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9 Sales Activities to Take This Week To Improve Your Results (and That Your Sales Management Isn’t Measuring)

Anthony Iannarino
Post by Anthony Iannarino
May 2, 2010

Sales Activity and Sales Effectivness Isn't Always Measured by Sales Management1. Call and Thank Your Largest Client

Maybe your largest client gets plenty of attention. Maybe they demand plenty of attention.

Related: How to Prepare for a Client Conversation

Call three contacts at your largest client this week to thank them for their trust.

2. Call a Client to Schedule and Unscheduled Review

Formal, scheduled reviews are a wonderful way to work with your clients to continuously improve. But there is no reason to wait for the calendar to change to sit down with your clients, even if a review is imminent.

Call one client and schedule an unscheduled review. Find out what you can do to improve your service between now and the next scheduled review.

3. Review and Analyze Your Wallet Share

Make a spreadsheet with four columns. In column one, make a list of your clients by name. In your second column, make a list of how much they have spent with you this year. In the third column, add the amount you believe they spend in your category.

In the fourth column, divide column two (the amount they have spent with you) by column three (the amount you believe the spend). The result in column for is your wallet share. Just stare at the list and let the numbers sink in for a while . . . when the pain is too much to bear, move on to number 4.

4. Schedule to Review Your Performance with Low Wallet Share Clients

Schedule appointments with your highest value, lowest wallet share clients. Visit them with the sole objective to listening to them talk about you, your business, and your performance. Find out what makes you hard to do business with so that you can make the necessary adjustments and sell the changes inside.

5. Schedule an Unscheduled Visit With Your Sales Manager (Or Sales Person) to Strategize on Dream Clients and/or Wallet Share

You don’t have to wait until you have a scheduled meeting to work with your team on improving your performance. Schedule a meeting with your sales manager to discuss ways in which you might move some of your dream clients into the pipeline. If you are a sales manager (or a Vice President of Sales), schedule to meet with a salesperson to brainstorm how you might help them move a dream client.

Also, this is the perfect time to talk about your Wallet Share report.

6. Take Two Non-Sales Members of Your Team to Lunch

To succeed in sales (or anything else), you need to build relationships. The relationships on the inside of your company are every bit as critical to your success as the relationships you develop outside your company.

Identify two members of your team with whom you need to develop a closer, more effective relationship and take them to lunch (yes, you have to pay for their lunch . . . we are courting them like we would a client!).

7. Write a Public Letter (Or Email) of Appreciation for Your Non-Sales (but Still Essential) Team Members

We win deals. But that endeavor, no matter how it might seem, is the result of the work of your whole team. Don’t believe me? You know those letters of reference you carry around in your binder? You don’t really think those are about you alone, do you?

You received the credit for the win. You received the public accolades. You are receiving the commission. You aren’t doing all of the work. Write a very public email thanking your team for their work on a single account. Choose the account for which you will publicly praise their work based upon how much it stretched the whole team.

Let them know that their work means the world to you and your client . . . it does! (less than two paragraphs isn’t thoughtful enough and more than three means they will know someone put you up to it)

8. Make Your Pipeline a Work of Fact—Not Fiction

Your pipeline is full of client names that aren’t in any way, shape, or form real opportunities that you should be pursuing. Review your pipeline with a fine-tooth comb. Remove any opportunities that are no longer opportunities—and remove the entries that never were really opportunities.

It is likely that you will have a much narrower list of opportunities, but that the opportunities you have left will be ones that you have a possibility of winning. If you want a bigger list of opportunities prospect and . . .

9. Make a List of Dream Clients (And Call Them)

This is old advice for readers of this humble blog. But it is still rock solid. Dream clients are the prospects for who you can do breath-taking, awe-inspiring, results-transforming work. If you have not made this list, do it now!

Make a list of the prospects that fit the above description. Then make a list of reasons you believe you can do drop dead, magnificent, game-changing work for them. Then call them and share what you have been thinking about. Nurture these relationships!

Conclusion

Your sales manager doesn’t measure all of the activities that you must take in order to succeed in sales. Some of the most important performance-improving activities aren’t measured at all. Complete these nine activities this week; they won’t show up on your reports, but they will show up in your results!

 

Tags:
Sales 2010
Post by Anthony Iannarino on May 2, 2010

Written and edited by human brains and human hands.

Anthony Iannarino
Anthony Iannarino is a writer, an international speaker, and an entrepreneur. He is the author of four books on the modern sales approach, one book on sales leadership, and his latest book called The Negativity Fast releases on 10.31.23. Anthony posts daily content here at TheSalesBlog.com.
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