Increase your Sales Business Volume

If you are not selling as much as you'd like or if you're not making as much as you'd like, don't blame it on the markets, competition or others. It's time to forget the excuses and begin to accept accountability for any shortfall in sales volume or your paycheck.

Practice knowing when to listen and when to talk. It is usually better to listen first and speak later. Talking over the prospect is a huge mistake and will annoy them. Also listening doesn't mean being quiet you need to understand what they are saying too! If you are unsure of a point ask for clarification. Make sure that you make notes so that when you assist in the design of the solution you understand their issues. As a sales professional, how is your time management, or as I like to refer to time management, how is your personal productivity?

There are as many different ways to be personally productive as there are CEO's. However, I think few leaders will argue with these five "big picture" items as the solution to being productive in their responsibilities.

Plan - you have to plan your business and your time. Without planning factors such as where you are going, how you're getting there, when you're getting there, who is helping you get there, what you need to get there and why you want to get there, you will likely fall short of your goals in both good and bad markets.

Evaluate your progress - you have to take the time to evaluate how you are doing and make adjustments to your plan if necessary. This prevents you from wasting time on tasks that aren't working in both good and bad markets.

Organize - leaders need to be personally organized, so they can organize their team to execute the plan. You know without organization you will be less effective in getting results in both good and bad markets.

Prioritize - leaders have a great number of things to do and decisions to make. Without properly prioritizing, they can waste their resources focusing on the wrong areas in both good and bad markets.

Schedule - leaders schedule their day, week, month and year. Their daily schedule is set like television programming; you know what's on at what time and the only way that will change is if there is an earth-shattering development that needs to be communicated.