New Sales Simplified Quotes

You can bring tremendous value to your business, your customers, and yourself by becoming proficient at bringing in new business.

My dad continually reminded salespeople that their main job was to help the customer win. When you speak the account’s language and frame the sales story around what is most meaningful to the client, you stand out from the competition. Customers see you differently because the words you choose demonstrate a commitment to their success.

If you’re not excited about what you are selling, how in the world will you get a prospect interested?

Sales is about action, and analysis-paralysis is not a quality that tends to produce new business development success.

The truth is that there are no secret sales moves. There is no magic bullet. As badly as we all want one, it does not exist.

New business development success results from creating a sales dialogue, not perfecting a monologue.

Waiting is a key ingredient in the recipe for new business failure.

Stop talking about yourself and your company and begin leading with the issues, pains, problems, opportunities, and results that are important to your prospect.

we are in a much better position when it was our own proactive sales work that created the opportunity for us to submit a proposal.

Lazy, complacent, excuse-making salespeople with a victim mentality lose. Period.

They Are Guilty of a Fake or Pitiful Phone Effort

Only salespeople that dedicate blocks of time on their calendar for prospecting activity consistently succeed at acquiring new business.

namely, that we are there to find pain, potential problems we can solve, and opportunities we can help capture.

Can you name one really successful person who has a negative outlook on life? I can’t.

Many salespeople fail to develop new business because they’re wandering aimlessly. Too often, they’re not locked in on a strategically selected, focused list of target customers or prospects.

Emotional quotient (EQ) is a measure of your emotional and social intelligence. It involves your ability to manage yourself, your emotions, your relationships, and people’s perceptions of you.

Salespeople are famous for lack of discipline and losing focus. They attempt to call on an account (once), but don’t get anywhere. Instead of sharpening their weapons and continuing to attack the same strategically selected targets, they turn and pursue a new set of prospects. This constant change of direction becomes their death knell because they never gain traction against the defined target set.

As I often say, “Sales is a verb.” The dictionary would argue otherwise, but experience shows that the most successful new business salespeople tend to be the most active salespeople. Good things happen when a talented salesperson with a potential solution gets in front of a prospective customer who looks and smells a lot like your other customers.

  Our Sales Story. The story is foundational to everything we do in sales, and we use bits and pieces of it in all of our weapons. By “story” I’m referring to the language or talking points we use when asked what we do or when we tell someone about our business. It’s so critical to our success that the next two chapters are dedicated to helping you create and implement a succinct, powerful, differentiating, customer-focused story.

OPTIONS FOR REDUCING While thrift stores such as Goodwill or the Salvation Army can be a convenient way to initially let go, many other outlets exist and are often more appropriate for usable items. Here are some examples: • Amazon.com • Antiques shops • Auction houses • Churches • Consignment shops (quality items) • Craigslist.org (large items, moving boxes, free items) • Crossroads Trading Co. (trendy clothes) • Diggerslist.com (home improvement) • Dress for Success (workplace attire) • Ebay.com (small items of value) • Flea markets • Food banks (food) • Freecycle.org (free items) • Friends • Garage and yard sales • Habitat for Humanity (building materials, furniture, and/or appliances) • Homeless and women’s shelters • Laundromats (magazines and laundry supplies) • Library (books, CDs and DVDs) • Local SPCA (towels and sheets) • Nurseries and preschools (blankets, toys) • Operation Christmas Child (new items in a shoe box) • Optometrists (eyeglasses) • Regifting • Rummage sales for a cause • Salvage yards (building materials) • Schools (art supplies, magazines, dishes to eliminate class party disposables) • Tool co-ops (tools) • Waiting rooms (magazines) • Your curb with a “Free” sign

