What is the key to the sale? Is it the sale that you want or is there something more? What if getting the sale was only the first step and if your a salesperson who is only after the sale you may be missing the opportunity to reach the next level. The suggestion here is that getting the customer to buy your product is only the first step. You want that customer to be your “cause leader”. You want to go where that customer can lead, wether it be to their business or into their inner circle of friends. Each customer is a leader to a wealth of new customers with cycle never ending if you are willing to pursue it.

Stepping Up Sales Results

The close isn’t the end of the sales process. It’s only a beginning —
the beginning of a new phase of that process. I call it the Stepping Up
Phase. The more sales we achieve, the more sales we should achieve; for
in achieving more sales, we create more opportunities to achieve even
more. We stop getting “more” when we either stop believing that there
is more we can get or we don’t have the knowledge or tools to get them.


Good sales people can close, but few “step up” for even more
sales from that close. Yet stepping up should be one of the easiest
accomplishments in sales — that is if you know how to build the
staircase. Here are three tips for achieving consistent step-ups.

Start
Early: George Burns said, “I had to work hard for 20 years in
vaudeville before I became an overnight success in radio.” That’s a
lesson in stepping up. Step-ups don’t just happen “overnight.” We must
prepare for them. Prepare for them in the early stages of the sales
process when prospecting for new clients, identifying decision makers,
and making initial calls. Ask yourself: “What is the close in this
sale? And how can that close lead to a step-up in sales?” Looking at
your sales challenges from the viewpoints of step-ups gives you new
insights into those challenges and new ways to meet those challenges.

For
instance, I work with a materials supplier that wanted to acquire new
customers in the computer industry. The sales people aimed to replace
their competitors’ materials with their materials in computer housing
applications. They would have gotten closes with that focus — but not
step-ups. The differences between their competitors materials and their
materials were negligible in cost and performance. Step-ups would only
come when they introduced their materials into their customer’s design
stage of product development.

The sales people continued to
develop the traditional channels to their customers’ purchasing
departments. But they also began building step-ups early by including
design engineers in their first-stage sales activities. They focused on
being their customers’ “design partners” — not simply showing them
where they could save costs and achieve performance advantages but also
showing them how they could get market share through the innovative
uses of those materials. As design partners, they not only got closes
but step-ups by integrating their materials into new generations of
housings.

Link to Results: Step-ups happen only when you
answer the vital needs of your customers — not the nice-to-answer needs
but the truly vital needs. Discover those needs by asking and
answering: “What are your customers absolute must-have results? Those
“must-haves” are your great step-up opportunities.

For
instance, I consulted with an insurance company whose growth had
flattened out. We found out a key reason why. Their products were not
meeting the must-have results of their customers. Their customers
absolutely had to grow. Yet the company’s products did not materially
address those growth needs. Only when the sales people began to develop
and sell products that met those needs did the company begin to get
back on the growth track.

Get Cause Leaders: Salespeople often
fail to get step-ups because they have a short-sighted view of the
customer. They view the customer as only a customer! Whereas, if we
want to get step-ups, we must see the customer not just as a customer
but as a “cause leader,” one who can lead our cause both inside and
outside their company. Instead of aiming for just a close, aim, too, to
obtain that customer’s leadership.

For instance, the salespeople
of the materials company not only worked diligently on closing with the
engineer-customers but also on creating step-ups by persuading those
engineers to be the cause leaders for their materials within the
company.

Here is the way that they enlisted that leadership.
They discovered that the absolute must-haves of the engineers were
productivity and fast cycle-times. The engineers were under the gun,
pointed by upper management, to produce designs faster with fewer
resources.

In response, the sales people developed a materials
performance package for the engineers that increased their productivity
and cycle-times. In addition, they brought in productivity experts from
their own company to help the engineers streamline their design
processes. They’re not only selling their materials. They’re selling
productivity as well. Seeing that the sales people were helping them
meet their vital needs, the engineers became the sales people’s cause
leaders within their company — unleashing a torrent of step-ups.

Don’t
sell yourself short by focusing exclusively on the close. Liberate the
step-up opportunities that are embedded in most closes. By starting
early, linking to results, and getting cause leaders, you can multiply
sales far beyond what simple closes achieve.

Brent Filson’s
fourth book in his Action Leadership Series — Results!Results!Results!
Getting More Faster — will come out this fall. The founder of The
Filson Leadership Group, Inc., he helps sales people around the world
get sizable increases in results.

About the Author:

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2004 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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The
author of 23 books, Brent Filson’s recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP
TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT
LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The Filson Leadership
Group, Inc. – and has worked with thousands of leaders worldwide during
the past 20 years helping them achieve sizable increases in hard,
measured results. Sign up for his free leadership ezine and get a free
guide, “49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results,” at www.actionleadership.com

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