Your Bucket of Sales Opportunity

Salespeople are continually looking for new sales opportunities. Unfortunately, most salespeople must start over each month in finding new opportunities for that month’s sales. There are many methods for finding new business. For example, cold calling, leads groups, networking, referrals, industry publications, subscribing to bid lists, joining clubs and organizations, etc. One of the best methods for finding new opportunities is often overlooked and yet it stares salespeople right in the face. I refer to it as your “bucket of opportunity.” This “bucket of opportunity” is centered on every customer that has ever purchased from you or your company.

Several years ago I was working with a salesperson who mentioned to me that he was the sole supplier of a certain product to one of his customers. In other words, he was getting all the business he could with that customer. I knew the customer’s scope of business and ask the salesperson what the annual volume was with this particular customer. When he told me, I was shocked. There was no way he was the sole provider, with one hundred percent of the supply of his product. I suggested that the next time he called on this company he ask his contact person if there was anyone else in the company that was responsible for making purchasing decisions for his product. A few weeks later my client revealed that there were nine other divisions in the company that all purchased the same products that my client was selling. In reality, my client was selling only one tenth of what the company was purchasing.

Many years ago when I was in Graduate School at Thunderbird, I was making contact with various international companies looking for employment. Many of my classmates in their quest for employment opportunities were sending letters to the HR Departments of different companies. My strategy was to contact executives within the sales, marketing and international departments directly. I sent two letters to the M.A. Hanna Company looking for an employment opportunity. One executive responded with a note saying that there were no opportunities within the company, and the other executive eventually hired me. What if I had only made one contact? The point I am trying to make is that there may be multiple sales opportunities for the sale of your products and services within the same company.

The “bucket of opportunity” includes every current customer who may be looking for various products, which you could provide even though you may only be selling one product to them. It also includes selling to different departments or divisions of the company. The bucket of opportunity includes selling to all the buyers within a company that may be in need of your products and services. It also includes contacting past customers you have a relationship with, that for some reason are not currently purchasing from you or your company. The world is constantly changing and just because someone quit purchasing from you doesn’t mean they won’t purchase from you again in the future if you just continue to make contact.

Review past customer lists and assess their current needs. Contact every current customer and look for additional opportunities. Identify other divisions and departments that might have need of your products. Ask your current contact person for introductions to other people within the organization who might have the need for your products. The very best source of new sales opportunities is with your current or past customers. I’m reminded of the marketing campaign used by the Larry H. Miller Group. You see the picture of Larry Miller and the words say, “You know this guy.” Well, your customers and past customers know you and you need to build on that relationship. Remember, people buy from people they believe, like and trust. You have that relationship with your current and past customers, which gives you the advantage over every other sales person, to make more sales to your current and past customers.

Pay The Price In The Short Term To Receive The Reward In The Long Term

Success at selling is analogous to many of life’s situations. If you are willing to sacrifice early on, you will position yourself for the long term and greater reward. Paying the price early in your sales career is a lot like raising children. Spend time with them when they are young; teaching, training, guiding, directing, correcting, disciplining, and doing every other constructive thing ending in “ing”, and the day will come when the children will be self sufficient and an asset to the community. If you don’t attend to those activities when they are young, the children will be a burden to both you and society in the long term. You can pay the price now (in the short term) or you will surely pay the price later (for the long term).

I was doing some research the other day regarding the relationship between incomes and education. The results were quite interesting. According to the study (1999 data), a high school drop out could be expected to earn on average $18,900 annually. A high school graduate would earn $25,900 on average. A college graduate would earn on average $45,400 annually and a college graduate with a professional degree (medical doctor, dentist, lawyer, etc) would earn on average $99,500 annually. According to another survey, the average salesperson’s income for 2009 was projected to be $59,000. There was no mention as to whether the average salesperson had a high school or even a college degree. Salespeople who have been trained in the principles and skills of selling and who regularly apply those skills are in the top five percent of all wage earners. Two sales people I work with earn more than a quarter of a million dollars per year.

