Mack Powers

Have you ever considered the amount of “Sales Attrition” that you are having in your sales pipeline?  You probably haven’t even heard of the term… that’s because I just coined the phrase.  As a reminder, Attrition is the reduction or decrease in numbers, size or strength.  Therefore “Sales Attrition” is the decrease in any and all sales activities that directly result in the decrease of the number of deals that you potentially can make during the coming months.  As a salesperson, you and your management team should be expecting that your efforts will result in the increase of your list of potential deals all the time, eternally.  There can be no exception to this rule. I thought that it might be good to review a few of the top reasons why salespeople and sales teams face Sales Attrition (in no particular order)

1.      The sales team doesn’t have a clear understanding of the ideal customer that they should be targeting.  As are result, they spend too much time chasing the wrong deals.  Understanding exactly who you should be selling to is an absolute must have in sales pipeline management.

2.      If a sales person is spending time with a qualified prospect, they spend the wrong amount of time on the deal relative to the potential payoff of the deal.  Don’t spend 45% of your time (annually for example) on a deal that will get you only 15% of your quota.

3.      The salesperson doesn’t know when to throw in the towel.  Know when to walk away from a deal.  Again, this results in wasting one of the most valuable commodities that a sales person has, his or her time.

4.      The sale person doesn’t know how to follow and pace the client through the decision making process and they don’t track the client as they are moving from the “just kicking the tires” phase to the “writing the check” phase.

5.      The sales team hasn’t done the proper ecosystem development within their industry to generate the quantity and quality of leads that they will need to you’re your sales pipeline.

6.      The sales team doesn’t properly follow up on potential opportunities in a consistent and timely manner throughout the sales process.  This is an insidious and hard to diagnose sales pipeline crusher.

7.      The sales team isn’t properly supported by sufficient marketing efforts. How many new prospects are you adding to your sales pipeline daily, weekly or monthly.

8.      The sales team doesn’t understand the metrics regarding how many contacts that they have to be converting to sales on a daily, weekly or monthly basis in order to meet their sales goals and quotas.  Understanding the metrics is absolutely critical when it comes to accurately forecasting your sales pipeline and closing sales.

9.      The sales person is not technically proficient enough to add value as an “expert” to the prospect to maintain their high value to the client through the sales process.  If you can’t be the expert… have one that you can bring to the table even if you have to hire that expert to be part of your team.

10.   The sales professional underutilizes the internal resources available to them via their own company or other leveraged business partners. Know your strengths and use them to the greatest leverage at every point in the sales cycle.

Now that you know what you might not be doing consider how you might change your behavior and work style to improve every activity noted above. Address each of the list items courageously and truthfully.  Improve every effort in all of the items listed above and you are sure to see that instead of having sales attrition you will have sales addition (okay, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a little alliteration…. you get the point).

Have you ever sold a product that was not the lowest cost product in the market? If you said yes… congratulations. I congratulate you because you were obviously able to sell a product or service based upon the value of the product or service and not the cost.  Selling value versus price is the mark of a true sales professional.

Understanding the difference between the two is very important for every sales person to understand. Many inexperienced sale people will fall into the trap of fearing a sales situation in which they are competing with a product or service that is being offered at a price that is less than theirs. The big question becomes “how can I be competitive if my price is higher”? The answer should be obvious but if it is not, then you might be in danger if in the moment of discovering that your price is higher than your competitors you might begin to get a bit “paranoid” about losing the sale and you lose your ability to effectively communication the “value” of what you offer. Before you lose your cool and quite possibly the sale itself, think about the following.

Consider several recent purchases that you have made for yourself or for your company. Then, ask yourself the following question. Did I purchase the absolute lowest price product in the market? For example, did you purchase:

• The lowest price car?
• The lowest price shirt?
• The lowest price shampoo?
• The lowest price shoes?
• The lowest price groceries?
• The lowest price haircut?

The point here is that we don’t generally purchase the lowest price of anything.  Therefore, the people that we are purchasing from are selling value versus price to us!   We purchase something because we see the “value” in what it is that we are purchasing. Therefore, the primary role for any person involved in business development or sales is to clearly explain the value so that our customers will understand what it is that they are purchasing and the reason that they will want to purchase from us even in the product or service turns out to NOT be the lowest price available. I find that it is helpful to quantify in as many ways as possible what the value is that we provide.  In other words… don’t forget to sell value versus price in every sales situation!

A very simple example of one value that differentiates products is the availability to deliver a product or service in an appropriate timeframe. I will never forget a conversation that I had with a client one time. He asked for a quote for an item that I had in stock. He said that he needed the product at that time. When I gave him the price, he mentioned that he could get the same product elsewhere for a price that was less than my offer. I told him that he should make that purchase with my competitor. He said, “well I would purchase it from your competitor but he doesn’t have it in stock”. I ended up making the sale at the price that I had quoted and not the price of some phantom product that was not available. What was the value in that sale? The value was that I had the product immediately available for him and that is when he needed it. Value trumped price!

Consider other values that you and your company can bring to the table and highlight those to your customers the next time that you talk with them. Don’t forget… it’s not the lowest price product that wins the order… it’s the one with the most value.