Salespeople – Vacations and the Lack of Urgency

Way back, perhaps as far back as the 1950’s, Albert Gray, a successful sales motivator said something that is still as true today as it was back then.  He said “Why are successful men able to do things they don’t like to do while failures are not? Because successful men have a purpose strong enough to make them form the habit of doing things they don’t like to do in order to accomplish the purpose they want to accomplish.”

Take the recent holiday for example.  The successful salespeople closed a ton of business right before Christmas.  The unsuccessful salespeople left a lot of business on the table in December, expecting to have giant Januaries, and today may be thinking February will be the month.  The successful salespeople chose to hunt their prospects down, and when cornered, get them closed.  The unsuccessful salespeople made their attempts and with the few they located, took the put-offs that would kill their chances of closing the business in December, January and perhaps, for ever.

Those prospects may have had compelling reasons to buy in December and while the reasons don’t go away after 10 days off, their memory fades.  You know the expression “time heals all wounds”?  Well the time away from dwelling on the problems desensitizes prospects to the problems they had intended to solve.  Successful salespeople won’t let that happen because they have closing urgency.  Unsuccessful salespeople are afraid that if they make repeated follow up attempts their prospects will feel pestered or bothered.

Make this the year that you focus on Closing Urgency with your salespeople.  The challenges that will prevent them from embracing this necessary skill are their Need for Approval and their Non-Supportive Buy Cycles.  Help them overcome those two major weaknesses (if they are present) and develop your salespeople so that they become overachievers.