Being a successful salesperson takes unbelieveable self-discipline. It is a job that requires proactive activity to move forward. At the same time, there are enough things to simply react to that a salesperson can stand still instead of move forward. I am in the process of writing a sales team meeting agenda to help our subscribers identify their anchors and then figure out how to pull them up occassionally so they can move forward into the sea of opportunity that exists for them. I thought I’d share the concept in a blog post, also.
How can you tell if you have anchors? Here are a few questions to answer:
- Have you identified a new problem to solve for your current clients?
- Have you presented new ideas and solutions to help them meet their goals?
- Does your pipeline grow and move at a good pace?
- Have you added new customers, new contacts and new referral partners to your client list in the past year?
- Are your sales growing?
If you answered “no” to any of those questions, you may need to find and pull up your anchors so you can move forward and grow your business. Anchors are the things you are doing instead of developing and expanding your business.
To get started, think about everything you do in a week to simply maintain, or not lose, your current business. These are your anchors. Examine those activities closely and determine how to use those to grow your business or how to delegate them to a capable associate with different responsibilties (customer service, etc). Anchors can be good sometimes. Occassionally it makes sense to stop, drop your anchor and get ready to move forward again. Just don’t sit there too long.
Now, replace your anchors with business development activities. Your ship will be sailing again before you know it.
Pull up your anchors – the sea awaits.
Post brought to you by Jill Myrick, Owner of Meeting to Win, LLC. Join our growing community of subscribers for weekly sales team meeting topics in a 60-minute format. Agendas include practical exercises, practice sessions, discussion topics and leadership opportunities. Grow your sales with Meeting to Win.
