sales tips – Jeev Trika

Why I Believe Selling Should Come First and How I Do It

As salespeople, most of our time is dedicated to talking to clients and closing deals. But aside from that, we have internal stakeholders to manage, administrative tasks to do, emails and messages to respond to, travel time to consider in-between pitches, among many other functions that are part of our role.

We have many responsibilities in our hands, but among all that, our role is still primarily about selling. And to become productive and efficient with how we use our time, tasks that are associated with that should always come first— talking to clients, preparing for pitches, measuring progress against goals, and so on. In addition, we should also plot for the continuous development of our knowledge, skill, and discipline.

The key to becoming a high-performing salesperson is to plan the work so we can work the plan. And that’s exactly how I practice my craft to keep myself in the direction I want to go without overworking myself. I want to share the weekly habit that helps me manage my time better as a salesperson.

Each Sunday, I set aside 15 minutes to establish my priorities and plan how my upcoming week will go. What I do is:

Plot my working time for the week; usually, 7:00 am to 7:00 pm.
Schedule my priorities within the timeframe allotted. This includes meetings that I need to attend or activities that I can’t postpone.
Block times for selling tasks, such as prospecting or attending client pitches throughout the week.
Identify three things that I have to get done each day, usually something fast that I can already get out of the way instead of postponing.
Identify a specific knowledge, skill, and discipline I will develop for the week. I think about things I can do to progress on each pillar, such as reading or keeping myself in check to apply certain strategies during my pitches.
Assess what tasks I have to say “no” to. Prioritize what I can and figure out tasks that don’t really need my attention to proceed.

I use this time to design my ideal week, and at the end, I track how I performed against the standard I set. This allows me to stay on target, become more productive, and make measurable progress week by week.

Here’s how I prioritize:

Selling

All tasks directly related to selling are prioritized and are added first in my week’s schedule. I set aside time blocks for activities that involve pitching to clients and getting more prospects—calling potential customers, sending cold emails, networking online and offline, attending client calls and meetings, responding to client questions, preparing for presentations, and so on.

Self-development

Self-development includes activities related to improving myself. Preparing for skills, I’ll use to sell, practicing my selling and presentation, getting feedback from the team to address any gaps and improve the chances of closing the deal. These are extremely important items that may often be disregarded. But keep in mind, if you aren’t practicing with each other, you’re practicing with your customers. And we shouldn’t do that.

This is also when I can improve my knowledge, skill, and discipline. Activities such as reading a new book on networking, getting myself to ask more impactful questions for the week, or telling myself to start every meeting with a purpose-benefit-check strategy belong as a second priority. As I highlighted in previous posts, our knowledge, skill, and discipline should be continuously evolving and need to be nurtured throughout my career. It should make time for it, and not if only I have the spare time.

Communication

The third priority is all about communication. Following up with client requests, writing proposals to send during my Selling schedule, or capturing stories I need for my presentation. This is also my time to get in touch with customers and go above and beyond by asking for their feedback and how else I can help them.

I also can’t avoid important internal emails, so I insert them in this schedule to set aside the time to respond to any pressing issues I need to address or take action.

Internal

I allocate my fourth priority for any important internal activities that I need to attend. This includes meetings, one-on-one discussions with my team, town halls, quarterly evaluations, updates to stakeholders, and other internal activities and updates.

Tracking

My fifth priority is all about tracking, such as updating the CRM, assessing my progress, measuring my progress against goals, planning my next steps, identifying baselines, and coming up with benchmarks. Everything that has to do with measurement and tracking progress is my fifth priority.

Everything else

All other tasks that don’t fit to the five priorities above are of last importance. These are items that are less important or likely not to have a significant impact if canceled or postponed for a couple of days—for example, administrative tasks such as organizing my files or updating my personal documents and reports.

We attend a lot of meetings and calls and respond to many client communications throughout our day that we tend to overschedule. That can hamper your productivity and affect your relationships with both internal and external stakeholders. It’s also important to allot ten to fifteen minutes of time in-between meetings to digest meeting discussions and action points and help you prepare for your next meeting.

Developing the habit of being clear about capabilities you are working on, tracking them, and scheduling time to work on them is very important as a salesperson. The three pillars of selling— knowledge, skill, and discipline— will only matter if you continue improving them and learning new things. Once you are able to put them in your schedule as part of the plan instead of “when you have time,” the easier it is to become a habit and help you become a high-performing salesperson.

About Jeev

A serial entrepreneur with a rich history of launching disruptive online businesses and taking them to the top, Jeev owns dozens of “go-to” reviews and rankings websites. Jeev has invested more than 20 years researching human behavior and how to leverage different sales methodologies to effectively influence decision-makers.To find out how Jeev can help you, visit jeevtrika.com.

How I Filter My Target Market to Sell Better

I have built many different disruptive online businesses over the course of several years. I put in long hours of research, market study, strategy, and finetuning for each company I built.

One thing I realized in doing so is how important filtering my target market is to sell better. Because at the end of the day, regardless of how much time you allotted in development or how much of a killer your product or service is, it isn’t worth anything if no one pays for it.

Introducing my offering to people is a lot more than the number of reach and impression I get. It will only matter if I’m reaching the right people.

Pains and gains are a big factor in doing this. The Vitamins and Painkillers Sales Tool is a great start to becoming a high-performing salesperson. Narrowing my target market makes it easier for me to tighten my messaging. Suppose I try to communicate with multiple audiences, in that case, it will dilute the message because the language I use and the angle I take may not apply to all. For example, how you talk to the Products lead will be very different from talking to the Chief Operating Officer. Their problems and priorities are different from one another.

