The Executive Sales Coach: Keith Rosen’s Sales Blog and Business Blog On Selling, Leadership, Managing Your Team, Business and Life » All About Selling

Get the Strategies You Need to Succeed in a Slowing Economy

Philadelphia, PA
The Ritz-Carlton
June 9, 2008

If you are a manager worried about maintaining sales momentum in a shrinking economy, you will want to check out Selling Power’s Sales Leadership Conference to be held next month in Philadelphia, which I will also be attending and hope to meet you there. I’ll be sitting on the panel discussion on How To Recruit and Build a Team of A Players.

9:15 AM HOW TO RECRUIT ‘A’ PLAYERS
Top experts share how to recruit, select and build a team of ‘A’ players

Here’s the agenda:
www.sellingpower.com/leadership/PHI2008/agenda.asp

OVERVIEW:
In today’s increasingly competitive and complex business environment, you can’t expect to succeed during tough times with a “business as usual” mindset. To excel during a downturn, your sales organization needs change and change demands leadership. That’s where you come in.

Selling Power magazine’s Sales Leadership Conference is designed to help executives like you create inspired, high performance sales organizations. America’s top sales leaders give you invaluable ideas for leading your team to new heights and dramatically increasing your sales. Join the select group of forward-looking companies who will come away from this conference armed with the knowledge and power to successfully meet the future. If you are serious about staying competitive during an economic downturn, this fact-filled conference is for you!

Here’s what you can expect:

Act Now and Receive an Early Registration Discount!

This is a rare opportunity for you to receive the critical intel directly from America’s leading sales authorities. For more information or to request your invitation click here: www.sellingpower.com/leadership/phi2008/

Here’s the list of speakers: www.sellingpower.com/leadership/PHI2008/speakers.asp

With all the talk about the economy heading towards a recession, I’m busier than ever. And so are my clients. So, what gives? How much of this is fact and how much hype? Either way, I’m certainly not disputing that it’s affecting how some business owners and companies are spending lately.

So, what tips do I offer to companies, salespeople and, more specifically retailers on how to weather the recession? The same coaching I deliver to my clients, which is keeping their recession blues at pay, enabling them to drive and close new sales, and most important keeping their mental edge.

‘Weathering a recession’ sounds like surviving a storm and waiting until it passes. The “wait and see” or “lets hope things get better soon” is putting retailers out of business every day. I see it in my community. Stores that were opened one week are closed the next. Sure, you can ‘batten down the hatches’ when the eye of the storm lands but keep in mind when you open them up, there won’t be any customers sitting there waiting around for you. Instead, here’s what you need to do.

1. First, get out of your own head.
Businesses are closing their doors not due to a lack of effort but because they are still attempting to sell, manage or run their business the way it was, not the way it is today. If your marketplace has changed, then you need to change with it. Friendly reminder, don’t get sucked up into what you’re hearing on the news every day. Turn it off if you have to! What is real for you in your business in your local economy? Get out of the type of mindset that keeps you stuck in obsessing on what you need to do to survive and focus on how you can thrive. Remember all those great business ideas you were going to implement; the training your wanted to take, the marketing you wanted to do, the team building you felt would surely to make a measurable impact on your growth and success but daily business responsibilities always seemed to take precedent? Now is the time to blow the dust of those ideas and start executing on them. This begins with a change of thinking, accompanied by a change of strategy and topped off with a strong dose of reality.

2. Get back to basics.
Do you remember when you first opened your doors and achieved some measurable success? Why were you successful in the first place? What did you do then that you may not be doing now or unwilling to do now? Get on the floor of your store, cold call, prospect, do some grunt work? You need to turn around your business, fast, so time is not a luxury. Therefore, if you think there are any activities which are beneath you, then you already have one leg of your business in the grave.

