual story lines that make the mundane different.
Lauren hated watching the network news or seeing the latest news flashing on her phone. It seemed like the "Big Story" everywhere was another mass shooting, a political meltdown, a plane crash or other sad story. The positive outlook Lauren typically brought to each day had always kept her going no matter what she encountered in her business development activities. But now, so many people she spoke with apparently felt like there was so little certainty left in the world, and some of them wanted her to join in their negativity. Looking at how hard she was working just to maintain some positive momentum, Lauren began to have some doubts of her own about the future.
Mark is looking at his schedule and realizing the July 4th holiday is just days away. Oh, Oh! Is the quarter really almost over? And the year is half over too. The sales reports are bound to follow, and he is determined not to let his performance slip away. Mark has decided it's time to review and get his game plan back on track.
Have you been experiencing long-term stress? If so, you might be at risk of suffering from brain burnout. Brain burnout is more common than you might think, but it presents differently in introverts and extroverts.
Marcy, her manager and their product expert just finished a conference call with a hot prospect, and after the last caller signed off, she felt like the last hour had just wasted a month's worth of effort in getting it set up. They had all agreed to dial in, so why was there so little interest, so few questions and no action items at the end of the call? Why was there so little interaction between her team and the audience? Granted, she didn't have too much to say on the call, but the purpose was to show off their company and their offerings. Or was it? Now, looking back, she wasn't so sure.
