Rebuild Your Foundation Now to Ensure Greater Sales After the Virus

Dec 13, 2021

One of the biggest weaknesses most salespeople have is a lack of organization. Most personality tests show that salespeople are almost all completely disorganized. Their strength is their ability to multitask, managing multiple deals at once while quickly being able to communicate to close business.

Over many years, I have preached the importance of building a strong foundation for a career in sales but have had very few over the years actually follow my advice.  All agree that it is important, but once they leave my training meeting, they quickly go back to their old ways of doing business.

The reality is marginal. Salespeople that do not have a foundation for their business will ultimately fail.  Good salespeople will continue to be good– not GREAT. And great salespeople could be even better if they just worked on their business foundation.

Today, we have the rare gift of time on our hands. Now is the time to build a proper foundation for your business so once this virus subsides and we are allowed to go back to work, you are ready to go with a proper foundation to be the best that you can be.

Here are the building blocks you need for a strong foundation in sales:

1.     A Real CRM Database

It ceases to amaze me how many salespeople– good and bad – still rely on notes, spreadsheets, Outlook and written “to-do” lists. No salespeople can be truly efficient without a proper CRM that enables you to completely organize the activities of your existing and future clients. There are so many CRM software and services available to you today.  If you are not accustomed to a CRM, then I recommend you look into HubSpot. HubSpot is a free CRM that is tied to their premium services which include handling your entire email and social media marketing campaigns.

I would also look at Evernote this more of a to-do list on steroids but offers some nice easy tools to create efficiencies of your business.

2.     Training

I don’t care how good you are and what results you have seen. You need to constantly be training and learning. Tom Brady’s football career and Nolan Ryan’s success in baseball were not made possible if they were not continuing to train their bodies and mind for the game. They excelled longer than most do, well into their 40s, because they prepared better than anyone else.  I remember getting to a Giants versus Padres game early and caught the end of the Padre’s pregame warmups.  All of the younger players were in the dugout except Rickey Henderson. At the time, he was then in his early 40s and he was still stretching and warming his arm up. Great salespeople don’t forget to train. They attend seminars, they read sales books, and they consistently look for ways to be better and stay on top.

3.     Stay in Touch With Your Clients

Now is the best time to reach out to your past clients and continue to reach out to the clients you are hoping to work with. Pick up the phone and CALL them. Don’t email. Don’t text. That personal touch of just calling to say hi or offer them current market news by phone will make a lasting impression. Today, everyone is overloaded by emails and texts. Call your clients.

4.     Reach Out to Fellow Salespeople

Now is the time to reach out to other salespeople in your field or outside of your industry to find out how they are doing. You may pick up valuable insight on how you too may continue to build your business through this crisis.

5.     Spring Cleaning

Now is the time to spring clean your entire systems.  Get rid of old mail, old email folders, old Drobox documents that no longer serve any purpose, and clear out server files that are taking up space on your computer or hard drive. When you are back in action, you will be ready to go.

6.     Calendar your Day

We are all working from home.  Make it a full workday. Calendar the above events each day like you would an appointment with a client.  If you do, you will see that you can accomplish so much more.

That’s it. Do the above and you will have the proper foundation to come out of this crisis better and stronger overall.  You may only have half of the year to produce a full year’s worth of income. But if you’ve built a strong foundation, you can still end this year achieving the goals you had set in January.

Written by: Hans Hansson

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