How I Turned a Troubled Company into a Personal Fortune. How to ________ This is a simple, straightforward headline structure that works with any desirable benefit. “How to” are two of the most powerful words you can use in a headline. Examples: How to Collect from Social Security at Any Age. How to Win Friends and Influence People. How to Improve Telemarketers' Productivity — for Just $19.95. Secrets Of ________ The word secrets works well in headlines. Examples: Secrets of a Madison Ave. Maverick — “Contrarian Advertising.” Secrets of Four Champion Golfers. Thousands (Hundreds, Millions) Now ________ Even Though They ________ This is a “plural” version of the very first structure demonstrated in this collection of winning headlines. Examples: Thousands Now Play Even Though They Have “Clumsy Fingers.” Two Million People Owe Their Health to This Idea Even Though They Laughed at It. 138,000 Members of Your Profession Receive a Check from Us Every Month Even Though They Once Threw This Letter into the Wastebasket Warning: ________ Warning is a powerful, attention-getting word and can usually work for a headline tied to any sales letter using a problem-solution copy theme. Examples: Warning: Two-Thirds of the Middle Managers in Your Industry Will Lose Their Jobs in the Next 36 Months. Warning: Your “Corporate Shield” May Be Made of Tissue Paper — 9 Ways You Can Be Held Personally Liable for Your Business's Debts, Losses, or Lawsuits Give Me ________ and I'll ________ This structure simplifies the gist of any sales message: a promise. It truly telegraphs your offer, and if your offer is clear and good, this may be your best strategy. Examples: Give Me 5 Days and I'll Give You a Magnetic Personality. Give Me Just 1 Hour a Day and I'll Have You Speaking French Like “Pierre” in 1 Month. Give Me a Chance to Ask Seven Questions and I'll Prove You Are Wasting a Small Fortune on Your Advertising. ________ ways to ________ This is just the “how to” headline enhanced with an intriguing specific number. Examples: 101 Ways to Increase New Patient Flow. 17 Ways to Slash Your Equipment Maintenance Costs. Many of these example headlines are classics from very successful books, advertisements, sales letters, and brochures, obtained from a number of research sources. Some are from my own sales letters. Some were created for this book.

those without a reliable process to develop new business are in a world of hurt.

Let’s embrace the new without discarding the old.

one of the main causes of underperformance is that the very people charged with selling new pieces of business and acquiring new clients spend a surprisingly low percentage of their time selling new business.

Salespeople fail when they can’t execute the fundamentals.

New business sales can be messy. Pretty much anyone who has done it long enough has plenty of embarrassing stories of failure, mistakes, and risk—all things that make analytical types very uncomfortable.

Stop talking about yourself and your company and begin leading with the issues, pains, problems, opportunities, and results that are important to your prospect. Let

Without a clearly structured plan or agenda, control usually defaults to the prospect. The buyer ends up directing the path of the conversation and it’s no longer the salesperson’s call, even though it was initiated by the salesperson.

The other consequence of not having a well-constructed plan is that the salesperson ends up talking way too much. Imagine that. A salesperson talking too much. Sales

But for some reason, salespeople are excited to go in and get naked without knowing any of the rules.

Having spent the past decade leading and consulting sales teams, I’ve come to the painful conclusion that salespeople are ill-equipped to successfully attack the marketplace for new business. That’s a big statement, but here’s why I believe it is true for the vast majority of the current generation of sales professionals: Most people employed in sales positions today have never truly had to “hunt” for new accounts or new business. Why? Because big chunks of their sales careers to date have been during long seasons of economic prosperity. Most of the 1990s and the period from 2002 through 2007 were boom times. There was incredible demand for what many of us were selling. Salespeople could get away with being passive or reactive and still deliver the numbers.

Technology and new media are a great supplement to, not a replacement for, our prospecting efforts. Let’s embrace the new without discarding the old. We aren’t going to achieve our fitness goals by solely relying on social media, and neither will we hit our new business goals.

