Luck in Sales Pt. 1
The inbound phone line rings and Bob, the person who's last on your sales board answers before everyone else in the inside sales room. It's an inbound call for four club seats...shooting him past you on the board. It's infuriating.
Lisa runs up to you incredibly excited. Right after you were working the sales, and changed out with her, a businessperson walked up with their AmEx black card and purchased four club seats, shooting her past you on the salesboard. You feign excitement for her, but you are seething.
You're on the group sales team and the #1 rep on your team leaves the organization for a new job. Your mouth is watering for a crack at some of their leads...especially the ones you KNEW they took for granted...and there was more juice to get out of them. You find out that the newly promoted inside sales rep is going to inherit the entire books of business. You are furious. How lucky could that rep possibly be?
I don't want to sugarcoat these to you. Everyone of those situations straight sucks. Saying anything like, 'Well, you make your own luck,' is trite in situations like this. They didn't make their luck there...they just straight got lucky.
You can't control the situations above. You can't even really control your natural reactions of anger towards them. You're a competitive person. What you can change is the positions you put yourself in to be more lucky.
'Brett, what the hell are you talking about?' Great question. Here are some examples.
100 touchpoints per day: Don't care if these are phone calls, meetings, emails, ZipWhips, videos, LinkedIn messages, etc. You just need to get the job done. The easiest way to create more luck in to sales is to create consistent touchpoints. It's easy to create excuses to not do this...and honestly I don't care what your number is...but you need to get one and hold yourself accountable to it. You can't help a call in sell...but you can try to find that call in sale before it finds your teammates.
Working the sales table: Don't let the sales table work you. Stand in front of it. Search for confused people. Draw conversations to the table. Tell potential customers when you'll be at the table. Make yourself busy and make yourself available. You can't help who walks to the sales table, but you can help who notices you at the sales table.
Participate in Self-Prospecting: You should never rely on someone else's leads to help your business. You should never complain about someone else's book of business. It's your job to create your book of business. You can't control how leads get shared or owned, but you can create new leads by being open and available for conversations at all times (just like the sales table). Go to networking events. Talk to people in line at Subway. Go to the gym or go to play golf wearing your team's gear. Ask to talk with the GM of the new restaurant you're eating at. You may not get the luck of getting the book, but you can create ownership of getting lucky in creating your own book by being available for sales to happen...all the time!
Luck happens to everyone at some point in sales. The quote on the right has been attributed to a lot of people...so we're just going to go with the athlete on it. It's also true. If you constantly put yourself in positive situations, you'll be shocked at how you're luck turns. How more often you hear someone say 'I was on your website this morning!' How more often you get a call-in from the business cards you distributed at the sales table. How more often you catch the right new business at the exact right time. Or how many times a lead gets back to you after MONTHS and finally says their ready. It's because you do everything above and more that creates those opportunities. Individual instances of luck can suck. But they can also be you more often. Get after it!
Part 2 is on generating more luck WITHIN conversations and is coming Thursday!