You’ve survived 2020. It’s time to be proactive about selling in 2021. That’s the advice of sales expert Jim Pancero, who recently joined UMA Town Hall for a segment on “Building your Business for 2021.” He began the segment by asking what operators spent their time doing in 2020.
“For most companies, their business plan was to cut costs, just trying to survive. That’s what we all did,” he said.
But now is the time for action, according to Pancero, who urged operators to launch a strong selling game right now. “Is this finally the time that you’re going to be proactive . . . to sell your way out of this?”
He discussed the critical difference between being reactive and proactive. “Are you a sailboat or a motorboat in your sales process? Do you just wait for wind movement or do you function under your own control?” he asked. “Prior to the virus, I believe most of your industry, like most of mine, was a very reactive selling structure.”
To be proactive requires someone to drive your selling process, Pancero said, and doing more than “waiting for the fax machine to fire off or someone to call you.”
He encouraged operators to work on the process, not just on events on the bus. Pancero offered some questions to ask as operators begin to take action to increase bookings:
- How easy is it to find us?
- How fast do we respond?
- How do we explain our uniqueness?
- How do we handle customer questions?
- How do we present our solutions?
- How do we ask for the order?
- How do we deliver exceptional services?
- “We need to be thinking more moves ahead than our customers or our competitors. If you wait, it’s too late.”
Jim invites UMA Members to access his sales training videos, developed specifically for this time at his website, https://pancero.com/virus.
