Is Sales Child's Play For You?

Good morning!

Did everyone survive St Paddy’s Day?

You’re going to notice a new feature in today’s email. For the next 50 days, I’ll be including a pithy quote about the value of learning and education in one’s personal development.

I’m calling it the Not So Subliminal Ad for the Sales House.

I’ll stop them once you’re all doing what you’re supposed to.

Not So Subliminal Ad for The Sales House.

“Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.” Isaac Asimov

Sales Thought of the Day

"With enough sales pipeline sales can be child’s play.”

I recently read this online in one of the usual places.

Immediately 3 questions jumped to mind:

• What’s “enough?"
• What do you consider “sales?"
• Are you freaking kidding me?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this writer is stating that selling is really very easy if you just have “enough” pipeline.

Hmmm. If that’s the case then I must seriously have screwed up throughout my entire sales career because selling was never that easy.

When I was fighting tooth and nail for multi-million dollar contracts against competitors 100 times the size of the start up I was selling for, was it hard only because I didn’t have enough…pipeline?

No. Of course not.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking that the size of your pipeline correlates to how easy it is to sell. Or how easy it will be to help a prospect move through their buying process to choose you.

Developing new prospects is hugely important. However, it's far from the hardest part of selling.

It’s what you do once you have that lead that makes all the difference for whether it turns into a qualified opportunity. And converts from a qualified opportunity into a paying customer. That’s the hard part.

However, I’m nothing if not curious. I like to learn.

Therefore, if sales truly is child’s play for you, please tell me how you do it.

I mean if sales really is so easy then you should easily be able to close at least 4 out of every 5 (80%) of the qualified opportunities in your pipeline. And, if that's the case, it seems like your pipeline coverage, by necessity, will be pretty thin. So, what's "enough" in your case?

Please let me know. I’d love to share how you do it with the rest of the Sales House community.

- Andy Paul