Sales Warrior Lesson 47
Recovering the Initiative
Just like you cannot have pressure in the sales process,
you also cannot have slack in the sales process. You must seize the initiative
in going from one sales call to the next. You must avoid down time when you take
a break for selling. You must know where you are going in each sales call and
exactly why you are going there. You must avoid spaces in the sales call where
you do not know what to say or ask the customer what to do next. You must avoid
falling behind in your career due to inaction. You can recover from anything
that the customer decides, but you cannot recover from your own poor decisions.
Your control over the customer starts with your sense of
momentum. Customers sense momentum just like they sense desperation. If you lose
that sense of control over the situation, that sense of being ahead of the
customer, your success rate will start to plummet.
Even if you have been successful in the past, you never know how
the situation is going to change. You never know what competition is coming into
your market. You never know when the next economic downturn is due. Salespeople
are affected by economic cycles more than anyone. Since you cannot control these
cycles, you have to keep going forward and stay on the attack.
