April Fool Is Not Just for April’s Sales
Credit www.flash-screen.com
Sales productivity continues to suffer even though businesses and people need goods and services. Past sales research suggests that:
- 35-50% of all sales leads or prospects never see a follow-up contact
- 25% of sales people make only a second contact and stop
- 12% of sales people only make three (3) contacts and stop
- 10% of sales people make more than three (3) contacts
- 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 contacts
So when a idiotic busy sales person tells you as the sales manager he or she does not have time, don’t believe it.
Top performing sales people, beyond having specific motivators, are tenacious with high emotional intelligence. For without recognizing and administration the emotions of other people as well as their own emotions, they will have extreme difficulty in meeting the goal to increase sales.
Another key attribute, talent or intrapersonal skill is top performers is realistic personal goal setting. After giving the Attribute Index Assessment based upon the science of Axiology to over 100 sales people, I have documented that the talent of realistic personal goal setting is above the norm for those who earn over $100,000.
Recently I started by an Emotional Intelligence Assessment and commencement to notice a similar pattern for those who earn over $100,000. This pattern makes sense because of the 3 sales buying rules:
- People buy from people they know and entrust
- People buy first on emotions then justified by logic
- People buy on value unique to them
Since people for the most part buy from other people, then working with those emotions is just plain common sense. Emotional intelligence also involves personal motivation.
Sales managers have tremendous responsibility not only to increase sales and to meet sales targets, but also to motivate their team. But, these individuals probably need to know there exists the possibility of their sales team attempting to fool them. To avoid April Fools every month does require consistent monitoring along with necessary support from other department such as customer service to operations.