Page 9 - Increase Your 2020 Sales

5. Sales Success Formula

As a young student and to further my goal of playing college football, I had to have a Success
Formula that included a strength and conditioning routine. I had to eat the right foods (My dad
always threatened to tell Coach Cacia if I didn’t eat my salad). I had to be coachable. I had to
take care of the bumps and bruises that came with playing football.

When I got into the "real" sales world of life insurance, I was introduced to the One Card System
created by Al Granum. At National Life of Vermont, we were given a box with index cards and
a Success Manual. On these cards, we identified the various stages of a sales process through
which the prospect progressed. We recorded our activity in the Success Manual. Today that
Success Formula and sales process should exist in your CRM.

A Success Formula is effective, but only if...

You have a sales team who is committed and motivated and who takes responsibility for
their decisions, actions and outcomes.

Every salesperson knows the behaviors that will make him successful. Salespeople know they
must reach out to prospects, schedule appointments, disqualify tire-kickers and companies that
don’t fit their ideal prospect profile. They know they must close sales, service accounts promptly
and more. There isn’t anything mystical about what it takes to succeed. The challenge is for the
salesperson to be sufficiently committed and disciplined to do the activities identified by their
personal Success Formula.

When salespeople fail, it isn’t usually because they lack the skills or product/industry knowledge
needed to succeed. Most salespeople fail because they won’t do the activities required to be
successful.

We have tools, including a pre-hire assessment and sales force evaluations, that identify whether
a salesperson will or won’t sell and why. To gain a better understanding of someone’s potential
to be successful in sales, it is important to have a deep understanding of the following:

• Will to Sell
• Sales DNA
• Sales Competencies
• Sales Skills

Not having this information about your sales team is like coaching a football team without
knowing the desires, skills and tendencies of the players that you rely upon to make the right
plays and to win the game.

To assess your current or incoming talent and their ability and willingness to do the right
activities and make the right decisions, you can request report samples of findings identified in
Objective Management Group’s – Sales Effectiveness and Improvement Analysis.

©ACTGLLC 2020 Page 8