Here is a somewhat ethereal concept I have been encountering in this present economy.\u00a0 It starts with this \u2013 return on investment (ROI).\u00a0 ROI has been the backbone of sales since time immortal.\u00a0 This is the basis of sales in that customers pay the money to receive the solution.\u00a0 As long as the customer views the return on their investment as greater than the investment, they will make the purchase (generally speaking).<\/p>\n
The top-performing salespeople possess this motivation pattern (called Utilitarian<\/a>).\u00a0 They view prospects in terms of ROI \u2013 how much return ($) will I receive if I invest time to close them.\u00a0 This principle has changed in the present economy.<\/p>\n Salespeople know that spending is tight \u2013 deals are difficult to close.\u00a0 I am seeing a change in the salesperson\u2019s approach:\u00a0 they are measuring prospects based on Return On Effort (ROE).\u00a0 This approach is akin to taking the long road and it is a wise strategy in these recessionary times.<\/p>\n Salespeople are realizing that extended sales cycles are the norm so they have to focus their effort in the most strategic prospects.\u00a0 Yes, you could argue the effort is their investment and that would be accurate.\u00a0 However, I talk to more salespeople who speak in specific terms of their effort to close the prospect.\u00a0 Is it the deal worth it?<\/p>\n I think this approach is born out of the lack of deals closing.\u00a0 What I mean is this \u2013 salespeople are working on qualifying and closing deals, but deals are closing slowly (if at all).\u00a0 So now the salesperson is stuck with fewer closes.\u00a0 Instead, they have to keep their effort level elevated even though they are not receiving the return\/reward they are accustomed to receiving (a sale).\u00a0 The salesperson must change the metric and focus on their effort and what they will receive for it.<\/p>\n As a sales manager, it is important to keep the salesperson focused on keeping their effort level elevated.\u00a0 A bad economy has a way of derailing salespeople, even good ones.\u00a0 There will be a payoff in the long term for their effort.\u00a0 Do not let the discouragement of extended sales cycles affect their Utilitarian motivation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here is a somewhat ethereal concept I have been encountering in this present economy.\u00a0 It starts with this \u2013 return on investment (ROI).\u00a0 ROI has been the backbone of sales since time immortal.\u00a0 This is the basis of sales in that customers pay the money to receive the solution.\u00a0 As long as the customer views the return on their investment as greater than the investment, they will make the purchase (generally speaking). The top-performing salespeople possess this motivation pattern (called Utilitarian).\u00a0 They view prospects in terms of ROI \u2013 how much return ($) will I receive if I invest time to close them.\u00a0 This principle has changed in the present… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[49,4,9],"tags":[1229,152,1655,267,1750,153,211,43],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-Dt","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2448,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447\/revisions\/2448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}