Challenges and support

We all face our own challenges as sales professionals and sometimes we might think we are the only ones who struggle.

And when we realize that others are going through the same we can get some motivation.

Feel free to share your challenges and questions in this discussion, so we can learn from each other.

What challenges do you face? What skills do you think you need to learn? What observations do you have so far about this topic based on your experience?

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For me at the moment it is lack of daily routine and discipline to execute

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I completely understand routines can be a tricky thing to get down, especially in the sales profession when you never know who your next client will be. However, there are some tricks that can help you stay organized and productive. Personally (and keep in mind I currently work in inside sales), I like to try and structure my day into 90 or 30 min blocks. When I get to work, I start with 90 mins of outreach, whether that is making calls or sending emails just to get in front of the decision makers early since that will probably be your best chance to catch them. Then, I like to do 90 mins checking my engagement i.e. checking my email and responding, checking social, and voicemail. After this, I’ll spend the 90 mins or so getting prepared for the afternoon before I go on my lunch break like strategizing my communications and decided whom I’ll be communicating with. Then after lunch, I’ll check my emails, voicemails, and social again and respond to those. After this, I’ll start prepping for tomorrows day and then at the end of the day, I’ll do one more 90 min round of outreach with the list of contacts I planned out before lunch. Following this routine helps keep me organized and on task. Hope this helps!

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For me the biggest issue I encountered was scheduling. I kept feeling like I couldn’t get my tasks in order between driving around and scheduling meetings. To me it looked like my coworkers had it all together. They had their meetings scheduled out would make their sales and quotas. It wasn’t until I caved and shared my struggles with a friend that she shared with me the only way she managed to get everything done was through the use of helpful tools such as routing apps such as badger maps.

I often struggle with my style of pitching, and how I fit in with my manager’s style of pitching. He would like me to use a very scripted approach, but I feel a lot more comfortable, and build better relationships with each client if I just be myself and talk regularly. I have been trying my best to implement his approach because I understand the value of coaching, but I don’t think it’s going to pay off. Based on my professional experience, I’ve always had more success without a script. Anybody ever has this dilemma too? How did you approach it?

What you have to do is " learn a scripted presentation by heart" from front to back.
This is not easy but it changed my life 35 years ago, you become more confident, competent and you enjoy your new skill that much that your results dramatically improve after 3 to 4 weeks.
You have to come to the stage of " Conscious Competence"
Try it you will not regret it.
On another note , when you have this skill you can teach others how to do it, your company would be very happy.
Good Luck

Hi @Tony_Smile, great question! We’re often so involved with our own problems that we don’t reach out to others. Because I am new to outside sales, I am struggling with many different aspects of the job. The one problem that I keep coming back to is not knowing how to follow up with my prospects. I either wait too long to follow up, my emails go unanswered, or my prospect has changed their mind completely. It’s very frustrating because I’m so close to closing a deal, but things go dark at the last second. Does anyone have advice for me?

I am not sure if what I am about to write is exactly what you are looking for but when I read the post it reminded me of some challenges that I had faced one day while I was knocking doors.
At the time I was a General Manager I was running a team of about 15 door knockers. On this day I also had 4 new recruits that were also getting trained. I sent 3 of the trainees with my top 3 seasoned reps and I took one to train myself.
I always try to give the impression that if you do the right activities you will eventually get the results. That philosophy comes from the quote of “If you continue to do the right things it is impossible to get the wrong results.”
So when I train someone I show that we are going to work hard but you will reap the benefits from that hard work by making sales.
So this day I was knocking and knocking with the trainee and had not produced one sale. I literally knocked for 6 hours straight until the last half hour I finally got in front of a buyer.
I had to turn this exhausting day into something positive so I sat down with the trainee and had him analyze the day. I asked him to go over any missed opportunities that he thinks we could have got. I had him think about the things we could have done better and tell me what should we have done. I also asked him to explain to me the things we did do well. Going over these thing with the trainee ended up helping both of us get better.

There can be so many variables in your situation but I will do my best to figure our something to help you out.
1st thing when you are following up with prospects, have you pre-qualified them or was it something like them telling you “We are busy right now, can you come back later?”
If they are telling you something similar to that then they are not really true prospects they were just trying to get ride of you.
if you have a legit prospect that wants you to come back and follow up I would ask them for as much info as possible. I would ask them to provide me with their contact number,and home number if they have one but try to at least get 2 contact numbers. I would just say I will call you in case I am running late. If they are not willing to provide this info then most likely they are just trying to get rid of you. If you are in face to face sales I would make sure and get face to face with the customers and not rely on emails for communication.
Lastly people make buying decisions based on emotions. During your presentation you should be enthusiastic. You should be paying attention to what the customer is interested in. Stick to talking about their interest. The more they like what you are talking about you should peak their interest. Once you peak then you close. If you miss that opportunity then you can lose that sale. Once you peak their interest and you miss the opportunity the only way to go from the peak is down. Which means you are losing their interest which sound like where you are trying to close. Once you missed that opportunity to close and they tell you to come back then once you come back you have to reignite that interest again from the start.
It is hard to tell what is exactly your issue but from my experience I think this is what you need help with and I hope I have helped you out.