Colleen Francis - Nonstop Sales Boom: Powerful Strategies to Drive Consistent Growth Year After Year

POWERFUL STRATEGIES TO DRIVE
CONSISTENT SALES GROWTH
YEAR AFTER YEAR

Colleen Francis

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Francis, Colleen, 1970

Nonstop sales boom : powerful strategies to drive consistent sales growth year after year / Colleen Francis. -- 1 Edition.

pages cm

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-8144-3376-8 ISBN 0-8144-3376-6 1. Selling. 2. Customer relations. I. Title.

HF5438.25.F6947 2014

658.8101dc23

2014005360

2014 Colleen Francis.

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

SALES RADAR is a trademark of Engage Selling Solutions, Inc.

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Printing number

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is dedicated to all those
who make their living as professional salespeople.
I am extremely proud of the work you do
and am honored to stand alongside you.

A SPECIAL NOTE OF APPRECIATION: Some of you probably know Alan Weiss, the author of over 50 books in 12 languages, the thought leader in solo consulting, often called the rock star of consulting. Its been my good fortune to be part of his community and be coached by him. In fact, weve often shared drinks (me) and cigars (him) over that time.

I cant begin to thank him enough for his close help in working with me to make this book the best it can be. He helped with parts of the writing, editing, analysis of ideas, and examples. I offered to include his name on the cover after mine with and or with, but he graciously declined.

Yet I do want to recognize his terrific contributions and thank him for both his assistance and friendship in this project and over the years. I have referred countless colleagues in consulting, coaching, and professional services to his world-class guidance. I do the same for you.

There are five people in particular without whom this book would not be.

Robert Nirkind. Thank you for proactively reaching out to me to write this book. Your belief in the quality of my work and that sellers needed to hear what I had to say was a driving motivation.

Thank you to my editors Chris Murray and Debbie Posner. Your thoughtful commentary and professional guidance resulted in a book that moves the discussion about selling to a new level of sophistication.

Thank you Casey. Your loyalty to Engage and our clients is second to none. Without you, I would not have been able to simultaneously write this book and continue to do what I love best: serve our clients.

Finally, thank you to my husband and business partner, Chris. Your unwavering support and inspiration motivate everything I do.

Most sales organizations are far too familiar with the following scenario: As the end of the quarter approaches, team members are frenetically working to close deals. Some will close those deals and some wont. At the end of the quarter some salespeople have made their target, some havent. And at the start of that next quarter, almost all of themthose who didnt meet their targets and those who didwill be facing insufficient pipelines and spend the next weeks chasing new leads that may or may not close in time.

Feast or famine, boom or bust, apex or nadirits a pattern that too many sales organizations regard as a necessary evil. I dont. I see it simply as an evil. This is what compelled me to write Nonstop Sales Boom.

Sadly, all too often when teams perform well in one quarter they are more likely to see results collapse in the next. Why? In the all-consuming rush to close deals at the end of the quarter or year, key activities fall by the wayside. And when activities like lead qualification and account management suffer, the seeds are sown for bad results down the linein effect, creating a self-imposed vicious cycle where results vary significantly from quarter to quarter.

For sales leaders, this boom and bust cycle creates enormous uncertainty and inconsistency. Yet its considered normal. Do any of the following statements sound familiar?

We always have inconsistent results because our buyers dont buy in the first month of the quarter!

I expect fluctuating individual sales performance! They cant be perfect all the time. If they were, that would show that our targets are too low.

Its okay to have a few on the team who underperform. They are balanced out by the overperformers.

Im just in a slump. Ill get over it soon.

Our business is always seasonal.

Its just the typical hockey stick!

Its always been this way. Nothing we can do will change it now.

These are the justifications of poor sales management. And reasons why you should read this book carefully!

However hard you try to justify it, boombust revenue production is indicative of a much larger problem: a nonstrategic, boombust mentality that somehow manages to adhere like glue to the brains of sales management. I know that sales reliability is highly sought in sales organizations and that reliability continues to be an elusive goal. I also know that the process of chasing it down leaves sales executives (who are dealing with end-of-quarter stress) and individual salespeople (who are trying to establish consistency) completely devoid of the energy they need to do their jobs. A sales vice president I spoke with recently told me sales reliability was also the cause of her gray hair!