Two Rules For Sales Growth. Can’t Fail. Ask Shelley.

By Eli Amdur

It was late 1995 – 29 years ago – and I had just taken over as the head of sales and marketing of a small New York City-based provider of office technology training. Our solutions were delivered on media but we were launching an initiative to transform to on-line.

I was not hired because I knew the business; I got the job because I had a reputation for leading small teams to do big things – in four different industries – one of which was a serious turnaround situation.

Setting the stage for dramatic sales growth

My first two months were, for the most part, predictable: hit the ground running, learn the business, bond with my sales team and the production staff, meet key customers, evaluate sales processes and operations, and set the stage for dramatic sales growth.

The usual stuff. Like I said: predictable. Except for one thing: Shelley. She was anything but.

The only woman on a sales team of eight, Shelley also had the least prior experience of the lot. Not only did she, like me, have no experience in the industry, she never sold anything in her life before getting rhis job six months before I showed up.

Yet Shelley was a leading performer, month after month – and early on I decided to find out why. One day, unannounced, I went to her office and asked for a few minutes of her time, a commodity I soon learned she valued greatly and managed well. I promised not to take too much of it.

“Shelley,” I asked, “Why are you so good at this?” (If I could have figured how to use less of her time, I would have.)

Smiling humbly, she got right to the point. “I have two rules,” she explained, “and I never break them.”

Shelley’s Rule #1 for Sales Growth

She pointed to a small sign on the wall over her desk, at eye height when she stood up. It said, simply, “ONE MORE CALL.” She explained that when she got up four times during the day – morning coffee break, lunch, mid-afternoon break, and day’s end – that sign reminded her to sit back down and make one more call. Four more calls per day meant 20 per week. At our close rate, that was three more sales per week than she would have had.

“Does that always work?” I prodded.

“This is a numbers game,” she reminded me. “Of course, as long as I don’t break the chain.”

Shelley’s Rule #2 for Sales Growth

Shelle’s second rule was just as simple: Ask for the order. According to Shelley, once you, as a sales rep, have done all you should have – identifying and qualifying a good prospect, uncovering a need, matching a product to meet that need, demonstrating the product, overcoming objections (if any), and making sure it’s a fit – you’ve earned the right to ask for the order. So ask for the order.

“The trouble most people have is not that they haven’t earned the order.,” Shelley pointed out. “They just haven’t asked for it.”

“How many of your orders do you get like that?” I asked, knowing what was coming.

“All of them.”

Of course.

It’s three decades later and things have changed.

But selling is selling and that never changes.

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