3. Actually learn how to sell.
No, selling for 30 years is not what I’m suggesting as a training platform. Experience is important but experiences doesn’t equate to engaging in the healthiest of sales techniques. I’d be willing to bet (and I’m not a gambling man) the majority of retailers out there have not been coached and trained to be a sales champion, do not have a defined sales process they consistently engage in and as such, don’t know how to truly sell. And by no means consider this an attack on the retail sector. However, given that the majority of daily purchases we make are at a retail level, this is what I’m experiencing both as an executive coach and as a consumer. The “I’ve been successful in spite of myself” theory would apply here.

4. Work your leads and earn a sale.
Just a short time ago, in many sales driven companies, your salesperson can have a pulse and still get a sale simply by your customers showing up and having the money to spend. We were fooled into thinking that, “Hey, since I’m bringing in the business, I must be a great salesperson.” In today’s business climate, the same people are now struggling to generate the results they were, realizing that the marketplace has duped them into thinking they were better then the really are when it comes to professional selling. It has been the economic climate that made many salespeople seemingly productive, rather than their skill set or the core competencies needed to truly become a high performance sales professional, regardless of economic or market conditions. With today’s ever evolving market, if you are selling, managing or running your business the same way you’ve been running it for the last several years, you’re overdue to reevaluate your philosophy.

If you sell consumer products or services that is a more substantial purchase than going to the supermarket (home electronics, furniture, bridal/wedding venders, travel, boutique stores, computers, home appliances, home furnishings, clothing/shoe stores, etc.) don’t let a potential customer walk out the door without collecting some data points and permission to check in. Learn to position yourself as your customer’s trusted adviser throughout their decision making process. Abandon toxic thinking and get beyond the fact that you can afford to let any potential customer walk away from a conversation, thinking they will actually call you back on their own accord. Earn the right to call each person who buys from you - a customer. It’s during times like these where you literally have to earn their business rather than simply be an order taker.

5. Get into action. Work with a coach.
Hire a coach. With a coach, it’s not about weathering the storm. You can do that on your own. A great business coach can assist you in developing the strategy and skills you need to not only sail through the storm but actually even profit during it.

Seven Days to Launch! Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions

The most common question I hear from executive coaches, internal coaches as well as managers just starting to shift from manager to coach is, “How do I recognize where it is they need and could benefit from the coaching most?”

Actually, covering the specifics of what you can coach someone on, from a tactical perspective is actually the easier part. It’s uncovering the who or the often very elusive and limiting thinking or outlook they have which is ultimately showing up in their actions and behavior that is the tricky part. Demonstrating this ability is a true testament of a gifted, exceptional coach and I’m going to share with you how to develop it on your own.

Regardless of the topic, skill, problem or mindset you’ve identified as a possible focal point in your coaching, there is one model that’s always applicable in every coaching scenario. It also happens to be the very thing each coaching opportunity has in common. That is, The Gap. The Gap is the space that exists between where the client or coachee is today and where they want or need to be.

The Gap is the space that exists between:

• What people know (current knowledge, philosophies, assumptions, stories, outlooks, beliefs, and so on) and what they don’t know or don’t realize is possible.
• What people need to do; the activity that supports their goals yet are still not doing.
• The resources and skills they have and the ones they don’t.

Imagine a bridge for a moment. Picture yourself standing on the side of the bridge. You focus your vision on the other side of the bridge which is the location you want to get to. Think about what you need to do to get to the other side. Consider the resources needed to arrive at your desired destination in the shortest amount of time and with the least amount of risk or error. Reaching the other side is your goal or your destination. Notice the Gap. What might you need to fill in this gap; this void that exists between you and your goal?

The Gap is the void between where you are now in comparison to where you want to be. This is the space where the coaching happens. What’s needed to cross the bridge? You need a car if you want to get to your destination as fast as possible. You need fuel as the resource needed to get your car moving. You need a clear path that would help you arrive at your destination with the least amount of delays, obstructions, diversions and wrong turns. Identifying these resources (which we did through the use of inquiry, just like when you’re coaching) provides definition, structure and an executable strategy which collectively, evolved into an actionable and comprehensive solution to this situation.