There’s a lot of talk about “niceness” today. People are evaluated on how nicely they play with others and what they contribute to the team. It all sounds good. But I can confidently write that it’s rarely the person voted “most pleasant, selfless member of the team” who thrives at acquiring new business. Quite to the contrary, the nicest person frequently underperforms. People who have a difficult time saying “no” or delegating work to others tend to push new business development efforts to the bottom of their list.

When our story is right, it puts us in the proper mindset to prospect for new business. The entire dynamic of the sales process changes when we view ourselves as problem solvers and value creators who are armed with a story that helps us clearly communicate to potential customers. We enter into the sales conversation with great optimism because we believe the prospect should want to talk with us.

One of the young stars in the room yelled out that he had a better name for it. He called it the “spray and pray” approach. The salesperson goes first and just sprays out everything he can to the prospect. Then he prays he hit on something relevant. Perfect.

Many of us in sales have a hard time focusing. Isn’t that part of the reason we ended up in sales in the first place?

I encourage you to try the “so what” test. Listen to another salesperson on the phone attempting to earn an appointment with a tough prospect. Or accompany a rep on sales call. Every time the salesperson makes a statement, simply ask yourself, “So what?” It’s very convincing when we begin to realize how much of what we regularly say is self-focused drivel that has no real meaning to the customer.

Asking for the other person’s thoughts relieves the pressure that traditional closing techniques create.

My practice keeps me engaged with salespeople in a wide variety of businesses and I’m increasingly concerned by a disturbing trend: It seems fewer and fewer people who make a living in sales have a working knowledge of how to prospect for new business.

there is dire shortage of those who can create new opportunities through their own proactive sales effort. Many veteran salespeople are victims of their own past success and easier times, when they could make their numbers while operating in a reactive mode. Others were carried along by their company’s momentum and favorable economic conditions that created strong demand for their products or services. They never had to go out and find business.

Salespeople do not operate in a vacuum; there are often cultural and environmental issues beyond their control that severely hamper the opportunity to acquire new pieces of business.

Sales is simple. Those who attempt to make it sound complicated are either confused themselves or trying to confuse others by creating a smokescreen to hide their lame effort and poor results.

We’ll identify and select strategic target accounts that give us the best chance of winning. Then we’ll invest heavily in building the arsenal of sales weapons needed to successfully carry out the attack against our chosen targets. The three weapons most worthy of attention—the sales story, proactive telephone call, and the face-to-face sales call—are

presenting is not the same thing as selling.

The best intentions, target account lists, and powerful sales weapons are useless if we never launch the attack.

We must take back control of our calendars, stop allowing others to put work on our desks, and selfishly guard our selling time.

Sales is simple.

People and companies have needs. Those of us with sales responsibility represent businesses with potential solutions to those needs. Sometimes those people or companies with needs are already customers. There’s also an entire universe of prospective customers with whom we’ve never done business. These “prospects” have needs, too.

connect with these customers and prospective customers to determine if our solutions will meet their needs.

used an industry directory to identify additional prospects

I put together a sales plan to go out and attack the market.

It was 1993. I had a midsize company car, a legal pad, some manila folders, and a calling card for pay phones. No Internet, no Google, no LinkedIn, no CRM, no e-mail, no mobile phone, and no fear.

Undeterred, I set out to conquer the world.

I visited with every customer it made sense to see. I sought to discover what they liked and disliked about their current situation and suppliers, and tried to position my company as a better partner that was easier to work with, more flexible, and more eager to meet their needs. I asked lots of questions, toured their facilities, and talked about improvements to our product and ways we were willing to customize our service. It didn’t take long to learn that it was a lot more fun calling on business owners and senior executives than purchasing agents,

When planning sales trips to see current customers, I dedicated time to call and visit with prospects

bring value and help solve business issues,

I strategically selected about thirty key prospects and went to work. Telephone. Mailings. Samples. More telephone. Meetings with engineers, designers, plant managers.

decide which target prospects to pursue and build a book of business from scratch.

I learned what business issues and hot-button topics would earn an initial meeting with prospects and dedicated blocks of time to proactively call my strategically selected targets.

