• 2% of Sales are made on the First Contact
• 3% of Sales are made on the Second Contact
• 5% of Sales are made on the Third Contact
• 10% of Sales are made on the Fourth Contact
• 80% of Sales are made on the Fifth to Twelfth Contact

That’s why professionals employ email to help close sales!

Here’s what to expect:

• Won’t They Think I’m Spamming? The truth about the law
• How to engage your prospects to want to read your emails
• If At First You Don’t Succeed, Email, Email, Email Again!
• How to create campaigns that turn leads into prospects and prospects into customers
• Lead Nurturing – Automate it and sell more
• How to build personal relationships with prospects via email
• Client Touches – Post Sell, Upsell and Retain
• Getting Started
• Building a Quality List
• Create emails that get results

I watched a few moments of the NBA Finals because of the Magic. I grew up in Orlando and went to several of the first few Magic games. I remember Shaq driving across my college campus yelling out of a sun roof when he first came to town. It was a fun time in Orlando.

In 2008 I literally let the fat creep in. I’ve always played a lot of sports and ran daily. In 2008 I was sidelined for the first time with a knee injury. So, for one entire year I replaced the stress reliever of sweat with a newfound stress reliever – red velvet cake. My husband was happy to go along on this new strategy, too (although his choice was Oreo Cake.). It wasn’t long before I began to notice some signs of the creep. First of all, my dress size went up. Then, I felt more tired. I had perfectly reasonable explanations for each of these signs – “I ate a big meal last night”, “I’ve been travelling too much”, etc.

Then, I had a wake up call. I saw a very unflattering picture of myself. I couldn’t believe it and yet still had to see more evidence to truly believe. Finally, I got on the scale and there was no more denying it.

Begin the creep out. My first response was to do a liquid fast or any other number of drastic, fast fixes. I changed courses almost every day. Of course this didn’t work. So, now I am losing 1-2 pounds per week by burning more calories that I take in. This, turns out, is a slow, steady, frustrating and rewarding process.

The same creep happens to sales people. So, how do you turn it around and creep back in the other direction?

First of all, get on the scale early and often.

It is hard to be in denial when it’s staring back at you in black and white. Run every report you can – look at activity trends for your salespeople, performance numbers, data, data, data. Wallpaper your office with charts and address any turn in the wrong direction.

Embrace and share the unflattering pictures.

It is no fun to see your team at the bottom of any report. Facing reality is a trait of successful businesses (Good to Great anyone?). You are better off being the one to surface it and address it and even get guidance. It will come out sooner or later and you’re in a much better position when you are the solution instead of the problem.

Don’t change diets every Monday.

Pick a strategy, a good strategy, and then stick to it. It’s OK to make adjustments along the way, but too many sales teams have the “flavor of the week” strategy system. This is confusing and keeps the creep creeping the wrong way.

No crash diets.

Way too often I talk to companies who are trying to fix everything with one 2-day sales training program. It can’t be done. Just like the 2-day liquid diet doesn’t work. Yeah, you’ll drop a waist size, but it won’t last and often you end up worse than before. The same thing happens with the “fix all” training session. Instead, pick 1-2 things that will make the biggest difference and align all your focus, accountability and resource behind those things.

Recognize the creep earlier next time.

Now that you’ve addressed it, analyze the creep. What were the early signs? How can you recognize those sooner next time? Figure that out and stay vigilant.

It does take some time to creep back out so get started now. Your team is counting on you.

This observation is brought to you by Jill Myrick of Meeting to Win. Meeting to Win is challenging our readers to help us bring 100 new sales managers the FREE weekly sales team meeting topics. Tell your friends and colleagues about this great resource (they can subscribe for FREE here) and help us hit our goal of 100 new subscribers in June. 1,000 sales people will thank you! To see the latest 10-Minute Topic click here.

Hello Friends & Partners,

I wanted to share some recent attention for Meeting to Win and a challenge. Over 100 Sales Managers have subscribed to our FREE weekly sales team meeting topic newsletter just in the past month. That means that at least 1,000 sales people are now enjoying their sales team meetings instead of simply enduring them. That – and better sales results – is what Meeting to Win is all about.

With your help we would like to improve the lives of 1,000 more sales people this month. To do that, we need 100 more Sales Managers to subscribe. Please share Meeting to Win’s FREE M2W 10-Minute Topic with Sales Managers. We will continue to work hard to develop and introduce relevant and interesting topics to grow their business.

Thank you for helping us improve the lives of salespeople daily! It’s a pleasure to work with our friends, colleagues and partners. Thank you for helping us meet the challenge of improving the lives and results of 1,000 sales people during the month of June!

Sincerely,
Jill

P.S. Check out the latest newsletter from Smart Selling Tools where Meeting to Win is the featured tool.

This post brought to you by Meeting to Win. 

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Enjoy “25 Actions….”

I’ve been talking with sales professionals and sales managers from different industries all seeing different degrees of success in this strange economic time. Whether they are succeeding or not, one thing is for sure – their business is different. From these conversations, I’ve gathered a list of 25 things sales professionals can do now to improve their sales this year. Choose one or two and change your year!

1. Build a solid referral network and set a goal to GIVE and GET one new referral every week. (We at Meeting to Win love Referral Flood.)
2. Read book summaries (Summaries.com or Soundview are great) each week and apply new ideas.
3. Invest in sales skill improvement (Top Sales Experts is a great place to invest to gain access to the world’s top sales gurus.)
4. Find an accountability partner to meet with once per week. You can keep each other on track as your pursue your goals.
5. Commit to having and then executing great weekly sales team meetings. (10 Tips from the team here at Meeting to Win.)
6. Share expertise with your clients and prospects in a helpful way – hold webinars, send a newsletter, have a meeting, share marketing intelligence, etc).
7. Choose 1-2 things to focus on that will make the most impact on your annual performance – new clients, filling your pipeline, etc – and make those a priority every day.
8. Attend networking events for new contacts and new ideas and the energy they can create.
9. Schedule time to think each week.
10. Analyze wins and losses while they are fresh.
11. Collaborate on live deals with peers.
12. Involve senior leadership early and often on live deals.
13. Develop and execute an aggressive business development plan.
14. Perfect your pitch (The Exceptional Presenter)!
15. Objectively examine your prospect and clients lists for any relationship that is not win-win. When you find them, determine how they may be better served and gracefully move them off your list.
16. Honestly assess whether you are positioned right within each of your prospects and clients. Too often someone is working a different, more effective angle and salespeople find out too late.
17. Create an ideal customer profile and pursue only those who fit the profile.
18. Start an opt-in newsletter for clients and prospects (MailChimp).
19. Evaluate your use of available technology to determine how you could use the tools more effectively.
20. SWOT your company, your offering and your deals regularly.
21. Back into success. Visualize where you want to end the year and then back into the activities you need to do to get there.
22. Commit to exceeding the right sales activity goals every day.
23. Get together with your team for a War Room discussion about selling in this economy once per month. Keep it realistic, but solution focused.
24. Start a leads group in your territory.
25. Relentlessly pursue ways to help your clients succeed.

Enjoy the ideas for a better year starting NOW.

This list brought to you by Jill Myrick of Meeting to Win, LLC. Meeting to Win offers several sales team meeting solutions including a FREE weekly 10-Minute Sales Team Meeting Topic, a weekly 60-Minute sales team meeting in-a-box and customized corporate solutions. Check us out at Meeting to Win.