When does your big selling season happen in your industry? And what are you doing to get your team (especially your established reps), ready for your next big selling opportunity? Most businesses do little to prepare. Join me as I share how you can help your team be best prepared to take advantage of this upcoming seasonal window of opportunity…so your team can sell even more!
Hi, Jim Pancero, helping you become a stronger leader of your sales team. Is your sales reps ready for their next season? The majority of businesses I work in, distribution, equipment sales and services. The majority of them at some time of the year have some kind of seasonality to what they do, where there's some time of year where there's a big push, a big effort. It might be that once a year, their participation in a trade show. It might be the kickoff of a season of selling that happens within the industry of a specific product line or set of equipment. But the reality is, especially with sales reps that have been selling for you for a number of years, there's this major assumption companies have that experienced equals trained. The assumption that because you've been with our company 5 or 10 years, you don't need to get ready for any of these seasons because you know what you're doing because experience equals trained.
When the reality is preparing for the season could be some of the strongest opportunities you have to improve both the effectiveness and the efficiency of your sales team. And to make sure you're focusing on the best aspects of this coming season products or services or values that you bring. It's interesting. Every football and every baseball season begins with a pre-season camp that the players will go back and review all of the skills and practice all of their plays to make sure they're ready when the games actually begin.
Wouldn't it be nice if we were doing that with salespeople as well? What can you do to get ready for the next season? The next major selling opportunity that you have? That you can practice with the sales rep? What are the best questions to ask to get a customer's attention as the season kicks off? What are the best points of presentation that we want to highlight, that it has the biggest impact of differentiation in that seasonal opportunity that the customer might have the most interest in? And what are the things we could talk about that are going to generate the highest probability of gaining a sale? This is all stuff that can be improved. We're no longer independent gunfighters like the old baby boomer days. Today's sales teams are most efficient and effective when they're functioning like a SWAT team, and a SWAT team plans, prepares and practices. So when it's time for that season to take place, they're more than ready. They actually have a competitive advantage.
Would love to know what you're doing with this and how you get ready for the seasonality of your business. I'd love to answer any questions. Thanks for checking out my podcast. I'm posting two new podcasts each week, all aimed at helping you and your team increase your selling competitive advantage.