As a coach with sales and marketing expertise, I take great pride in developing different ways to teach professionals with varying skillsets how to generate new business. In an increasingly competitive business world, the ability to acquire new clients hasn’t gotten any easier. Many professionals who are responsible for developing business have never even been in a formal sales role, and they don’t consider themselves salespeople. Some are new business owners, and some are accountants or lawyers now responsible for building their practice.
If you are someone who needs help and decides to seek professional advice, there are three things you must have in order to take advantage of what you learn. It doesn’t matter if that advice comes via seminar, presentation, formal training or individual coaching sessions.
Discipline
Despite the belief of many professionals, selling effectively is far more complicated than just telling someone why they should purchase your product or solution. The notion that you can achieve great and sustainable results by simply telling as many people as possible how great you are is a misnomer.
Whether you are selling widgets in a small town or delivering legal services to Fortune 500 companies, there should be a process involved. Understanding how to collect and analyze data in a way that positively impacts your results is part of the process. Whatever sales methodology or business development training you prescribe to, make sure there is enough structure so that you can properly analyze why your business development efforts are — or aren’t — working.
Once you select a methodology or approach, remain disciplined in your execution. Too often, professionals will achieve some success, get excited, then forget all about following a process. This lack of discipline hinders their ability to achieve long-term success.
