OOH Sales Blog

The Ultimate Success Principle

Which of the following would you say has the greatest impact on your sales team’s ultimate OOH selling success?
• The goals and action plans they develop and implement
• Their attitude and outlook about what is possible and what they can accomplish
• The strategies and techniques that they employ
‍
Before you read further, think about it and choose one.

‍
Which of the 3 did you choose? Most people think of OOH selling success in terms of accomplishments, such as landing a major multi board annual client, winning top sales awards, or maybe it’s even getting promoted. All of these achievements are signs of success, and all are the result of the convergence of the three core elements you just considered.
• Behavior – goals and action plans
• Attitude – outlook, beliefs and expectations
• Technique – strategies and tactics
‍
Was it a trick question? Well, I guess in a way it was. But one that was weighted in your favor because you were guaranteed to get the right answer. Each of these three elements is connected to the other two: therefore, all three together define truly successful OOH salespeople. Technique alone won’t accomplish much if it’s not channeled into an appropriate framework of behavior, a plan of action (what we call a cookbook or recipe for success). Even the best plans are doomed for failure if you don’t have the confidence to implement the plan and the expectation of a positive outcome.
‍
All three must converge if success is to become a reality. You really need all three, you need all three to work together, so whichever element you chose as the one that has the greatest impact of OOH selling success, you were correct…or at least partially so!
‍
Reaching those highest levels of success in OOH selling is largely the function of these three elements working in concert. Learning a new prospecting approach (technique), for instance, won’t ensure them of more business unless they have a plan for implementing that approach (behavior) and the belief (attitude) that it will work for them.
‍
If Attitude + Behavior + Technique equals success, then what is the long term result when any one of the three elements is missing?
Attitude + Behavior – Technique = Working Hard: can be discouraging and demotivating
Attitude + Technique – Behavior = Working frantically, without goals: leads to burnout
Behavior + Technique – Attitude = Going thru the motions: leaves one stuck in mediocrity
‍
It is no exaggeration to describe the three elements as the foundation of all enduring personal and professional success. If you truly want your team to enjoy the success, they are capable of, I would challenge you to begin working TODAY on all three continuously with your people for the rest of your careers.
Need help with sales skills or coaching to take your out of home company to the next level. Learn more about OOH Sales Mastery at oohmastery.com or Contact Dan Nausley at dan.nausley@sandler.com, 423.702.5579.
____
_{Lisa & Dan Nausley and Reggie Piercy of Sandler Chattanooga have developed the OOH Sales Mastery Program after more than a decade of training/coaching thousands of OOH Operators across the country in sales, leadership, and executive coaching.}

‍

Read more Outdoor Sales Mastery Blogs

OOH Leadership

Five Best Practices for Leading High-Performance Salespeople

One of the mistakes that we see often with leaders of OOH sales teams is that they spend an inordinate amount of their time working with the team members that are not performing at an acceptable level. Sometimes spending as much as 75% of their time on the weakest performing salespeople. Trying desperately to raise the bar on their performance, often they will by in large neglect interactions with the high performers on the team.‍It may sound counterintuitive to not focus all your efforts trying to improve the reps who have the most opportunity for improvement. However, think of it this way. If you have to lose a salesperson, who would you rather see go? The high performer or the one that never seems to come close to reaching the minimum level of production you expect. The most valuable investment you can make in your salespeople is your time, your attention, your guidance and your coaching. ‍While we are not suggesting that you shouldn’t work with and spend time with the under performing reps, we must avoid at all costs the perception that the only way to get your attention is to under perform.

OOH Sales

Qualify Hard, Close Easy

In OOH Sales Mastery, we teach and relentlessly reinforce a simple principle, an impossible-to-forget idea that carries massive implications for optimal revenue production: qualify hard, close easy. One of the big problems we see, though, is that people sometimes imagine they’re qualifying hard, but aren’t. Why not? Because they aren’t completing a non-negotiable element of qualification: qualifying the potential buyer’s Pain, (or in layman’s terms…their problems, issues or concerns). If we haven’t done that, we have no place making any formal recommendation or presentation to the buyer. And, as a result, we can’t expect to close easily. When we qualify effectively their Pain, what are we doing? We’re clarifying, in emotional, practical terms that resonate for the buyer, exactly what all the potential costs are for not taking action on a problem that’s keeping them from getting where they need to go next in their world. One of our most famous tools for clarifying the emotional impact of those costs is known as the Pain Funnel. It’s a powerful series of questions that is designed to allow the prospect to self-discover not just what is happening but why it is happening and most importantly, how does that issue affect the bottom line.