{"id":33,"date":"2012-09-20T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-20T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/20\/thoughtful-thursdays-it-doesnt-have-to-be-an-uphill-battle\/"},"modified":"2019-04-03T07:54:08","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T11:54:08","slug":"thoughtful-thursdays-it-doesnt-have-to-be-an-uphill-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/20\/thoughtful-thursdays-it-doesnt-have-to-be-an-uphill-battle\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughtful Thursdays &#8211; It doesn&#8217;t have to be an uphill battle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>No doubt you have experienced it.&nbsp;Sales calls are going well, yet you never seem to&nbsp;get any closer to&nbsp;making the sale. You feel like throwing in the towel, but your instincts&nbsp;say to hang in. It feels like being&nbsp;on the accompanying image walking counter clockwise<\/p>\n<p>When this happens it is a good idea to step back and review your activites. It is easy to fall into routines that lengthen your sales cycle and a periodic review of your sales process can be beneficial.<\/p>\n<p>Start&nbsp;by asking yourself a few questions. Your answers will likely&nbsp;uncover areas that require attention.&nbsp;Your resulting action plan will get you back on track. So what questions&nbsp;can one ask oneself? In no particular order, here&nbsp;is a sampling&nbsp;to get started:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Have I&nbsp;determined the sales potential?<\/li>\n<li>Do I know&nbsp;the prospects needs?<\/li>\n<li>Have I established a time line with the prospect?<\/li>\n<li>Do I know what my next step is?<\/li>\n<li>Do I know what my prospect&#8217;s next step is?<\/li>\n<li>Am I talking to the right people?<\/li>\n<li>Have I confimed all of the above with the prospect?<\/li>\n<li>Do I know when the next meeting is going to take place?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you answer yes to all of the above, it may be a case of a longer than expected sales cycle. If there are any no&#8217;s then you have some work to do.<\/p>\n<p>In my experience, sales cycles extended for many reasons that were not in my control.<\/p>\n<p>Focusing on what is in your control&nbsp;is key to keeping sales cycle time&nbsp;to a minimum&nbsp;. Confirm each step with your prospect. Using email to confirm meeting findings and actions is a&nbsp;useful way to stay on track and be sure your expectations line up with those of your prospect. Challenge yourself to execute a day earlier whenever possible.<\/p>\n<p>Good selling,<br \/>\nRichard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No doubt you have experienced it.&nbsp;Sales calls are going well, yet you never seem to&nbsp;get any closer to&nbsp;making the sale. You feel like throwing in the towel, but your instincts&nbsp;say to hang in. It feels&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/20\/thoughtful-thursdays-it-doesnt-have-to-be-an-uphill-battle\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,5,8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sales","category-sales-tips","category-selling-skills","category-thoughtful-thursdays"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3463,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions\/3463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}