Instead of assuming what your staff already knows or what they need to do, start determining what they need to know or learn how to do better in order to fill in this gap and ensure clear communication and spot-on coaching. You’ll increase your awareness, become more sensitized to what the other person needs to learn and uncover greater opportunities for coaching.

Most important, stay away from doing what many managers still habitually do. That is, react and share the answer or what you perceive to be the solution to a problem before understanding the person’s specific needs or asking the right questions that create the space for the person to develop a solution on their own. Recognizing the gap in every coaching conversation or situation with your clients, staff or even with your prospects and customers will help you become more sensitive to the importance of investing the time to go deeper into their specific challenge, request or situation. Embedding this within the foundation of your thinking and approach to managing and coaching will allow for a strong coaching culture to emerge.

Eight Days to Launch! Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions

Sales Training or Sales Coaching. What’s The Difference and When Do I Use Them?
A client of mine, the owner of an executive recruiting firm, emailed me a question after our coaching call regarding some confusion around the difference in approach between coaching and training and when exactly do you use each discipline, especially when it came to new hires who typically went through a structured training program.

Here’s what the email read:

“After reflecting on our conversation I have a couple thoughts I wanted to run by you. You mentioned I need to tap into people’s own wisdom and strength, and let them come up with their own solutions and along the way I should sprinkle in questions along their vision line that cause them to think, and I can then add truths to their solutions vs. telling them they are wrong or how to do it or what the answer is, etc…

I do believe this is a more mature approach in coaching sales managers and senior sales associates. However; this is a bit contrary to how we initially train new associates.

We only hire entry level and train from within. We tell new associates that they need to subscribe to the “blind faith” model as they are learning the job. We do this because the trainers and managers have to literally walk new associates through most of their initial phone calls so they can not only achieve measurable success quickly but help us in determining whether they have what it takes or will disqualify themselves from this position. We want them to implement our sales model because we know it works. We have a very in depth and hands on training with new associates, but it doesn’t leave a lot of room for creativity when they are being walked through how to prospect and cold call, how to deliver effective presentations, how to close the sale, how to speak with customers, how to make a proper phone call, etc. We believe this is such a difficult job to break into, we want to do everything in our power to get them performing to our expectations, so they can eventually learn how to do the job on their own.

Although it is necessary for new associates to go through this type of training, it does not seam effective for Sr. Sales Associates or Managers. It seems that if I truly want self reliant and self motivated salespeople and sales managers, I need to coach them towards the right solutions and let them get there on their own rather then tell them what the answer is or what to do.

Ultimately, my question is, am I thinking along the right path and how do you determine whether the situation requires more of a training approach where I need to show them how to do something or more of a coaching approach where I rely more on their ability to find the solution within themselves?”

Here was the response I sent:

GREAT question and highly insightful! Yes, you’re beginning to think like a coach. So the question is, when is it a training issue and when is it a coaching issue. Here’s an analogy.

If you want to learn how to play golf and you’re going to take the game seriously, one of the first things you’re going to do is find a great teacher or enroll in a golf training class. You find someone who can show you the mechanics of the game, teach you the game and help you develop your own swing. Since you’ve never done this before, you need to be shown how to do so. More than just being shown the basics and fundamentals you want to be shown the very best way to do it in order to cut down your learning curve and you want to be taught by a champion who’s already doing it or who has already done it. That’s the training aspect to learning the game and wanting to learn the best practices for playing.

Now, some time has passed by and you’ve learned the basics. You’re out on the golf course playing consistently. You’ve taken what you learned from the golf pro and are doing your best to apply it. You noticed you’re only getting so far. While your score has improved since you’ve started playing, you’ve capped out and can’t seem to shoot better than a 90.

