The most important success word in your sales force’s vocabulary

Today we are going to talk about a quality – a simple word. While this quality is important for all of your employees to have, there is one position in your organization where it’s key — and that’s sales. I’m talking about Persistence. Sounds like a goodie-goodie type platitude, doesn’t it? But believe me, persistence really does pay off in sales, big time. And it is necessary. Without it, sales results will be mediocre at best. And so, in your interviewing for new salespeople in your organization, you’ve got to test the candidate for that important quality.

Over the years, sales theories and strategies have come and gone, but most have featured persistence as key. Now, I’m told, some of the popular sales methodologies taught do not incorporate persistence into their curriculum. And while I am a fan of more sophisticated and consultative sales methodologies, I think that persistence in sales is still what separates the successful salespeople from the mediocre ones.

So if you’re in agreement, just how can you find out whether your staff salesman, or that salesperson you’re about to hire has that valuable ingredient? Here are four suggestions:

• Ratio of cold calls to appointments—Your salesman or candidate must be firmly dedicated to making a definite number of cold calls per day. In the interview, get a clear picture of this phone activity. It is important to determine how many cold calls your salesman or prospective salesperson makes in order to get an appointment with the hiring authority. Find out how many times he calls a prospect before he moves on. If he makes only two or three calls per prospect, you could be hiring someone who’s going to blow through lots of valuable leads to get his sales results.
• Length of the sales cycle— Ask your candidate to give you an example of the shortest time and the longest time, it’s taken him to make a sale. Get an idea of the activity in between first call and wrapping up the deal. If it’s a large deal and a long sales cycle, watch for indications of how persistent your candidate was in the situation.
• Read More Here:
• http://www.exhibitcitynews.com/important-success-word-sales-forces-vocabulary/