Higher Power
10 secret weapons that will make you a hands-on leader for your sales team
Some entrepreneurs love to take matters into their own hands
when it comes to selling face-to-face. Others choose to delegate
selling authority-and in so doing, they cheat their businesses out
of a great deal of selling impact. My question: What does the first
group know about selling that the rest of us wish we knew?
Here, based on interviews with some of the most successful top
executives in the country, are 10 actions that CEOs who sell
successfully do on a regular basis. Consider working these
strategies and tactics into your daily routine, and have your sales
team do so, too.
Know Your Ideal
Prospects. CEOs who sell hate wasting time, so they
target the people and groups most likely to buy from them. Wasted
time in the sales process adds to the cost of sales and extends the
critical time-to-revenue benchmark. Bob Palmisano, CEO of
MacroChem, a transdermal drug delivery company in Lexington,
Virginia, learned about targeting ideal prospects early on at
Bausch & Lomb, Playtex and Mobil Oil. "You must figure out
very quickly how you fit in with a given prospect," he says.
"You must back away quickly when what you have doesn't fit
what they need."
Content Continues Below
In addition, CEOs who are successful in sales have no qualms
about calling another organization's top person to find out
whether there's a potential fit between their respective
companies. That means you should be willing and able to do the
same. It's also helpful to identify all the sales that are
taking too long to close. Go ahead, pick up the phone and don't
be shy-you'll quickly find out what's taking so long and
speed things up in no time.
Understand That
Other CEOs Use Similar Criteria to Buy and Sell. CEOs
who sell take the same energetic, visionary approach to buying as
they do to selling. If you were to pick up the phone and call Mike
Borer, 43-year-old CEO of Xcel Pharmaceuticals in San Diego, you
would likely get shunted to one of his staff. Why? Because Borer
learned that giving employees ownership of their ideas and making
them accountable for their decisions works. He trusts his people to
help him in the buying and selling process. He has to: His
organization operates in a market where strict government
regulation is the norm, so he looks for high degrees of accuracy in
all sales pitches. And he relies on his team of experts for help.
The moral of the story: Find out what the target CEO's buying
and what the selling criteria are before approaching him or
her.
Page 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 