Since you are ready to take your game to the next level, you now go and find yourself a great golf coach. Distinct from what a teacher does, your coach is going to find out what you want to refine and improve. Your coach is going to uncover where you want to be in terms of how well you want to play the game. What do you ultimately want to shoot? That’s the measurable end result or destination; your gauge for winning. Rather than tell him how to play, the coach is going to watch you play a round. The coach is going to observe not only how you swing the club but how you play the inner game of golf as well. The coach is going to want to get a good sense of your own style, strengths, areas of opportunity and how you currently play the game.

Here’s the quick distinction. A teacher or trainer is going to show you how to do something; something you’ve never done before or tried before in a consistent manner. The trainer is going to provide you with a foundation, a process, a benchmark of best practices to give you a starting point in relation to where you would begin on your path of development.

A coach, however, is going to show you how to do what you are doing even better. First the coach would need see how you swing a club. Then the benefits coaching are recognized and apparent when the coach watches from the sidelines seeing the things that you, as the player cannot and gently tweaks and refines your game and approach to the point where you’ve made it your own. Coaching is the discipline management uses to leverage all of your salespeople’s individual strengths and talents to keep them on top of their game and recognize their fullest abilities today, rather than by what could be tomorrow.”

If you’re learning how to do something for the first time, you want to be taught best practices. Like golf, the instructor isn’t going to let you invent your own swing. You need to be shown the right form etc. Then as you learn the fundamentals you need to then be coached to refine your game and advance your game.

So it makes sense what you’re saying. First you need to show them the best way, show them best practices and train them how to do something they’ve never done. When it comes to refining your game, removing obstacles, and challenging thinking, that’s when coaching comes into play.

Tip From the Executive Sales Coach: Sales training is what you need to become a salesperson. Sales coaching is what you need to become a sales champion.

9 Days to Launch! Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions

Lee Salz, President of Sales Dodo, LLC and author of “Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager” recently shared this article with me. With the theme of my blogs shifting subtly over to the sales management and leadership part of the success equation for building a team of sales champions, this article certainly hits the mark regarding what sales managers and business owners need to be sensitive to when looking to hire, train and recruit salespeople.
Sure, recruiting and hiring salespeople and top talent is one of the most critical activities a company performs. However, few companies are truly adept at hiring the right people to meet, let alone exceed their expectations. According to Lee Salz, here are some tips for sales managers on how to hire the right sales talent.
_______________________
I recently had the opportunity to speak to a group of CEOs about their sales recruitment needs. To make a point, I mentioned to them that my friend, Willie McMoney, had heard that I was speaking to this group and asked that I mention he was looking for a new sales home. I shared Willie’s background with the group: Willie has a Bachelor’s Degree from a well-respected institution, has a great look, has been selling for over ten years for household name companies that offer low-price products, and has exceeded quota each of the last three years. That being said, I asked the group who wanted to hire Willie. Most raised their hands in earnest.

I shared with the group that there were a few more details to discuss before a decision could be finalized. The information to consider was the profile of their company, which included the following attributes: they were a start-up with no name recognition in the marketplace, positioned as a high value/high price provider, and required customization for each client. I asked the group again about hiring Willie. The light bulbs started turning on. They began to recognize that finding a great salesperson is not a one-dimensional exercise; rather, it requires that the company look within to determine the necessary skills and attributes for someone to be a great salesperson in their environment. The term “great” is the issue here. Willie is a great salesperson and he has the credentials to prove it, but the question is: will Willie succeed in your company?

Consider this: companies spend thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars, defining their ideal client. They hire firms to help them analyze their approach and identify the audience, as well as how to reach them. When I asked this group to share with me the attributes of their ideal client, I felt like a game show host. The group came to life and was shouting out answers non-stop. I strategically interrupted them and asked them to share with me the attributes of their ideal sales person. After hearing the deafening sound of crickets chirping, I shared what I often heard as attributes of this ideal: someone who is very strategic, solution-oriented, sells on value, experienced, and a strong seller. The group sighed in relief as they thought I had let them off the hook. Not so fast! I asked them how they can hire talent to match that scope. How can recruiters translate that criteria into a project whereby they can laser-focus their approach and produce the right candidates? The relief disappeared from the room and was replaced by angst.

