SALES DETOX: What Do You Need to Stop Doing?

Jeff Beals

A year ago my wife was on a mission to purge our house of clutter.

She read the book, “Te Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: Te Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing,” by Marie Kondo. She took it to heart and tore into the basement, closets and anywhere else we happened to be storing non- essential stuff. For the next month, I would regularly come home to find “give-away” piles ready to be loaded into the back of my SUV and hauled off to the donation dock.

Eventually she involved the kids and me in this undertaking. We asked ourselves whether we really needed to keep things. If we weren’t using them or didn’t find sentimental value in them, they were either trashed or donated.

Our house has always been tidy and well organized, so I took delight in teasing my wife about her great purge of 2016. To this day, if I can’t find something, I (good naturedly) accuse her of “decluttering it” or putting it through the “Japanese process.”

But I have to admit her decluttering process made our lives easier. We’re not bogged down with useless “stuff.” We have room to breathe. It makes it easier to focus on more enjoyable or high-value things in our lives.

Just as the decluttering process can make your home life more efficient, it can do wonders for your professional life as well. But I’m not talking about decluttering your office or organizing your file drawers. I’m talking about decluttering your work life.

Te longer you have been working in sales, the more unnecessary stuff you accumulate in your brain, on your calendar and in your job description. Sometimes that stuff needs to be purged.

I challenge you to ask this question: "What do I need to stop doing?"

Sales people are notorious for adding things to their plate without taking things off. Why? Salespeople tend to be ambitious and very confident in their abilities. Tey want multiple ways to prospect even if one prospecting method hasn’t paid off much in the past. Tey tend to be independent personalities, rugged individualists who think they can do it all. Sales professionals know they need to persevere in an eat-what-you-kill environment, so they don’t give up or accept defeat lightly.

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Tose are great traits, essential for long-term success in sales, but they are traits that can burn you out if you’re not careful.

So what are some things you might want to STOP doing?

Blowing off leads Fifty percent of sales leads never receive proper follow- up. Tat is probably the greatest waste of resources in the sales world. If you let leads fall through the cracks because you’re focusing on less important things, by all means, stop doing it.

Poor Qualification

Stop wasting time on people who will never buy. For whatever reason, many sales reps latch onto prospects who look good on the surface, but deep down, you know they’ll never buy from you.

Networking for the sake

of networking Some sales people never miss an event. Tey are on umpteen boards and committees and are always running from one meeting to the next. Why do they over commit and run themselves ragged just trying to keep up with all of it? Prospecting! Tey are afraid they’ll miss out on their next dream client if they are not at every event. While I’m a big proponent of prospecting through networking, you must be efficient. If a time-chewing obligation is not regularly producing convertible leads, don’t trick yourself into believing you have to be there.

Cold Calling

Less than 1 percent of sales people enjoy cold calling. And it’s for good reason. It takes a huge amount of time and it hardly ever works. Cold calling is just about the most inefficient way you can prospect, yet many salespeople still do it. I say STOP it. Instead of cold calling, research prospects first. Soften them up with marketing activity. Use a combination of ways to reach them, always focusing on something they may value.

Lack of Focus

Stop wasting time on non-sales functions. Sales professionals are often drafted by upper management to serve on company-wide projects or task forces. Tis is especially true if you are a senior leader in the sales division. Sales people tend to have first-hand knowledge of customers and buying trends, so they are valuable contributors to these company-wide groups.

TPI Turf News March/April 2017