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Because I run a revenue growth consulting practice where my clients add 10% to 20% to their growth year after year, people always ask me all the time, what’s the secret to sales?
Because I do keynote speeches and workshops every week, sometimes multiple times per week, people always ask me, what’s the magic bullet for revenue growth?
And I tell them. And I’ll tell you right now. Because I know what the secret is. I’ve studied it. I’ve looked for it. No, I’ve hunted for it. I’ve written about it. I speak about it. I teach it. I will tell you what the secret is. The secret is…
… that there is no secret. There is no magic bullet. There is only the grind. There is only the work.
If your livelihood depends on your selling—and, preferably, selling more—then you already know what to do. You know you must tell your existing customers what else they can buy from you because too many of them don’t know. That’s why they frequently say, “I didn’t know you did that!”
You know you should spend more time talking to prospects, people who have not yet bought from you. You know they’d be better off with you than the competition, but you’re not really putting in the time to talk to them.
You know you should spend more time on the telephone talking to customers and prospects. Did you know salespeople average just four hours per week on the telephone? Four hours! That’s it!
You know you should ask your customers for the business more. You know you should pivot to the sale. They’re talking to you, they’re interested, ask them to buy!
You know you should ask your happy customers for referrals, and they’d be happy to give them to you. Because people love giving referrals.
But we don’t do these things. Because we spend our days reacting from one incoming call to another. And when we live like this, we are not in control. Our sales growth is not up to us. If the right calls come in, you might grow. But if the wrong calls come in, you won’t grow. And it is completely and totally outside of your control.
Want to grow sales? We must do the proactive work that growth requires.
And what is this work? Communicating with customers and prospects! That’s it. The more that we communicate with them, the more they buy. The less we communicate, the less they buy. It never works the opposite way. You can never communicate less but sell more.
The work is to proactively communicate with customers and prospects, systematically and repeatedly, multiple times a day. When a customer calls, ask them the did you know question. “Did you know we can help you with x, y, or z?” Ask for a referral. “Who do you know like yourself who would find value in working with me like you do?” Pick up the phone and call a customer you haven’t talked to in six months or more. “I was just thinking about you; how’s your family?” Ask for the business, on every call. “How many would you like?” Or “I can get them to you Tuesday if you place the order today.”
There’s your secret. The grind is the secret. The work is the secret. We have to do the work. We have to care enough to do the work. You’d be amazed at how many people don’t care enough.
It’s not hard to stand out from the competition. The competition is not very good. We must be present for our customers and prospects. We must care, and demonstrate to them that we care. We must communicate with them, so that they know we are there for them.
We have to do the work. The secret is the grind.
