Three things to get your sales creativity flowing in 2018

Compliments of the New Year. With our turbulent politics behind us, 2018 promises to be much better than 2017, experts say. Meaning, sales can only get better. Here are three things to get your sales juices gushing.

Your employer is impatient

“It’s only January, and customers aren’t mentally back to work” will be a hard sale. Your employer may have tried to understand this before, but not this January.

This January businesses are under pressure to recoup whatever losses they made last year; to accelerate whatever was on hold pending the political cloud that had hung over us last year. Business owners are on edge; they are impatient. They are unlikely to cosy up (and neither should you) to, “it’s only January” as an excuse to justify your sluggish sales.

Build relationships with back office

Fine. So, customers are still telling you to wait next month before they can “talk to you”. But, your job is about building relationships — the sale is a consequence of this. So, because charity begins at home, forge or mend relationships with the indispensable players in your sales chain, especially back office staff. In a bank, these are the ones who open the account and order cheque books. In a fast moving consumer goods company these would be the staff in the factory and supply chain.

In a software development company they are the ones who will spend easily up to a year installing the software you sold. Many times these back office staff are unsung heroes of the sale. Recognise them this January; gift them that diary, calendar or freebie you intended to give a friend or family member.

Buy them lunch or surprise them with snacks for their 10 o’clock tea. They will not see it coming and will remain forever grateful (indebted?) to you.

You can deliver 110 per cent

Among the terms that are said to be defunct in the corporate world include ‘square peg in round hole’, ‘out of the box’ and ‘give it 110 per cent’. The last one is especially said to be absurd; completion is 100 per cent so it’s ridiculous to talk of more than that.

That may be the case in a desk job but not sales. When you do as you are expected to in, say, customer service, the boss is happy with you — you score an A.

It’s different in selling; sales is the only job where you can over deliver, where you can do 110 per cent (even more) of what is expected of you by merely surpassing targets. But to do that you must have a more pressing selfish goal than just selling “because it’s my job”.

It could be to get that promotion; to buy a bigger TV; to take your child to a private school or, to take your family on holiday. Whatever it is, it triggers motivation and as we said, a sale is a result-what drives it, is you.

Kageche is Lead Facilitator, Lend Me Your Ears (Sales Training); www.lendmeyourears.co.ke; [email protected]