A fantastic story of Rui Guedes, Chief Sales Officer North – Yellow Pages
It was Friday at the end of the day and I was in the downtown Porto office, in the sales room with all my fellow salespeople.
Already it smelled It was the weekend, so everyone was just reporting on the day's activities and finalizing administrative matters.
Meanwhile, my boss left his office, walked calmly to the middle of the room, looked at us silently for a few seconds, and then... fired:
“"The salesperson who closes the next deal wins a dinner for two!"”
What was once a relatively calm environment, It quickly became a frenzy., with the salespeople glued to the phone.
Like everyone else, I picked up mine. pipeline, I analyzed the proposals I had for a few seconds. in the street, I looked at the closing probabilities and selected 3 clients to call..
I made a phone call and told the client that I had some interesting information to share with him: If the deal were closed that week, he could benefit from better conditions. (because in the revised proposal there was still a small room for maneuver).
After a brief conversation, The customer agreed. and sent a fax (yes… it wasn't an email back then 😉) to formalize the order.
I raised my arm and told my boss that the deal was closed.
He would certainly receive congratulations for the result obtained, right? Wrong!!!
I did indeed receive dinner (and in truth, I can even say I received congratulations…) but Some curious questions were also raised.:
- Could it be? I needed to have dinner to close this deal.?
- Could it be? It wasn't enough for me to have defined goals. and a variable compensation system for be focused What did I have to do?
- Could it be? If this phone call had been made the following Monday, it would still have been in time., Or has the customer already chosen a faster supplier?
I confess that I'd never been hit on the head so many times before., And even more so after I felt I had done a good job.
However, on that day I learned or reinforced several lessons:
- A delayed sale can be a lost sale..
- Motivation is primarily intrinsic. e this in our desire to do it.
- Before you ask me about results, I'm the one who has to do it..
This is more a simple sales story It was a small business transaction (only one entry-level Xerox machine was sold), but it did happen.
In that room was a group of sales professionals whom I admired and who, in many cases, had more experience and were better than me. I even admit that the dinner my boss offered might not have been appealing enough to make me... to mix Some of them had ambitions of another dimension. It's perfectly plausible.
Additionally, it is worth remembering that, similarly to what happens in high-level competitive sports, we know that We cannot (and should not) be in a state of high blood pressure 24 hours a day., because it is critical to success and to our health, a correct rest management.
We also know that, depending on the business areas, the client profile, and the structure of the company to which we are submitting a proposal, we may have longer decision-making cycles and that in many cases, Giving them time to decide only reveals the confidence we have in the solution we are presenting..
Looking back now with the necessary distance after so many years and understanding the context in which this episode occurred, I still find some interesting data that remains valid.
Being results-oriented… while being focused on the activity.
- A simple phone call helped us gain another customer. What if there were two phone calls? What if there were two additional phone calls every day?
- What results could I expect if I made 44 more monthly contacts? The results are merely a consequence.
- That client closed the deal because they were already at the bottom of the sales funnel, but to get there they had to go through a series of stages.
- Anyone who has ever fired a pistol, for example, knows that just an inadequate pressure on the trigger can result in a very significant deviation from the target.
- It is amount We've found the root causes. If I consistently feed the top of my funnel, things will happen, and a small gesture each day can trigger amazing results.
Do well
- Does it make sense for me to have agricultural equipment to sell if I'm contacting pharmacies every day to promote my products? I know the example is bizarre, but it illustrates the importance of... do well.
- Our future success stems from the consistency of what we do well every day, and from the implementation of a defined sales process.
- There is a wide range of characteristics that define a good salesperson, but that's not what I'm discussing today. I only intend to touch on this aspect related to... exemplary execution.
- This doesn't clash with creativity, with a new argument we present, with a different approach, but always having a guiding thread that leads us in the right direction.
- We might even be inspired, achieve good conversion rates, reach our goal with less effort, and this time... everything went well.
- However, we can always remember that if inspiration is lacking, we can resort to perspiration, and the goal will still be there to see us arrive!
Happy selling!
