“When the economy is booming, almost any product is easy to sell; when the economy tightens you need to double down on your sales system to turn leads into sales.”
~ Chandell Labbozzetta
The Reason Your Sales System Isn't Working Is NOT the Economy
Over the past few months, there has been a dramatic shift in the perception of prospects I’ve been talking to – especially when you compare them with my clients’ perception of the market. A few months ago, many business owners and sales managers were confident in their ability to make ‘enough sales to meet income targets and quotas’. Now they’re struggling because their prospects are nervous about the future and their communication skills and sales systems aren’t robust enough to cope.
One of my clients made the following comment,
“When the GFC was looming in 2008 (it hit Australia later and less dramatically than other parts of the world) we saw exactly the same thing – making sales of your product or service went from being like offering candy to a toddler, to being more like offering meat to a vegan. It took a genuine ability to understand where the prospect stood and what they cared about, to communicate that understanding, and to offer your product in ways that made it easy for them to say ‘Yes’. Suddenly, sales skills and systems shifted from ‘nice to have’ to ‘critical for survival. The same thing is starting to happen now and it’s slowly spreading from one industry to another. It’s time to brush up on your sales systems and skills… Or pay the price.”
We went on to discuss the fact that it’s not the economy per se that is the problem, it’s how you present your offer in the new climate.
If you keep on doing what you’ve always done in your sales process you will no longer get what you’ve always got… You’ll keep getting fewer sales and less revenue.
The Sales System You Need in a Boom Will No Longer Serve You!
Sally (name changed to protect her privacy) has been in one of my NLP Sales Mastery groups for several years. She’s one of the sales managers at a mid-sized company and she’s chosen to invest in her communication skills so she can also pass them onto her team. Until just a couple of months ago, there was very little difference in the performance of her team and others, but as the economy started to tighten, she discovered that she was closing significantly more sales than her team, and that her team was performing better than all the others. Her colleagues were coming to her and asking what she was doing and whether she could help them develop the same skills and systems.
That’s great for me, because I was contracted to train and develop all the sales teams at her company, but it also demonstrates how the economy is changing and the importance of being prepared for a downturn.
A Successful Sales System is No Longer About Slick Sales Skills… If It Ever Was!
The key reason that my sales trainings are so popular is that they are effective. I really can turn the sales-allergic into sales-enthusiastic because I focus on communication skills. Most people who have an ‘icky feeling’ about sales have that feeling because they think of sales as one person pushing the other into an agreement they don’t really need. I teach people to walk away from sales where your product won’t benefit the prospective buyer and won’t deliver far more value than the money they are paying. You’d think that would lead to fewer sales and appointments, but it actually leads to more sales.
Effective salesmanship was never about shoving a contract in front of someone and forcing them to sign, it was always about discovering what problem the prospect wants to solve and determining whether your solution fits their needs and budget. When the economy is good and interest rates are low, businesses spend freely so you don’t really need to develop rapport and communicate with sincerity, but when interest rates rise those things make all the difference. It doesn’t matter how good your sales scripts are, or how well designed your follow up is if your salespeople can’t establish a genuine connection.
By the same token, it doesn’t matter how good their communication skills are if your salespeople aren’t supported by robust sales systems that enhance their results. I’m a big believer in continued professional development that focuses on expanding personal skills, not merely providing ‘hacks and techniques’ and communication is one of those areas of personal growth that many sales teams don’t focus on… or not until they absolutely must!
The Truth About Sales Systems
“A sales system is only as good as the people who use it… But without good systems, skilled people can underperform.”
That truth is just as applicable to sales as it is to exercise, nutrition, health interventions, and education.
If you don’t have a system for taking care of your health, you’ll quickly lose track of essential medications, dietary needs, exercise, and other important factors. If there’s no system for education (ie curriculum), kids won’t learn to read, write, count, and think.
At the same time, if you don’t have skilled doctors and inspiring teachers, the ‘system’ will only take you so far.
Your sales system is just as essential as those other things, yet too many companies are asking their sales team to fly by the seat of their pants and at best have just a few parts of a system in place. Many of them are then surprised to find that even their star salespeople struggle with morale and performance when the economy tightens.
A sales system is vital if you want to keep your revenues growing and your sales team motivated.
