Do You Recognize the 7 Early Warning Signs of Not Having a Sales Plan

Are you in a sales funk? Would you recognize it if you were? Learn to recognize the 7 early warning signs of having no sales plan–no plan to play out of your sales slump. Here are some sure indicators you are in a slump and need a plan.

7 Warning Signs of a Sales Slump

All professionals eventually end up in a slump. The classic baseball hitting slump is a perfect analogy.

We become world-class at a skill and then gradually our confidence slowly allows mechanics and fundamentals to shift out, ever so slightly creating new habits. These subtle misalignments begin to untrain our bodies and minds. Then poor performance begins to shake our confidence and the terror of doubt takes over. Now, we have created a slump.

The key to avoiding or driving ourselves out of a slump is to recognize the warning signs. Here are a few you may already notice:

• Mindlessly organizing and sorting (leads, contacts, desk, business cards)
• Dialing endless phone numbers with no objective
• More time spent prospecting than engaged in good conversation
• No benchmarks to measure progress to your quota
• Surprised when you hear what the customer says your competitor offered
• The same “big opportunities” are on your pipeline report week after week
• You begin whining about your product and the price

Did you see yourself? Probably. Let’s start fixing it now!

7 Ways to Beat Your Sale Funk

Beating a slump is best accomplished by stripping everything back down to the basic fundamentals and then rebuilding on that base. Here are 7 steps to counter these warnings, before they become habits to unwind:

• Establish a rhythm or routine that is productive. Map out the next week down to the hour and execute that plan flawlessly. Build in time for the unexpected so unavoidable fires and noise in your day don’t derail you.
• List and post specific customer target goals. Who are you looking for and why? Build that list on the weekend. Execute it next week.
• Once you have the list, probably built from past or current sales pipeline, don’t do anymore prospecting for a week. Concentrate instead on having good discussion (not necessarily even a pitch or presentation) with as many people as possible.
• Set specific daily benchmarks you want to achieve for the week. Number of dials, emails, contacts, appointments, presentations, closings–don’t leave until you hit the mark.
• Build a playbook (on the weekend) of current and past market (education), most likely customer scenarios (pain points), competitors (strengths, weaknesses, pricing)–post it
• Close the big opportunities or push them into lead nurturing. Stop focusing your mind on lottery pulls instead of achieving results
• Stop whining! If the product or the price is unsellable then you are just an expense to the company and should be cut while they fix the product. I think it is bad form to argue for your firing.

Get back to the basics, strengthen your fundamentals, and drive out of your sales slump into even higher plateaus of performance.

Related posts:

1. It’s 2007, Do You Have a Plan?
2. Make Sure Your Sales Plan Fits the Market