When was the last time you took a real hard look at your new account acquisition activities?

If you’re like most sales reps, you might be doing the same things, over and over again out of habit.

Here are 5 very simple things for you to do that can help increase your success.

Take a look in your CRM, spreadsheet or whatever you use to track your activity when hunting new business.

Answer this question . . .

“What else besides the phone and email are you using to get their attention?”

That might be a major part of your challenge right there because if all you’re doing is calling and emailing, you get to blend in with a kazillion other people.

Also, everyone has their preferred communication platform and/or way to get their attention and the phone/email might not appeal to them. Oh, and your preferred method of contact isn’t necessarily their’s.

Check your frequency of contact

I often see people go to crazy extremes with their prospects from calling them way too much to calling not nearly enough to the point that they are non existent in their prospect’s eyes. Where are you on the call frequency continuum?

Have you ever considered created a generic “contact map” where you think out, in advance the type of “touches” as well as how long you will wait between “touches”? Perhaps you should . . . that seat of the pants stuff kills us every time!

Do you occasionally tape your end of your phone calls?

If you don’t . . . you should!

Every professional sports team video tapes their games and then review them to get better at their next game.

Listen to your tapes (bonus points if you bring your journal along for the ride) and listen for things like the quality of your message, specifically if it was compelling enough. Did you sound confident? How were your “um’s, you know’s etc”? Did you talk too fast, too slow? How did you handle objections? Where did your call get away from you? Where did you lose control? What did you do right that needs to be repeated and what could you have done better?

Use a webcam

Use the webcam on your laptop to video yourself from time to time. How you look is how you sound so . . . Were you smiling, did you look nervous or uptight? Did you look like you were struggling or did you look like you were in control? Nose picking? Just wanted to see if you were actually reading this.

This brings us to our final suggestion and it’s one that you’ve heard so many times that you probably don’t do it.

Use a mirror

Keep a mirror on your desk and when the dude/dudette staring back at you looks like they’re having a bad day, that’s what the dude/dudette on the other end of that phone will hear. I would imagine that the same holds true for when that dude/dudette smiles back at you 

So there you have it . . . 5 very simple things you can do and just for the heck of it (and no extra charge) here’s a bonus tip . . .

The 5 tips work brilliantly when you stop saying “I know that” and you actually do them!

Wishing you incredible success!

By the way . . .

We have 2 sessions of our upcoming, online sales course dedicated to helping you hunt better and smarter. There are over 100 sales tips that I offer throughout the course and I even have a few surprises thrown in along the way. Click here to have a look at the agenda and to reserve your seat! We kick off on June 4th right on your computer screen!