Sales Techniques - Do You have a Strategic Sales Action Plan?

By Cheryl Clausen

Do you want to shake up your sales results? It's time to rethink you're approach and come up with a plan that will produce results. A strategic sales action plan provides an implementable quantifiable path to significantly improve your results.

Let's begin by identifying the key elements of a strategic sales action plan. The key elements of your strategic sales action plan include: the value you provide, your unique market position, your marketing plan, your sales plan, and your follow-up plan. Each element is critical, but you want to develop or review them in a specific order.

Start by identifying how creating the value that you will provide that people are willing to pay money for. This very simple concept is often overlooked, but people will buy from you if doing so is more valuable than buying from someone else like a competitor. And please realize that this value must be provided by you not the company whose products or services you may be selling.

You as an individual sales person need to establish your position in the market. Otherwise you're just like everyone else and there isn't any advantage to buying from you. There are numerous ways to position yourself, but you may want to start by considering: your areas of expertise, who you work with, what you do for the people you work with, speed, quality, etc.

You need a marketing plan to market yourself to the people you want to sell to. A marketing plan isn't just a list of random marketing activities you plan to do hoping to get results. A marketing plan is the overall plan you devise to generate a specific number of qualified leads that you can consistently and predictably repeat. And every action on your marketing plan must be track-able and measurable so you can make adaptations and improvements.

You're most familiar with a sales plan. Your sales plan should specifically tell you how you will proactively move the qualified leads entering your sales funnel into buyers. And you should be tracking each phase making adaptations and improvements.

Do you have a follow-up plan for building and extending the relationship you've started generating more business and referrals? That's the whole point of a follow-up plan. Once you start a relationship with a buyer you want to at least maintain the relationship so they will buy from you again. And your follow-up plan should include sales coaching to help your loyal buyers to refer you.

Shake up your sales results by developing a strategic sales action plan to get the results you want. Of course, a plan in and of itself won't produce the desired results. You produce the desired results by taking the actions you now know are the most effective actions and expecting your desired outcomes to follow.

Ready to get unstuck? Learn the Sales Techniques used by the top producers.
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The Action in Attraction

By Joanne Baskin

By now we have all been exposed to "The Secret" and the notion of positive thoughts bringing about positive feelings and energy therefore attracting positive experiences and results into our lives. Some of us have begun to journal about what we desire or have created vision boards. We have implemented daily rituals (such as yoga or meditation) into our lives which bring us to a mindful and present place of focus where gratitude and positive energy are the key principles.
These are the principles we are using in generating the kinds of business opportunities or ideal clientele we want.

So when is all of this supposed to manifest? Herein lays the distinction between the law of attraction and human expectation. Our expectations have been developed as a result of what we have already experienced. Our 'time frames" are merely a product of our own set of rules and predictions based on those experiences. However, they are just that-predictions. This is the "tricky" part because the notion of Law of Attraction infers that a present positive vibration will yield a future positive result. If we are bent on receiving a specific result, our focus becomes on "when and in how long?" At that point, we enter into patterned expectations and generate feelings of disappointment or impatience. These then become negative feelings, therefore negative vibrations. And so it goes ...

It seems then that the only choice we have is to find a way to release ourselves from what will happen to what is happening. What is happening is a reflection of what we have already thought.
What we have thought is translated into actions or behaviors which may or may not be in full alignment with what we want. We need to be inspired to act accordingly to our deepest wants and deepest values. Actions which are "inspired" are therefore those which marry what we feel passionately about with what we do. When emotions and passion begin to underpin our actions, then we are transformed towards creating new behaviors drawing in desired situations and new opportunities!

So what does this mean for your business? If we want to attract more, which inspired actions should we take? Here are some ways you can start the attraction process:

• Ask yourself, "What am I grateful for today in my business?" It may be as simple as, "I love that I have the freedom to set my own schedule!" Write it down or use your response as a meditative affirmation.

• Visualize. See yourself as a model of what you want to achieve and allow your emotions of pride and self-validation generate positive energy.

• Set an intention for the day. Rather than concentrating on objectives and goals, use intention as a flexible and organic stretch towards what you want. For example, "Today I will create new relationships which will take me one step closer to...."

• Look for clues. Conversations, images or thoughts often enter into our minds frequently during the day which we ignore. Make a conscious choice to mindfully ask yourself, "Is there an opportunity here?" or, "Can this person or situation help me in some way?" Our own open and questioning mind can generate a flow of creativity which will attract the right people and right situations.

When we find ourselves stuck in our own set of expectations, our actions then become measured and panic-driven. When we can create a business environment that maintains a flow of positive energy, the actions we take become more instinctive and inspired!

The Action in Attraction © Joanne Baskin 2007. All rights reserved.

Joanne Baskin is a Certified Professional Coach with ignitus Solopreneur Coaching. "ignitus" will help start up and solopreneurs create a compelling business vision, accompany them through their goal-setting while establishing work and life balance.

http://www.ignitus.ca

514-808-7386