As Jeff tells it,“ Right then I knew I was done. She won that round hands down. She was more perceptive than all the other dealers I’ d run into on this important point.” And then he adds,“ Someone needs to wake up as to what resonates with customers. I’ m so sick of hearing about rebates, road hazard warranties, and price.” Jeff isn’ t alone. He has lots of friends. We call them customers.
Got it? Now, why should customers do business with you?
3. Make a commitment to execute perfectly.
“ We’ ve got to get this out tomorrow.”“ They need it now.”“ I know, but it’ s a rush.” Such words do more damage to sales than just about anything else.
Of course, there are exceptions. But, far too often, the exceptions take over and become the rule.“ Just get it done” is a mindset, an attitude that permeates too many companies— it’ s the new normal.
The # 1 enemy in all this is cutting corners. It sabotages the best practices and the best intentions. When everything is rush, rush, rush, cutting corners is inevitable. There is never enough time to execute perfectly. We settle for“ good enough” and it isn’ t.
Cutting corners gives someone else a competitive advantage. Here are examples of what happens:
A proposal is due tomorrow.“ Just repurpose something you used last week.” The presentation date gets pushed up.“ Don’ t worry. Go ahead and wing it.” There’ s no time for having the needed planning meetings.“ Just squeeze it to one meeting.” The intel isn’ t complete.“ Run with what we’ ve got.”
Here’ s the point. Cutting corners puts salespeople at a major disadvantage. Tolerating or permitting it to occur taints their reputation, impairs performance and, ultimately, costs them sales.
If you want to be increasingly successful, then make a commitment to execute perfectly.
Messing up a company’ s sales is easy and it doesn’ t take a lot of time or effort. It occurs without thinking.
MANA welcomes your comments on this article. Write to us at mana @ manaonline. org.
John Graham
John Graham of GrahamComm is a marketing and sales strategy consultant and business writer. He is the creator of Magnet Marketing, and publishes a free monthly eBulletin, No Nonsense Marketing & Sales Ideas. Contact him at jgraham @ grahamcomm. com or johnrgraham. com.