Small Business Council Success Series – Sales Strategies
On Jan. 27, The Vancouver Board of Trade’s Small Business Council welcomed sales trainer Shane Gibson to deliver an insightful presentation entitled “Targeting your sales strategy.”
More than 120 people were in attendance to hear from Gibson, a sales performance specialist at BuildDirect, international speaker, and author on social media marketing, social selling and sales performance.
Gibson started off his presentation with a quote from Bill Gibson, another international speaker and author, who says, “Most people use the relationship to get the deal. The reality is the relationship is the deal.”
Gibson then shared strategies on how to “bulletproof” your success in sales. He mentioned that it is important to always keep the deal and relationship moving forward, to get rid of unproductive activities, and to maintain focus all the time.
He then pointed out a major misconception. Sales professionals often think that all clients are the same, and must therefore be targeted with the same strategies. Gibson strongly stated that this is not the case, and discussed the “ABC’s of Targeting,” including three categories of clients: absolute, beneficial and convenient.
Absolute clients deliver a higher yield, said Gibson, so they require a larger investment of time and proactive, high relationship selling. Convenient clients return a lower yield, and so they require a smaller time investment and more passive selling tactics. However, Gibson said it’s important not to mistake high-yield clients that need development for low-yield clients. This is where sales professionals must use evaluative criteria such as revenue, net assets and referral ability to determine which categories their clients belong to.
Gibson ended his presentation by emphasizing the importance of building relationships to increase sales performance, using partnerships and technology to scale sales efforts, and proactively booking key activities to maintain relationships with clients.
The presentation was followed by a moderated discussion, where attendees had the opportunity to ask their questions. One audience member asked about what types of events to go to in order to find clients. Gibson replied by saying that it is important to attend events where you can meet decision-makers that have the ability to ask for a sales proposal or even give you a cheque.
Gibson said he learned this when he changed his strategy and began attending events that were uninteresting in nature, but were attended by CEOs and Presidents of large companies, and many of them were interested in what he was offering. This strategy also requires a sales professional to step outside his or her comfort zone to build relationships, which is a key success strategy in this profession.
Want to learn more from Shane Gibson? You can find his presentation slides here