Are You Giving Your Sales Team the Support and Systems they Need?
Many sales systems focus on techniques that are outdated or offer a structured approach that is transient and non-transferable. I’ve attended some sales training where you can’t even use the material you learned in a different department of the same organisation. My sales training focuses on human performance skills and the systemic elements that drive that performance. When I train inside an organisation, obviously we develop systems that are specific to that organisation or department and focus on the specific value-building and context of the product, but I also teach the principles that can be applied in any sales team.
I also periodically teach a sales system design workshop that walks participants through the elements of a sales system and shows how to build one and the crucial principles and skills that your sales team need to develop.
If you’d like to learn more then why not register for our next sales system workshop?
“In a rapidly changing economy, it is essential to have a robust sales strategy and leak-proof sales systems so that you build trust with prospects and clients and never resort to pushy sales tactics.”
~ Chandell Labbozzetta
Sales System Secrets that Position You for Success
Most businesses have pitifully weak sales systems.
That’s OK in a thriving economy – which is what we’ve experienced for the past 10 years or so, despite the stresses of the pandemic. When governments print money, business booms even while the underlying structures are rusting out, but eventually the time comes when you need to pay for everything you’ve borrowed. That time is here. Now.
Therefore… NOW is the time to pay attention to your sales system and ask: is it built to withstand an economic tsunami?
The truth is that you can build a sales system that is fragile or one that is robust. A fragile sales system will see your sales numbers slipping along with your market positioning, and your sales reps turning to desperate measures like discounting and manipulation. A robust sales system may see a slight decline in actual sales revenue, but it will see your reputation rising to new heights of leadership and authority, and your sales reps selling with integrity and confidence.
5 Keys to Your End of Financial Year Sales System Review
There are 5 Key Areas of Your Sales System that you should review as part of your EOFY procedures to evaluate the robustness (or anti-fragility) of your sales system:
- Team Morale and Confidence: this is not about whether your sales team is actually closing sales as much as it is about their confidence in the quality and value of your product or service.
- Client Needs Evaluation: in a changing environment are your product development people listening to what the sales people are telling them and acting on the information. Do you have mechanisms in place to process this information effectively?
- Offer and Pricing Review: based on the information provided by the clients, is your offer as finely tuned as possible and is your price reflective of the value you deliver – and yes, even in a shaky market, raising prices is an effective way of making more
- Sales Tools and Training: check that your sales tools are fit for purpose and your sales team are receiving the support and training they need to use them effectively. Ineffective sales tools and inadequate communication skills are a big reason why sales teams turn to pushy techniques and feel unsupported.
- Key Metric Tracking: ensure that you are only tracking the 3 key metrics that are leading indicators of your sales success so that your sales team focus on needle-moving activities and can see their upcoming sales success.
EOFY is the most important time to review your sales systems and ensure that they are set up to deliver more sales with less effort and a higher quality of clients. This goal is always important, but it’s especially important when the economy is stressed and inflation and economic slow down are the predominant forecast.
Sales Systems and Processes for a Slowing Economy
As money tightens, team morale and confidence are important keys to your profitability, but nothing boosts morale and confidence more than having robust sales systems and processes to fall back on. This is because even if the flow of leads slows down, these sales systems enable your team to avoid the kind of strident pushy sales techniques that are commonly associated with the confidence crush of the Eighties.
I’ve always said that when your sales system is designed to foster scale rather than growth, not only can you grow your business dramatically in good times (without overworking your staff), but you are also set up to prosper in tough economic times as well because your system has built-in rewards for the team by measuring the key elements of a sale that they can control and it also has checks and balances built-in so that your team can operate at maximum effectiveness.
Confident Conversion 90 days to More Clients, More Cash, and More Impact
In this 90-day program we cover essential strategies to design and build a robust and scalable sales system to prepare your sales team for success in a challenging economy by addressing mindset and communication tools, as well as a powerful sales strategy that delivers results.
Learn more about Confident Conversion: 90 days to More Cash, More Clients, More Impact HERE.
Through expert sales training, NLP coaching, and business development consulting, we’ve helped professionals refine their communications, accelerate their sales and supercharge their personal satisfaction and confidence. Do you want to be one of our success stories?
