In his book Predictable Revenue, Aaron Ross discusses “sales, best practices.” One of his tips that caught my eye were what he called “Success Plans.” We have heard sales professionals continually beat the dead horse of relationship selling. I mean seriously, we get it, we need to find the “need” nowadays not just close.
But it’s easy to think we get that concept and forget to focus on integrating it into every single stage of process. This includes the close and after of course. If you don’t make some kind of criteria for success, how do you know that the need was actually met? If your clients typically save $20,000 bucks with your product and your customer only save $500, something has gone wrong and you might lose a repeat customer because you didn’t make a success plan. Spell out what success looks like and in what time frame. You will create better customer loyalty and get more referrals by selling to the need even after the sale.
BoweryJE22
Great insight. A criteria for success is a must in anything you do. Applying it to sales is a no brainer
I really agree with your insights about success criteria. I think it can be easy to feel proud of a sales accomplishment, but the reality is that the seller could have obtained greater payment for their goods or service rendered. Without a clear picture of what success looks like, even non-monetarily, success can never be fully realized.
Great post, and amazing picture! 🙂
I think this is a really important point. It can be easy to get caught up in the sales process and be so excited about a sale that we forget to follow up with the customer. Not only are you losing a returning customer, you lose credibility as a company and referrals from a possibly disgruntled customer.