Refining your filters by challenging

It’s easy to say that my target markets are Fortune 500 companies or CXOs. But there’s a lot more to know what kind of profile I want to sell to. You want to refine your filters by challenging your filters until you can’t challenge them anymore.

Pick apart your logic or bounce it off someone you trust to help you dissect your target audience further. Instead of letting yourself think that your target market are just technology companies, you narrow it down further so you know exactly how you should communicate with your intended prospect.

You can’t be lazy when filtering your target market. And many salespeople and entrepreneurs get this wrong and get them into trouble.

Don’t let others simply tell you that you did right, instead make it your purpose to do it the right way the first time before you run into missed opportunities and failed pitches because you didn’t.

Filtering my target lets me think about the tiniest details that can get me closer to my goals. Some questions I typically ask myself include:

What pain am I helping them solve?
Who am I going to talk to within the target company?
How long will it take to engage them?
How easy will it be to find prospects that fit who I am looking for?
Who are my competitors?
How do I position my services against these competitors?

Taking the time to filter my targets gives me two immediate benefits: one because it forces me to think through who my actual targets are— people who are living the problem, not just near the problem. It prevents me from wandering off pitching to the wrong people who won’t be affecting the decision-making process. It helps me think concretely about the ultimate pains and gains they can get and makes the whole process faster. Second, it allows me to test my messaging to the same people. When you think of the specific pains you want to eliminate for them or the gains you want to help with for a group of people, it allows you to tighten your messaging. Instead of testing different messaging to different people with different needs and not making sense to any of them, this is the chance to make the messaging more concrete, telling them exactly what they need to hear.

“All things to all people” is one of the biggest mistakes made by salespeople and businessmen. Instead of sending generic details about my services and hope it’s what someone needs, I gain the ability to let them see the value I can do for them better.

Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, says, “Cast a narrow net and really concentrate on serving those customers… Once you’ve monopolized your own, small market, you can gradually expand into related and slightly broader markets”. And that’s exactly what filtering your target is about.

Selling to customer type

Another common sales territory is through customer type. Say you are selling software that uses artificial intelligence to determine when machines can break down. The pain eliminated by your service is removing the guesswork of finding out when. For gains, you make the processes more efficient and help companies ensure uptime.

Here’s how you may be able to filter it:

Filter based on the type of business you want to first sell to.
The industry you may want to tap first is likely companies that rely on machines for their sales. Such as manufacturing companies who will incur losses when production halts.
Filter based on manufacturers running on high volumes.
Companies that produce high volumes require high uptime reliability.
Filter based on high uptime need and high volume.
This can be Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) such as food and beverage companies.
Filter based on the team responsible for those requirements.
In this scenario, this will be the operations or the production department.
Filter based on the people responsible within those teams.
Within the operations or productions department, there will be the reliability or quality assurance responsible in making sure the manufacturing process is uninterrupted.
Filter based on specific people who feel the pain of downtime caused by unanticipated failures.
These can be the people who are responsible in checking those machines regularly.

Filtering targets when selling to established companies

When filtering based on specific companies, you usually stretch your reach too wide. Suppose I were to market to established companies. In that case, I want to focus on the very people who can influence a decision. For example, if I were to sell a payroll service software and want to target a big manufacturing company, here’s how my filtering can look like:

Filter specific to the team involved.
This can be the human resource division of the company.
Filter to the specific team.
With thousands of employees, the company likely has a specific the department in charge of payroll.
Filter to the specific unit.
Who are the people involved in payroll services who may need this software?
Filter to the specific group.
There may be a task force responsible for handling payroll for the different levels of the company.
Filter to the specific person.
Who am I going to call and sell to? The payroll director or manager.

Filtering targets when selling yourself

Selling yourself is another common thing we all need to do in sales. But when you’re looking for a place to get hired, you filter out opportunities just as much as when you are selling products or services to others.

You know the role you want to go for, maybe a marketing manager or a sales lead. You know why you’re a great fit in the role because you’re a great communicator or a great manager. Your experience and interest are in the technology industry. You want to stay within the general location of New York because you don’t want to transfer to another region. And you want to be in the big league by targeting to join Facebook or Google.

Filtering your targets when selling yourself can go more than that, and here are examples:

Filter companies with a specific pain or gain that you can help on.
Are you the type who gets constant feedback about your communication skills and bridging teams to create harmony? Then it makes sense to look for companies who have this challenge that hinder them from expanding their portfolio.
Filter based on which department you want to join.
If you want to be the marketing manager then it likely belongs to the operations or sale and marketing team. By this point, you still don’t know who to talk to, and that’s what you need.
Filter based on the specific unit under that department.
That may be under the sales team or the marketing operations team.
Filter based on the exact role.
This may include the sales director or the marketing lead who currently feels the pain of miscommunications and the HR manager who wants to gain credibility by hiring a great marketing manager. From this, you can engage with them in the proper messaging, pain or gain to build your case for hiring.

Takeaways

Filtering your targets lets you become more specific in how you engage with your prospects. The more specific you are, the tighter and more concrete your messaging is, because you can show the exact value you can give to them by helping them eliminate pains or reach gains.

If you fail, then it may be a message problem, in which case you can tweak it to be more concrete. Or it can also be a product-market fit problem, where the industry may just not be ready for you yet. That’s when you can pivot to a different set of targets to filter, craft your message, and try again because another industry may benefit from it.

Not sure how to move forward? Let’s talk about how you can do the same for your business.

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