Most people employed in sales positions today have never truly had to “hunt” for new accounts or new business.

big chunks of their sales careers to date have been during long seasons of economic prosperity.

Many people in sales are struggling as inbound demand for their services has declined, and those without a reliable process to develop new business are in a world of hurt.

experience shows that the most successful new business salespeople tend to be the most active salespeople.

Let me address one more significant factor detracting from new business development success today: a severe shortage of sales mentors.

What we are missing are sales mentors, those wise old vets who take young pups and newbies under their tutelage and impart years of wisdom and experience to their protégé.

Sales managers would willingly work with and mentor their people, and consider it part of their responsibility to coach their teams on selling skills.

Nothing was more valuable than “windshield time” with my manager riding shotgun in my car. He would alternate between preaching sales theory to quizzing me about product knowledge or what was happening at each of my key customers. When we would pull up to an account, he always insisted I drive around the building. He would say, “You can learn a lot more about a business by watching what’s going in and out of the back door than the front door.” So, of course, twenty-two years later, I’m still sneaking around the back before sales calls and mentoring salespeople to do the same.

Tell me about your last conversation with the account,” my manager would say. Then he would run through the drill: “Who are we meeting with? Describe each person’s behavioral style. What is important to each person attending this sales call? Why do they think we are here today? What is going on in their business that I need to know about? What is your main objective today? What is a ‘win’ for us walking out of here? Tell me your plan for the call. How are you going to handle introducing our new offering? What role would you like me to play? Where are we vulnerable? What is our Achilles’ heel? Which competitors are involved here? Who is more entrenched? How do you like my tie? I wore it just to help you close this sale today. Don’t forget your breath mints. May the force be with you.

How did you think you handled yourself? What would you do differently next time? Did you catch their reaction and the painful flinch when you asked that third probing question about the consequences of not making a change? That was brilliant, by the way. I love how you kept digging even though you had opened the wound and knew we had the perfect solution for their issue. Why do you think I jumped in at point X, and what was I trying to accomplish when I said Y and Z? Now tell me your plan for following up, and what kind of help do you need with the proposal.

There are too many salespeople who are more proficient at entering tasks into Salesforce.com than they are at executing the basics, like telephoning a prospect to secure a meeting. Unfortunately, much of the blame rests with sales managers who are more concerned that their people keep the CRM system updated than they are with whether they can effectively sell.

I regularly see good people who excel at many aspects of selling (relationship management, customer service, problem solving, or client retention) dramatically underperform when it comes to acquiring net new business.

Whether we are rookies or grizzled veterans, let’s put down our guards, check our pride at the door, and try not to be defensive. Transparency and honesty are healthy first steps on the path to performance improvement.

They Haven’t Had To or Don’t Know How

Many people in sales have never been forced to find new business. Taking care of existing customers has consistently been a reliable way to grow revenue. In good times, there was plenty of demand, and as long as we met the needs of existing customers and maintained a solid relationship we picked up business and everyone was happy.

No one is modeling what a proper new business sales effort looks like or investing the time to show these newbies the ropes.

They’re Always Waiting (on the Company)

Salespeople fail to develop new business because they are too patient and too slow to get into action. In company after company, I see salespeople waiting—waiting on the company. I hear excuses about waiting to call prospects until the new marketing materials are ready. Waiting for the new website to launch. Even waiting for warm leads. Please.

Top performers in sales don’t wait for anything or anyone. Clear marching orders, new sales materials, training? Leads, what’s a lead? Nope, can’t wait for any of those. The clock is a tickin’ and time is a wastin’. Top performers act. In fact, they proactively attack target accounts even if it means getting into trouble because they’re so far out in front of the support curve. Waiting is a key ingredient in the recipe for new business failure.

They Are “Prisoners of Hope

Tom Reilly, a fantastic sales trainer and author of the helpful book Value-Added Selling.