Inside Small Business | Small Business & Home Business Marketing
What Wall Street Can Teach Us About Sales
Monte Resnick, Founder Ambition Partners International
I’ve been fortunate to work with some of the wealthiest and most accomplished professionals in the Country. For years, as a private consultant in family wealth and succession planning I’ve provided my clients with ongoing perspectives and information. Ultimately, the decisions were always theirs to make. Living through several high and low periods in the capital markets, I’ve come to recognize several lessons which may be directly applied to the mind-set of growing your company’s sales.
1. Markets are not volatile – people are! The market is largely controlled by human emotion. How investors emotionally react to new information has a direct short-term impact on the direction of the markets. Your customers are no different. Successful sales organizations are prepared to provide perspective to their clients (and prospects) – especially when there are changes that may illicit negative emotions (ex: price increases), thus leading to a potential negative reaction (ex: suspending their business). It is critical to keep your customers focused on the long term “outcomes” they enjoy from using your product / service.
2. Market corrections allow you to “buy low”. One of the most famous adages of investment gurus is to, “buy low and sell high”. I always found it ironic that for a society that thrives when items go on “sale”, most investors run the other way when the stock market goes “on sale”. We line up for days outside retail electronic stores to buy the newest video game console (at full cost!), but when the stock market offers people a “discount”, most small investors run for cover. Selling resembles the stock market, in that success is not typically represented by a perfectly linear chart. There are periods of great success which may be followed by a dry spell. The mistake we make when a dry spell occurs is to dwell on the negative. All this does is prolong your company’s slump. Set backs make for wonderful periods of brutal re-evaluation. Remember that mission statement you worked so hard on? It’s a good time to brush it off and evaluate whether your activity is in alignment with it. It’s also a good time to evaluate what has been going right and build upon that. As simple as it sounds, most chose to focus on the fear of failure and doubt. Leave that to your competition!
3. Risk (of loss) is reduced by diversification. During the most recent stock market bubble, we all knew people who experienced the pain of having all their eggs in the same basket (Of course, you were too smart to take a home equity loan and invest it in dot com stocks – right?) Here’s a less known statistic: During the same period stocks lost as much as 70% of their value, the intermediate-term bond market grew by 36%. How narrow is your sales funnel? It’s easy to focus on the one or two prospects that will “make your year”. However this mind-set is just as risky as what most investors did in the late nineties by putting all their money into technology stocks. If you want to reduce the risk of missing your annual sales goals, you need to increase the amount of clients / prospects who can help you achieve your objectives. As fundamental as this may sound, this is among the chief challenges of sales organizations today!
4. Rebalance your team once each year for optimized performance. I once heard that sales of sunglasses are alive and well in Seattle! The reason being that since there are such prolonged periods of rainy weather, people often lose or misplace their previous pair and purchase a new one each year. In a similar way, I personally experienced the pain of buying a “cheap” umbrella on the streets of New York City during a downpour last summer. What should have normally cost $3.00 ended up costing me $15.00 in order to keep dry. In the investment world, we refer to the strategy of rebalancing to harness your gains and invest in the areas that have not done as well (This is another example of buying low and selling high). This is similar to having an umbrella ready, even on the sunniest of days. Apply this idea of “rebalancing” to your sales organization. Where are your greatest strengths? Where could you use some help? Consider hiring an outside coach or trainer to fill the void, or perhaps hire a new sales professional with the key strengths you are in need of. If your company is great at technical skills, but weaker in building new relationships, invest in the talent to build that critical part of your business. Too often companies make the mistake of trying to hire a “complete” employee. Think of your organization like a professional sports team. If you need a great place kicker, don’t worry if the same person couldn’t throw the ball more than three yards.
About Monte Resnick:
Monte Resnick is Founder and Chief Relationship Officer of Ambition Partners International, Inc. Ambition Partners is a highly specialized professional development and strategic consulting enterprise. The firm’s core focus involves transforming interpersonal relationships. Our greater mission is to teach clients the mindset, skill set and applications necessary to develop and expand their social capital. The net result is a measurable increase in revenues, relationships and productivity. Connecting with people is a timeless skill that has become even more critical to master in the age of information and technology.
Posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Marketing, Sales. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
