When you search Google for the term “sales acceleration,” you will find a lot of material promoting software as a Sales Acceleration tool that offers sales growth, shortens the sales cycle, and delivers a more purposeful experience and sales growth.
Following is one statement I found from the top-ranked website when I searched Google for the term “Sales Acceleration” that may help clarify the product.
“Sales enablement is the key to sales acceleration. Instead of overall sales activities, it focuses on building relationships with buyers rather than viewing them transactionally. Taking customer behaviour and preferences into account, prospective buyers are automatically and continuously moved around within the database where they best fit to deliver the best experience. Additionally, sales and marketing produce more in less time by surfacing content that is up-to-date, customized, easily accessible, and actionable.”
Wow! I have been in sales for a long time, but it never really occurred to me that “building relationships with buyers rather than viewing them transactionally” was something I needed to consider.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe software should be used, and it has a significant role in shortening the sales cycle, improving sales growth, and helping salespeople win business, but here is the kicker.
You don’t put a $1000 tyre on a rim with an air leak. To get the most out of your $1000 tyre, you find and fix the air leak first.
Sustainable sales growth will never be achievable with software that measures and reports on outcomes. Observation identifies the WHY and the WHAT.
The WHAT is the thousand things in any sale cycle that could go wrong, and the reasons they go wrong centre around what the salesperson heard, said, didn’t say, should have said, showed, didn’t show, etc. These are what I call the WHY.
Sales Managers Coach to Improve the WHY!
Unless the Sales Manager spends time with their salespeople while they are in the company of a prospect/customer or communicate (orally or written), with them, they will never understand the WHY.
Being present during the sales process will allow you to identify WHY the sales were won, lost, or stalled, and neither will any software you use.
Spend time with your salespeople throughout every part of the sales cycle to identify their strengths and weaknesses (developmental opportunities).
Develop a plan to improve each person on your sales team’s micro-selling skills, and you will see Sales Acceleration in action and a sustainable improvement in sales growth.
With just a 10% improvement in Micro Selling Skills, you will see a 30% increase in sales growth. That is a three-to-one improvement!
I know I have done it and seen a 180% increase in sales as a result.