I’m currently working with one young man who was making $10 per hour last year working in a parts department. This year, having committed his time and effort to our sales training program, he is on tract to exceed the average $30,000 per year income of first year salespeople in his company by more than three times. Another young sales person who three years ago was earning about $31,000 per year will make around $138,000 this year. What made the difference with these two young men? Very simple, they took the time and put forth the effort to learn the principles and skills of selling. One seasoned (twenty-five years experience) salesperson I work with has increased his commission 636% after only one year of training. He has proven that it is never too late to learn and make a change. Imagine what his lifetime earnings might have been had he learned his trade as a young man.

All salespeople have a choice. They can pay the price of success now, later or maybe never. The world doesn’t care what people do with their careers, but if more people cared, and by caring, they paid the price for success, there would be a lot more salespeople making a six figure income instead of the average 2009 sales income of $59,000. I don’t know for sure, but I would guess that the average salesperson I train is earning $150,000 per year. Some obviously earn more and some earn less. Because these salespeople are willing to pay the price of learning, on average, they have doubled their income. What is the point of my message and what can you learn? Let me give you ten simple points of advice:

1. Pay the price in the short term for the long-term reward.

2. Just as the average annual income increases based on the years of college, so does the income of salespeople who submit themselves to training.

3. No matter what your income, you can do better.

4. No short-term pleasure is worth the loss of long-term reward.

5. You don’t have to be intelligent to make a great income as a salesperson, you just have to be diligent, committed and trained.

6. Work hard and smart and you will become a top income earner. The majority of salespeople don’t work hard and don’t make a great income.

7. As a salesperson you can choose your own income with no limitations.

8. Because of the nature of selling, salespeople enjoy a certain amount of freedom. Don’t abuse it or you will fail at selling.

9. Selling is a service industry. Focus all of your attention on meeting the customer or prospect’s needs and you will reap the greatest reward.

10. Your sales income will be in direct proportion to the application of your sales skills.

A Game Plan For Sales Success

Following a game plan is as critical to sales success as it is to winning in any sport. There isn’t a game that is played for fun or profit that isn’t first played and won in the mind. In other words, there is a specific and precise plan for victory that is planned, rehearsed and executed in order to deliver the intended result. Do you think that winning a baseball game, a basketball game, a soccer match, or even a football game is simply a matter of a bunch of players just showing up and doing their best? Winning is far from just showing up! Winning begins with an iron will, knowledge of the game, conditioning, practice and perfect execution of skills combined with precise obedience to a plan specifically designed to feature your strengths and conquer the opponents weaknesses. It is not by chance or luck that one team beats another team on any given day. It is a matter of who executes their game plan more precisely.

Selling successfully is no different than winning at sports. Every aspect of victory in a sporting event applies to selling and yet, how many sales people walk onto the field or court of sales total unprepared mentally, without the proper knowledge, out of shape, not having practiced their skills, with no game plan, blindly hoping to “land the sale”? As a salesperson do you really get it? Do you understand that successful salespeople aren’t successful just because they show up for the game? Success in sales, for those few salespeople who consistently perform at the top of the sales game, comes as the result of planning specifically what it will take to win a sale and then perfectly executing their game plan. If you believe that closing a sale is the result of just running out onto the playing field of sales and doing “stuff”, you couldn’t be more wrong!

Sales are made as the result of following a specific plan of action and executing that plan perfectly. What football coach would send his team onto the playing field without a game plan specifically designed to win the game if properly executed? What football team, basketball team, baseball team, etc., would compete without a coach to prepare them mentally and physically to execute their winning strategy? Jerry Sloan, Bronco Mendenhall and Kyle Whittingham would never put their teams on the basketball court or the football field without a game plan. Yet, every day salespeople walk onto the playing field of sales hoping to win without a game plan.

