Sales is Entrepreneurial Thinking

If you’re a salesperson who is paid all or part on commission, you’re not just an employee. You’re an entrepreneur, and if you want to be successful, you need to think and work like one.

Unlike traditional employees, how well you perform may mean the difference between paying the rent that month with some change left over, or coming up short. That’s the thing about sales. It sometimes seems that you either knock it out of the park or see a lot of bagels on the scoreboard.

It’s the same for someone starting a business. Entrepreneurs work by visualizing the goals they wish to achieve and plan accordingly.  They know they have to frontload the work at the beginning if they want the big payoff down the road. Successful salespeople do the same thing.

Start by doing what an entrepreneur does, and make a business plan, in writing. Start by visualizing where you want to be in, say, a year. Do you want to make $50,000? $100,000? Plan backwards from then to now, detailing the steps you need to take: How many calls, how many follow-up calls, how many emails, and so on. Your book of business starts with the first solid name you’re able to write in.

An entrepreneur knows you can either let things happen, or make things happen. So should you.

Here’s some useful information in helping create your personal business plan.

·         Eighty percent of sales require five follow-up calls, but forty-four percent of salespeople give up after one call.

·         The average salesperson makes eight dials per hour and prospects for 6.25 hours to set just one appointment.

·         Fifty percent of sales go to the first salesperson to contact the prospect.

·         In most companies with 100-500 employees, about seven actually make the buying decisions.

In other words, it takes a lot of prospecting to get a few good leads, and of those leads, only a few result in a sale. One major real estate brokerage used to teach that it took nine solid leads for one possible sale. Your business plan, then should say how many contacts you’re going to make every day, who they’ll be, and how you’ll contact them—telephone, email, or internet.

You need both quantity and quality. If your business plan goal is $75,000, and each sale averages $5,000, then you have to create 15 solid prospects. How many contacts do you have to make per day to get the magic 15? A hundred? 150? 200?

“I’ll buy $10,000 of whatever your selling,” said no lead, ever, on the first contact. Leads aren’t numbers, they’re people, and they need nurturing. Nurturing a lead doesn’t mean pounding her or him with a sales pitch every time you get in touch. It means you let that person know you’re thinking about him and his company’s needs. Send product updates or price changes, special deals, or maybe just a news clipping about something that person is interested in—say, a favorite sports team’s latest acquisition, or maybe something engaging you saw on Pinterest you know they’d like.

Speaking of which: Top sellers use LinkedIn six hours per week. Just sayin’. How much time do you spend there? Is your profile not only up to date, but polished?

Your sales book is your personal business, and you need to think like a business person to make it work.