by Elizabeth Frederick

I covered this topic briefly in a post back in November, but I think it’s worth a deeper look.

I’m writing this as I’m about to leave the office on a Friday evening, and I have three emails in my inbox.  All of them have been read, responded to if necessary, and are awaiting resolution next week.

I don’t have a magic wand (or an assistant!) that handles my communication, and I actually do receive quite a few emails every day, but years ago I learned a technique that I find absolutely essential:  as soon as something is processed, I prevent it from being a distraction.

I maintain a somewhat simple list of folders – one for each active client, for example – but you can make it as basic as having a folder labeled “Processed.”  As soon as you have read an email and responded to it appropriately, move it to the “Processed” folder (or appropriate folder from your list) and move on.  If it is something that requires a response from someone else, or further work on your part, leave it in your inbox!  You’ll avoid the stress of looking at a full inbox and wondering what important tasks have been lost in the clutter.

You can even take this a step further and put all of the tasks on your calendar, setting aside an appropriate amount of time for each.  There’s no better feeling, at least for me, than knowing you’re aware of what needs to be done and have planned when you will do it.

One other quick reminder of a tip we’ve all heard before – don’t try to read and respond to every email as it comes in.  It’s much more efficient to set aside time in your day to process your email, and handle it all at once.  If you must keep the little “new message” popup active, consider creating a list of the 3 – 5 people/topics that justify a “drop everything and read this email” reaction.  Once you’ve created the list, stick to it!

What techniques do you use to stay on top of your email?  I’d love to see your suggestions in the comments!

by Charles Bernard

Last month, I wrote about CEOs who function as the chief sales officer .  Since then I am proud to announce that we are producing an event on May 7th called I Don’t Want to Be a Salesperson; I Want to Be a CEO, which will feature some great panelists to share how they went through this process.

I thought it would be helpful to share with our readers the four key stages that we believe a CEO goes through on this journey.

Stage 1 – CEO is Sales
In this stage, the CEO is actively selling.  They are involved in everything from generating leads to creating proposals and closing business.  This typically occurs in the earliest stage of a business.

Stage 2 – CEO is Outside Sales
In this stage, the CEO closes most of the business.  They may have hired a salesperson, but the CEO is still heavily involved in closing the deals.  The salesperson mostly does lead generation and may sit in on meetings, but generally is unable to close a deal start to finish without the CEO.

Stage 3 – CEO is Sales Manager
In this stage, the CEO has a sales team and oversees them directly.  They are still brought into deals but far less often.  This is the most demanding stage for a CEO.  The longer the CEO remains as the de facto sales manager, the more his or her people become attached.  It then becomes harder to find an effective replacement that the existing salespeople will accept.  This could potentially detract the CEO from focusing on developing the business as a whole.

Stage 4 – CEO is CEO
In this stage, the CEO is no longer directly involved in day-to-day selling, often acting in more of a public relations capacity.  They have effectively delegated the selling responsibility and duties to the appropriate people in their company.

by David Matos

Your pipeline was bursting at the seams a month ago, but now it seems every sales meeting you run just isn’t quite going your way.  You keep trying different phrases, different presentations, and different closing techniques.  You could say that each new sales meeting is run completely differently from the last. So what is the golden rule for selling?  Look no further than the golden arches!  Yes, you heard me correctly.  Allow me to explain.

What made McDonald’s so successful was their ability to bottle a winning formula.  They knew exactly how to make a cheeseburger, take your order, and have your meal ready in minutes.  Why?  Because they have a system firmly in place.  Not only have they systematized the art of making a burger (fries too), but more importantly it’s scalable.  Last I checked they weren’t doing too badly in the sales department either.

What was the point of that story?  Simple – sales is a process that tends to repeat itself over and over.  One of the biggest problems salespeople make is “winging it.”  I believe you should always grow and try new techniques when you sell, while still using a core process that has a proven track record of success.  This is what separates top produces from those who have inconsistent results.  Top producers know what to say and what not to say.  They have a system that works and they use it.

Here are some questions you need to ask yourself before every meeting.

• How do you open a meeting?
• What initial questions do you ask?
• How do you structure your meeting?
• What does the next step look like?
• How do stay in control of the sales cycle meeting?

How do you systematize your selling?  What repeatable actions have you found to be effective?  We would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.

And don’t forget to register for our sales improvement forum this month entitled Control the Destiny of Your Sales Meetings to learn how develop your own system for selling.

by Elizabeth Frederick

We pick a monthly theme for our blog entries, and in March we’ll be focused on quick techniques you can implement to make selling easier.  I wanted to start by sharing a tip I saw online a while ago that uses email signatures to speed sales.

If you’ve been in the same job for a while, you’ve probably noticed that you send the same few emails over and over again.  If you’re in recruiting, you have the interview request, the response to an unsolicited résumé, and the rejection letter.  If you’re a salesperson, there’s the networking event follow-up, the cold introduction, and the meeting thank-you.

Many people have standard email templates, either in their personal documents or as a shared resource for the entire team.  It can be a hassle, though, finding the right file and copying the text into your message.  Here’s an easy way to bypass that process: take the 3 – 5 messages you send most often, develop a general template, and add the entire messages as email signatures.

Think about it – a signature doesn’t have to just consist of your name and contact information.  As we all know from our interactions with lawyers and accountants, signatures can include multiple paragraphs of text.

The specific process will vary depending on your email system, but in Outlook, all you have to do is open a new message and pick the appropriate custom signature.  Then just add “Dear X” at the beginning and click Send!