As a professional salesperson you need to prepare and follow a game plan specifically designed and executed for each prospect. Just as in the world of sports, where “scouts” report on the talents of opposing teams and players, salespeople need to “scout” their prospects through proper questioning. Sales people need to know the people they are selling. A game plan should include the following:

1. The nature of the business or individual (personality, products, market)
2. The decision maker and decision influencers
3. The specific needs they are looking to satisfy
4. Their budget and ability to pay
5. Their time frame for making the purchase
6. How are they meeting their need currently
7. Who is the current supplier
8. What do they like about your product or service
9. What concerns do they have
10. What are their objections
11. How will you continually emphasize what they like
12. What will you do to resolve their concerns
13. How will you overcome their objections
14. Who or what is your competition
15. What are your advantages and weaknesses
16. What are the advantages and weaknesses of the competition

All successful salespeople prepare and follow their game plan. They know that success in sales is the result of mentally winning the sale in their mind first and then physically executing their plan each time they meet with their prospects. Successful sales people don’t just do “stuff” hoping to win the sale, they know what to do because they have a game plan.

A Sales Person’s Attitude Determines Success

The Business Performance Group has trained and coached thousands of professional people in the art and science of selling. Some of the people have shown an incredibly high aptitude for sales and yet, these gifted people prior to our program have been less than successful. Others however, with seemingly few innate selling skills have been able to achieve high levels of success. What is the reason for this paradox? It is very simple. A person's attitude about selling, not his aptitude, determines his sales success or failure.

Psychologists tell us that our minds are like land on a farm. The land gives the farmer a choice. Since the land does not care what the farmer plants, he can sow any kind of seeds he desires. The farmer makes the decision. Once the seeds are planted and watered, they will grow. Seeds of success or seeds of failure are available for planting. You can plant seeds of success in your field and harvest prosperity, happiness and high self-esteem, or seeds of failure and harvest disillusionment, unhappiness and discontent. What you plant in your mind it totally up to you.

William James, the Father of American Psychology, wrote in 1895, "The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his circumstance in life by altering his attitude of mind."

George Bernard Shaw said, "People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are those people who look for the circumstances they want and if they can't find them, they make them."

Your success or failure as a sales person is not a matter of luck, circumstance or breaks. It is not who you are or any of the other myths by which people tend to excuse themselves. Successful sales people have developed an attitude of optimism, positive thought patterns and a vision of themselves succeeding which pulls them toward their dreams and goals.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once stated, "A man is what he thinks about all day long." Emerson understood an important principle of success and personal achievement. If you believe that you are successful, productive and happy, there is a good chance you will become a successful, productive and happy person. Unfortunately, the reverse is equally true. As Dr. Dennis Waitley suggests in his book, 10 Seeds of Greatness: "...if your self image can't possibly see you doing something or achieving something, you literally cannot do it! It is not what you are that holds you back, it's what you think you are not!"

The law of prosperity and success to which Dr. Waitley refers says: if you think in positive terms you will achieve positive results. Negative beliefs, on the other hand, produce negative results. Your attitudes can positively or negatively influence your ability to perform. Referring to one’s ability to alter their attitude, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale has said: "This is one of the greatest laws in the universe. Fervently do I wish I had discovered it as a very young man. It dawned on me much later in life and I found it one of the greatest, if not my greatest discovery outside of my relationship to God."

In reading Viktor E. Frankl’s book, Man’s Search For Meaning, I was impressed by his insight into attitude, which was obviously influenced from his captivity in the German death camps of World War II. Of this experience he wrote the following relating to attitude: “We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: The last of his freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”

Every salesperson that has ever experienced any degree of success was driven to that success through his attitude. Here are some of my favorite quotes relating to attitude. If you need an attitude adjustment to allow you to reach the level of success you are seeking, these quotes might influence you to alter your attitudes.

“Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes.”
–Norman Vincent Peale

“If you really want to do something, you'll find a way; if you don't, you'll find an excuse.”
–Unknown

“The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.”
–William James

“Success is not in never falling, but in rising every time you fall.”
–Paul Dunn

“If you can imagine it, you can create it. If you can dream it, you can become it.”
–William Arthur Ward

“The only disability in life is a bad attitude.”
–Scott Hamilton

“Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right.”
–Henry Ford

“The remarkable thing we have is a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.”
–Charles Swindoll