Be Part of the 10%

Funny term, ‘Sales Velocity’. What does it mean, and why is so important to you as a person in business development?

Sales Velocity is the speed at which your deals close. Faster is better [I know, you figured that out already]. The more deals you can close in a week, month, quarter, or year, the more money you make. Increasing your Sales Velocity is crazy simple.

Let’s begin by understanding why Sales Velocity can slow in the first place.

You meet with a buyer. The meeting is awesome! You are engaged, tackle the issues, and generally have a grand old time. As you are driving away basking in the afterglow you realize “Oops, I forgot to ask about [insert the important thing you forgot to ask about here]. I’ll just call them back to get that answer.” You call or email. It takes several days for a reply to arrive. From the response you realize you need more detail. You email them back. They email you back, etc, etc. You get the picture. Your Sales Velocity now has no velocity.

The primary reasons behind a slow Sales Velocity is in fact a list of one. It is…

1. Not doing it right the first time*

*The ‘it’ I refer to is conducting highly productive customer facing sales interactions

Ninety percent of sales people do not do a written plan for the sales calls they conduct [I know this because I always ask salespeople if they do]. Thus they plan to forget to ask that important something that can unlock their sale and get it moving forward. They plan to neglect to cover off a small but vital point that will set the stage for the ‘Yes’ they are looking for.

Here is the most effective thing I have seen the other ten percent of salespeople do to improve their Sales Velocity…

1. They take 3 – 5 minutes to do a written pre-call plan for every sales interaction they conduct. They plan three things…

a. The sales call outcomes they desire. That is, the measureable things they want to accomplish in that call that will meaningfully move their sale forward
b. The questions they will ask of their buyer toward reaching those outcomes
c. The things they will relay to the buyer towards reaching those outcomes

2. After each call – while the car is still stationary – they compare the actual meeting outcomes against their list of desired outcomes and strategize their next steps

This ten percent of sales people generally have a higher Sales Velocity than their peers. They close more deals. They make more money. Crazy simple.

Be part of that ten percent.