Recently, Petra Coach hosted a workshop, Double Your Business by Choosing What You Focus On with Morné Smit

You can find the full recording below.

Use Promo Code PETRA for a discount when registering for any of Morné’s upcoming workshops.

Top Takeaways

4 Key Things I’ve Learned In My Sales Career

  1. Selling doesn’t work.
    1. People don’t buy from us because they understand what we’re telling them, they buy from us because they feel understood.
  2. There is pattern recognition in sales.
    1. There are certain behaviors, activities, and habits that if we do consistently with enthusiasm, we are likely be more successful.
  3. It is not about the product or service.
    1. It’s about buying psychology. It’s about having a conversation with a human being.
    2. Help the customer buy, even if it’s from someone other than you because by demonstrating you care more about the person than the transaction you will outsell anyone.
  4. It absolutely matters what we focus on.
    1. We know what to do but we very often don’t do what we know.

We all have the same amount of time, but we choose to focus on different things.

High Pay-Off Activities (HPA) vs. Low Pay-Off Activities (LPA)

HPAs: the things only I can do and should be doing

What To Do With LPAs

  1. Insource – delegate it to someone in your team
  2. Outsource – their hourly rates are significantly less than yours, and you can reinvest your time in HPAs
    1. “If you don’t have an assistant, you are one” – Jack Daly
  3. Automate – there’s so much technology out there to save your time
  4. Just Stop Doing It – there are some things we can stop doing and no one would notice or care

Save time on LPAs and reinvest that time into HPAs

HPA Activity with Teams

  • List out all activities and how long each takes
  • Have them all vote on which ones are HPAs
  • Decide what to do with the LPAs (one of the 4 options above)

Maybe you don’t need a better product, service, or price – maybe you just need to get really clear on what you HPAs and LPAs are.

You should run this exercise in conjunction with setting your quarterly goals so your HPAs coincide with the “most important things.”

3 Sins of Sales Management

  1. You are the CEO and you have put yourself into the role of Sales Manager.
    1. Both are full time jobs.
  2. You take best salesperson and promote them to SM.
    1. Fails 82% of the time, meaning the SM leaves within 18 months – and typically when they leave, they join the competitor and sell for them.
  3. You take best salesperson and promote them to SM and ask them to keep selling.

If you really want to make it super simple, a Sales Manager has 2 HPAs: Build a sales team in quality and quantity.

 

Looking for more learning opportunities? Register for our upcoming workshops & webinars today!