This title is paraphrased from a famous line in movies from 1948, 1967 and 1974… Google the first five words.

January brings the annual guilt trip caused by breaking or not making New Year’s resolutions.  I’m suggesting you forgo your weight loss resolution and instead implement some solid improvements in your everyday sales practice. Many of these I wrote about in 2019, but they are worth repeating.

Stop the “just wanted to check in” call.  

Prospects and customers are just too busy to have you check in.  Have a reason for your call; a new product or enhancement, a market development, a new service, a price adjustment, anything that adds value to your customer’s day.  They are about to invest 20 minutes of their already busy calendar in you.  Make it worthwhile.

Begin planning two weeks out.  

Too many of coaching clients tell me they run of time.  The end of the week comes and they haven’t made enough, or any sales calls.  They got caught up doing estimates, managing a big order and so forth.  That’s a lame excuse and just poor planning.  Set aside days you will be out of the office in front of customers.  Week one is confirmed appointments.  Week two is appointments you need to make.  All of this can be done on a smart phone (calendar, contacts and maps).  Plan your work and work your plan.

Don’t waste time on customers that are not buying.  

Ol’ George is a great guy and always has time for you, but he hasn’t purchased anything from you in years.  Give it up.  Call on prospects and customers that have a need and want to buy. 

Tell customers what THEY want to hear and not what YOU want to tell them. 

 Find out what your customer is looking for and talk about that solution.  Forget how long you’ve been in business, or the thousands of sku’s you have.  You are wasting your time and theirs.  Speak to what interests your customer.