Understand how to leverage your sales efforts!

The way you leverage your sales efforts is by developing a resource of other people who can help you identify and qualify prospects for you. The first source of this help should be from your existing customers that you deal with. Ask them if they have any friends or acquaintances in their business who might also be interested in your products or services. If possible, ask them to call and recommend you to their friends so that when you follow up, you have a built in reference and credibility with that prospect.

What other ways can you think of to get others to help leverage your efforts? Think about who else sells to your same customers. If you sell copiers, what about establishing contacts with others who sell office equipment or office products? Why not seek out reps who sell PBX's, office equipment, long distance services and other products that your customers might also use. Start up a leads groups with three or four other reps from different companies. Meet once a week for breakfast to share what's going on in your marketplace as well as what new companies are moving into the area.

If you work in real estate, why not meet with reps who sell furniture, appliances, moving services and so on. All of these people sell and share the same client base. Why not use these reps to create a "virtual team" of people who can help you identify more leads. In my book, Accelerate Your Sales I discuss other ways to network with those in your territory.

If you watch the program, "the Apprentice", you will notice that the team that is the most successful is the team that leverages its efforts by finding others to help them sell more or reach more people in a short amount of time. Think about how you can leverage your time and energy so that you are spending most of your time with pre-qualified prospects and then using the Planned Sales Process, quickly identifying if the prospect is really qualified or not.

I hope these tips have been useful. If you have some other good tips, please send me an email so we can share them with everyone.

Good Selling,

Gus