At least twice a week, I get a call from someone trying to sell me on their sales training program. Most recently, the gentlemen who called me suggested that he could help me increase revenue by 25-50% if I sent all my sales people to his seminar. Sounds good to me I thought...maybe too good. When I asked how he could get these results from people after a two day seminar, he told me it was simple - he'll teach them state of the art negotiation techniques. I politely told him to call me in 6 months when he could show me a few case studies.  

He pressed a little further and I explained that I am growing tired of people over complicating the sales process. You see, I firmly believe that 90% of the time success in sales is predicated by how well a sales person does with the basics.  For example:  Are they making enough cold calls? Are they logging activity in the CRM? Are they asking the right questions at the beginning of the sales process? Negotiation is a key part of the process; however, unless you get enough qualified prospects to that stage, you have nothing to negotiate.

A wise man once suggested to me that it is far more important to get to ‘no' than it is to get to ‘yes'.  Think about it, it really is easy for a prospect to say yes:  "Yes you can call me in a month." "Yes you can send me a proposal."  "Yes you can fly out to my office and take me to dinner."   The sales rep will certainly hear ‘no,' at the time they can least afford it:  "No I am not signing the contract."

So why does the prospect balk at the 11^th hour? Normally, it is pretty simple to figure out - the sales rep did not do enough due diligence (questioning) at the beginning of the process to really understand the prospects needs.

So what are the basics:

• make enough cold calls
• from a quality lead list
• and bring value to your clients or prospects with each communication (written or verbal)
• by asking the right questions (you know - the ones that can sometimes be uncomfortable to ask)
• and record this information in your CRM (even the sharpest people can't possibly remember everything)

If you focus on the basics, your: 1) pipeline will indeed flourish; 2) you will bring more deals to the negotiation phase;  and 3) you will make more money.

Selling really is a simple discipline - don't overcomplicate it.