Symptoms:
Have you ever been part of a sales call where there seemed to be little structure, where both parties seemed to be on different pages, where expectations were not met, and little was accomplished? Even worse, you expected something positive to occur but simply got a lukewarm response such as, "I need to think it over. Call me in a few days." Opportunities are squandered and the buyer seems to be in control.
Symptoms:
Matt is looking at his calendar and doing some planning, knowing that many things he does look too much like random acts of mindless behavior. Looking back on past months, he feels like he was scrambling and playing catch up all the time instead of having that feeling that he had some deliberate control of his actions. He wants to get back that feeling of being on a roll, where it's like running downhill instead of uphill all the time.
Symptoms:
Jake was putting in about 60 hours a week plus some time on the weekends but was still worried that his sales and management production was not nearly as high as it could be. The family did not see him as much anymore and his "To Do" list was constantly growing. Despite all his hard work, the only thing he could conclude was that he needed to do a better job of "time management".
Symptoms:
Dan left his latest meeting with a prospective account knowing he had to make some changes. The Buyer was willing to talk about many things, but not what Dan wanted to sell, which was being provided by another firm. The upcoming election came up several times too, but Dan did his best to push past all the uncertainties surrounding that topic. It seemed no matter how hard he pushed his features, benefits or competitive advantages he was not able to move this buyer to consider a particular product because of a strong competitor and an unpredictable economy.
Symptoms:
Jennifer had just returned from her ten-year high school class reunion where it seemed that many of her classmates had some fancy "professional" job. The question "so what are you doing now?" had become almost too painful to answer when she told her former classmates that she was in "sales". No one seemed to respect her role in business development as an account manager, with some even going so far as to say, "I thought you wanted to become an English teacher, what happened?" The truth was Jennifer had tried teaching for a few years, but soon realized that she would never be happy spending the rest of her working days confined to a classroom. Now Jennifer had to get herself pumped up to start a new week, but the negative head trash from her peers had her wishing she could go back to bed.
Tom was looking at the standings and found his name in the usual spot about two thirds of the way down. Given the way his clients were behaving lately and the condition of his market, he felt lucky he wasn't closer to the bottom. Hey, at least I'm not a loser is what he kept telling himself. Sure, his company had launched some new programs to boost production, but he had given up on that quickly when his prospects had convinced him that they still weren't going to buy from him. After all, he was doing everything he could do and his manager really wasn't helping him much.
Symptoms:
Jody was driving away from her newly won account with that smirky smile of satisfaction on her face. She had walked her way through the process from the referral stage, onto discovery and fact finding, then qualification with a commitment to act one way or another, and finally the agreement to do business together.
She knew her self-satisfaction was a result of the actions she took only a few short weeks ago, after several nightmare appointments almost sent her to rock bottom. During those calls, she had been nervous about her lack of preparation and from not knowing where she was in her own sales cycle. All that should have been done did not get done because she kept telling herself she was "too busy" to spend the needed time on any one aspect of her business.
Symptoms:
Ellen felt blah, like the world’s color had vanished and everything was stuck between black and white in some all gray tones of reality. After 12 long weeks of working from home and trying to force herself to keep fighting the fight, Ellen’s commitment sagged to its lowest point ever. The constant barrage of virtual meetings and remote access sales calls created a sense that the sales world no longer felt like the same place she was so excited about three long months ago. Was this it? Was post pandemic selling how people were actually going to be doing business? Was Ellen’s personal touch and ability to connect with her customers going to be limited to email, voice mail and ZOOM interactions? To Ellen it all looked like the world had turned Battleship Gray faster than she could believe, and no, she did not like that color at all.
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.
It feels like there are so many LISTS all the time proclaiming the best, the worst, the most needed or wasted items of any given time period.
