Do you want to rocket-propel your sales? Here is the secret

Do you want to jumpstart your sales? Do you want your sales team members to eat your dust?

Here’s how. Forget making 10 calls per day. Get two appointments per day. Most likely at recruitment you were told, “You are required to make 10 sales calls every day.” And you are reminded of this at every sales meeting. Sometimes you do, most times you don’t. Forget that. To accelerate your sales, aim to get two appointments per day, every day. What it takes to achieve that is irrelevant. Calls, emails or referrals, it doesn’t matter. Two appointments per day translates to 40 appointments per month!

Sellers that have even half that kind of face-to-face time with clients are few and far between. Those who do are overwhelmed with the amount of sales coming their way. And that’ll be you. You will be so busy making pitches, addressing complaints live, making collections, closing business and asking for referrals that your diary will be filled as far as three months ahead.

While your colleagues give fictitious reports (as most sellers do) of their meetings for the following week, you will wonder why it is so easy for you to share a genuine one. You can even give next month’s report today. It gets better. Because of the heightened face-to-face time with clients, with time, the quality and source of your appointments fundamentally changes for the better. You now research less for prospects (potential buyers); you get them as referrals from the many buyers you are constantly engaging with, gradually building momentum that inevitably triggers an avalanche of sales.

Two appointments per day is for those in a business-to-business selling because it involves several decision makers, calls for a lead time in delivery and therefore takes longer. For instance, selling lifts to real estate developers, or, chemicals to industries.

If you are in the business-to-customer space, for instance, selling insurance or bank accounts then learn from hawkers. Pitch to as many prospects as possible. I recommend eight per day.

That insurance agent you see dwelling at Kenyatta National Hospital can easily pitch to as many as 10 prospects in a day because he is spoilt for choice in a concentrated area fertile with prospects; occasionally, he does a group presentation to thirty people, further creating awareness and more prospects.

He demonstrates exceptional time management skills. While his colleagues travel lengthy distances in between meetings his travel time is spent pitching from desk to desk, thereby building his brand awareness. He becomes that market’s go-to person.

Something ‘magical’ happens when you are in this space of constant prospecting and pitching. You don’t have time for negative energy which is characteristic of a seller with no prospects to pitch to. You have no time for complaints about how cold the tea is or how the rain is impeding selling. You are too busy blinding your colleagues with your dust.