Justsell.com has a helpful daily sales email that contains practical tips. Today’s offering (no link available):
Top 3 activities that can hobble a sales day…
- talking with people who cannot move the sales process along
- unnecessary research activities
What’s too much? There’s really no definitive answer — it’s particular to your sales world. Most people start to get a gut feel for when they should move on — the key is to act on it and make the call. You’d be surprised what you can learn by asking a straightforward question of the person who answers the phone or responds to an email.- crafting” or “drafting” a letter, email or fax
Needs to be done but almost never during the money hours — and those who’ve worked the preparedness checklist should already have completed the basics of most standard written communications needed.
All great points. #2 is especially important in successful selling. Today’s information age demands that a salesperson be prepared for an approach call. The days of cold calling and asking, “What does your company do?” are long gone. The time window is much shorter for an approach call and the recipient of the call expects the caller to have a cursory understanding of their business.
However, some salespeople prefer to research a company for 30 minutes before picking up the phone. That approach only works if you have a highly-defined, prospect-limited market. For the majority of sales positions, it is better to limit research on a suspect (cannot call them a prospect until some qualifying has occurred).