Hiring sales people is the business equivalent of formulating a marriage… a sales marriage, that is. Appearance may be enough to initiate the relationship, but without deep commonality of needs and values, the future of the marriage is bleak. Why does that matter? The expense of sales turnover is truly immeasurable. Sure, you can measure cost of turnover, recruitment, and training but how do you place a value on the damage caused by sending the salesperson of the day into the same accounts over and over again? “Hi, I’m Ben this week’s salesperson representing Widgets We Make. I’m here to help with your needs.”

The way for employers to avoid this peril is to develop a profile of their ideal salesperson. This profile requires the executive team to collaborate and be truly honest about the interworkings of the company in order to produce an effective exercise. The profile includes three primary components: product characteristics, buying process, and organizational attributes.

1. Product Characteristics
a. What is the nature of the product(s) being sold? Is it tangible, abstract, or concrete?
b. What is the nature of the buying relationship? Is it a one-time, transaction sale or a repetitive, complex one?
c. Is the product a component of something broader (niche) or is it a comprehensive solution?
d. How recognizable is the product and company in the marketplace of your buyers?
e. In contrast to the competition, where is the product priced?

2. Buying Process
a. What are the expectations of the salesperson with respect to prospecting? Are you generating leads or are they expected to self-generate them?
b. How long is the buying process?
c. Is the product “off the shelf” or does it require the salesperson to creatively build a solution?
d. At what level is the purchasing decision made? Who are the other buying players that influence the purchasing decision?
e. What sales support is available for the salespeople? Is the salesperson required to go from end to end or is the salesperson only required to handle certain parts of the process?

3. Organizational Attributes
a. How flexible does someone need to be to survive in your environment? Think in terms of how often the organizational structure changes the compensation, and/or the territory.
b. What is the sales management approach? Is the sales manager a hands-on coach or a distant observer of performance?
c. What are you willing to teach to a salesperson? The product? Prospecting? Product positioning?
d. What aren’t you willing to teach to a salesperson? Sales 101? Prospecting?
e. What corporate baggage does your company have? What are the oddities that make it challenging for a salesperson to succeed in your environment? Is there a difficult individual in your company? Are there technical flaws that make it challenging to sell the product? This one requires true introspection and honesty.

With this exercise complete, you are ready to formulate your ideal salesperson profile which looks like this:
We want a salesperson who is experienced at selling:
• A product with the following attributes…
• In a buying process that includes…
• For a company characterized by…

Now that you have a profile for your ideal salesperson, don’t keep it a secret. Be sure that your entire leadership team has a copy of it! Share it with recruiters so they can deliver candidates that match it. Develop interview steps that allow you to measure if these candidates meet the profile. Formulate interview questions that expose these areas.

I concluded the meeting with a quick comparison of Willie’s skills and the company’s attributes, which can be seen on the first page. A marriage between these two would be disastrous! Although I wasn’t able to find Willie a new sales home, I did succeed in making the CEOs aware of the steps they need to take in order to create the best sales team possible for their company.

Can something new possibly be written on this subject? It looks like Paul McCord Author of has made claim to a new and powerfully effective model for selling success.

He asks, “Do you have what it takes to become a superstar in sales? I’m talking about, do you have the real foundation that is mandatory for becoming a top producer.”

Do you know which markets that you will really dominate?
What marketing and prospecting methods are best suited to your strengths and skills?
What sales process will make you the most successful?
What your real strengths and weaknesses are and how to take full advantage of them to sell more than you thought possible?
Everyone knows that top salespeople are made, not born.

But what do they REALLY do that is different than everyone else? What do they know that so few others know?
Paul McCord has just released SuperStar Selling: 12 Keys to Becoming a Sales SuperStar, the most detailed guidebook to creating a top producing sales career I’ve seen I a very long time.

