***GUEST AUTHOR MARK HUNTER***
Tale of The Sale:
One morning while walking through John Wayne Airport, I heard someone call out my name. As I turned around, I noticed it was the president of a Chicago-based services company. His company sells primarily to large corporations and typically with multi-year contracts. Our paths had crossed at past industry conferences where I had spoken. The president grabbed me, said we needed to talk, and asked when we could arrange a conference call or meeting to discuss his problem.
He told me what was going on and the issues he was having with his company. His problem was not unlike what many other CEO’s and VPs of sales face. In my new, best-selling book “High-Profit Prospecting,” I point out the problem being that all the money they had been spending on marketing was simply not working as well as the board and the investment companies that owned the company expected. The company had grown dramatically, and along the way, it had developed a great reputation in its industry. The problem was the industry was stagnant. As a result, so were sales, and the investment firms were restless. This man knew it was only time before the board began challenging him.
He went on to say he no longer had faith in his VP of sales. I challenged him as to why, and his comment was again something I’ve heard from numerous others- he said his VP of sales had for several years touted about how good the sales force was and how they had nothing but superstars. Truth be told, what he had weren’t superstars, but merely salespeople who did a great job of responding to high-potential leads because their industry had been so hot.
During a period of solid growth, the sales team simply walked away from prospecting. They didn’t feel it was necessary, because the phone kept ringing. Making matters worse, the marketing department believed all the success the sales team was having was due to the marketing department’s great marketing efforts.
When business began to soften, the task was given to marketing to simply increase spending, which would lead to the return of the business. After two years of increased spending by marketing, the business didn’t return, because it went instead to their competitor.
Lesson from this Tale of the Sale:
Even when times were good, this company’s competitor remained aggressive with prospecting efforts. The competitor could have taken the easy way out and stopped prospecting when times were good. In fact, they probably could have reduced head count and saved money, but they knew prospecting works and is a critical process in both the good times and bad times. In my best-selling book “High-Profit Prospecting,” I share about how to find customers and fill your company’s new-business pipeline. You will learn powerful strategies to find the best leads and drive breakthrough sales results. Grab your copy today!
Mark Hunter, CSP “The Sales Hunter” is known for his high-energy, high-impact sales keynotes designed to one thing, deliver more sales…now. Find out more at: https://thesaleshunter.com/