This isn’t the typical book with some tips and strategies to close a few more sales or to find a few more prospects.
SuperStar Selling: 12 Keys to Becoming a Sales SuperStar is a guide to finding your personal keys to success–your keys to controlling your career and insuring you are one of the top salespeople in your industry. No longer do you have to allow chance to determine whether or not you reach the top of your field.

SuperStar Selling doesn’t have any canned answers. No quick miracle fixes. No fluffy promises of easy success.
Instead, SuperStar Selling challenges you to examine everything about your sales business and then to make RADICAL changes. It forces you understand how you’ve gotten to where you are in your sales career and why you aren’t where you want to be.

Then it not only demands you make radical changes to what you do, why you do it, and how you do it, it guides step-by-step through the process of finding exactly what markets and marketing methods, and what sales process will take you from where you are today to where you want to be.

This is absolutely a career changing book. McCord walks you through every major area of your career, not only demanding you examine each area in detail, but works with you to create real plans, real goals and real solutions to your problems that will make you a top producer.

Get your copy at Amazon.

12 Days to Launch! Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions

Confidence. It’s one of those key ingredients that needs to be present in our formula for success. If you look at anyone at the top - in business, in politics, in entertainment, in sports, one common denominator each one of these leaders possess is an unshakeable degree of confidence in themselves, in their abilities and in their beliefs.

Confidence makes up much of the fuel that drives us, the over-achievers, the dreamers, the visionaries, the driven, the passionate and those who simply want to be the best at what they do; the entrepreneur who’s looking to build a successful business, the manager who wants to empower his team and make them winners, the salesperson who’s looking to post large monthly sales numbers, the sole practitioner seeking to build a sustainable practice or the up and comer starting a new career and is looking to make their mark in order to ascend through the ranks within their company.

The challenge for maintaining an infallible, unshakable high degree of confidence is that for most people, it seems to be conditional. Rather than being absolute, most people’s level of confidence changes based on their situation and experiences. Sometimes it’s at an all time high. Yet, other times their level of confidence is shaken or challenged based on an encounter they had, a mistake that was made, a failure, or an inability to produce a desired result.

The myth surrounding confidence is this: The overall sense of confidence you have about yourself is based upon your experiences and what you produce. As such it will continue to eternally vacillate, as most people allow their internal condition to be dictated by their external situation.

In my article, The Secret to Building the Confidence of a Champion, you’ll discover the hidden power that we, as human beings have at our disposal but rarely do we tap into its fullest potential. I’m referring to the greatest power we all possess. That is, our power of choice and out ability to choose to be confident as an absolute rather than as a condition of circumstance.

You can read the full article here.

In a recent interview, I was asked what companies can do to ‘boost their close ratios’ within the specialty retail market. Here were the questions as well as my responses.

Question: What techniques have you seen work in terms of boosting close ratios within the retail market? Are there any action steps that retail owners need to take to boost their close ratios?

Response: After tracking your sales numbers and closing ratio, you’ll find that you may fit into one of the following scenarios in terms of how much prospecting, marketing and selling you will have to do in order to reach your income goal.

1. You are right on track to reach your sales and income goal.
2. You’re slightly off but can easily adjust your daily routine to compensate.
3. You’ll need to put aside a considerable amount of more time to devote to prospecting. This may require some delegation of responsibilities or taking some other activities, tasks, or projects off your plate that may not serve you best or support your goals.
4. You feel like you just got hit with a two by four because the amount of marketing and selling you need to do in order to reach your income goal is off the charts and unrealistic; even to high to count.

If you fall within the fourth category, do not despair! If you find that you need to spend more hours selling than there are in a day in order to reach your income goal, consider some other alternatives that will decrease your required prospecting time, marketing dollars and time on the floor selling.

1. Improve your selling skills to boost closing percentages. You may want to consider revamping your marketing and selling approach as well as doing an analysis of your own sales acumen and selling skills. After all, if you’re fishing in a lake and everyone else at the lake is catching fish but you aren’t, do you go to a different lake or do you change the bait you’re using! If you are still selling or marketing the way you’ve been doing it or have never been shown the right way to market and sell effortlessly, then you are making it easy for your competition to take your business. Consider it’s time to reach out and get an overhaul or tune up.
2. Increase your profitability/commissions or income per sale.
3. Increase the size of your average sale.
4. Decrease the amount of prospecting or marketing needed to identify one new prospect.
5. Decrease the average time it takes for you to identify a qualified prospect. (Remove all distractions.)
6. Change your income/sales goal.
7. Find a new career path. This alternative is only for those people who have thoroughly explored all options (including working with a sales coach) and, most important, have taken the time to develop their selling skills and implement a comprehensive selling system they have followed for a considerable length of time.

Fine-tuning the first six of the seven measurables I just mentioned will ensure that you are maximizing your time, your talents and your potential as well as each prospecting and selling opportunity.

In a recent interview, I was asked what companies can do to ‘boost their close ratios’ within the specialty retail market. Here were the questions as well as my responses.

Question: What are some common mistakes you see retailers make with regard to close ratios?

Response: Quite often a common mistake is simply not managing their sales numbers on an individual basis or not managing them accurately enough to provide a realistic picture of where they are and what they need to change or adjust regarding their selling efforts and approach. But the problem goes even deeper.

At the core, the real mistake is not accurately accounting for the activities they need to engage in throughout their day. All roads lead back to time management. So if you find that you’re not getting through all the tasks you need to in the time you’ve allocated for it, then there’s a strong chance you are suffering from unrealistic planning or you’re doing something else that you didn’t plan for nor account for in your daily schedule. As such, designate separate blocks of time for all your daily activities and responsibilities so that it doesn’t interfere with your selling efforts.

Finally, lack of follow up or follow through in their sales process. Many simply lack the sales acumen and selling skills they need to boost their sales such as effective follow up, asking the right questions that would create more selling opportunities as well as qualify the opportunities that make the most sense to invest your time in.

In a recent interview, I was asked what companies can do to ‘boost their close ratios’ within the specialty retail market. Here were the questions as well as my responses.

Question: What exactly is a close ratio and why is it important for retailers and their employees to pay attention to their close ratios?

Response: While you may find that the definition of a “closing ratio” vary dependant upon the industry and selling cycle, broadly speaking, your closing ratio is the number of prospects you’ve met with/spoken with divided by the number of sales you made. So, if you speak with 10 prospects and make 5 sales, then your closing ratio is 50%.
Regarding the importance of paying attention to their closing ratios, retailers need to be able to answer the following questions:

• How many calls do I need to make to generate one prospect?
• How many prospects does it take to generate one sale?
• How long will each prospecting or cold calling effort take?
• How much time do I need to devote to new business development every day?
• And how many sales do I need each month to attain my year end financial goals?

If you don’t know the answers to these essential questions, that’s perfectly fine. Realize that if you do not have the answer to some of these questions, it may require doing some conscious tracking of your cold calling efforts before you are able to accurately answer them. There are many tools available today to help track these numbers. Once you do, imagine how much easier your life would be if you were able to identify the specific and measurable actions you need to take on a daily basis in order to reach your yearly income goal. Now, you’ve created your success formula. You will then be able to determine how much prospecting or marketing/advertising is needed and and the number of appointments/presentations needed each month, even each day to attain your goals, as well as the time commitment it will take to do so.

If you can measure it you can then manage it. Let the numbers in your success formula determine the amount of activity you need to put into your daily routine that will ensure your selling success. It sure beats scratching your head at the end of every month, wondering why you didn’t meet your sales goals. Now, you will have a defined, formula to follow so that you can generate the results you want. You can’t refine what you don’t define.