I was reading an article the other day entitled, “14% of Our Sellers Drive 80% of Our Revenue!” Kind of a staggering statistic… but not all that surprising.
Are you familiar with the Pareto Principle, also known as the 20/80 Rule? The theory applies to a lot of business situations… for example, that 20% of your clients generate 80% of your revenue; that 20% of your services drive 80% of your profits; and in this case, that 20% of your sales team generates 80% of your sales.
OK, but what if you’re a sales team of one (or two or three), as is often the case with small research firms in our industry? Well, statistically speaking, you likely fall into the 80% (industry-wide) of those who are not generating as much revenue as the other 20% in the industry. Sorry… no offense.
And if that’s true, what are you doing about it? That is, if you’re a seller-doer, what are you doing to move from the 80% (under performers) to the 20% (top performers)?
The only answer is to develop your selling skills. The fact is, as a seller-doer, you will find time during the year to enhance your research skills – attend conferences, join associations, read Quirk’s, etc.… but what are you doing on the sales side of your skill set?
The options for this are just like for research – events, workshops, associations, magazines, podcasts, and so on. Here are several resources I can recommend to help with your selling skills development…
- The Seller-Doer Workshop™ (this one is ours!)
- Selling Power Magazine (sign up for their free newsletter)
- National Association of Sales Professionals (find a local chapter)
- Jeff Gitomer, Sales Trainer (great content and best-selling books)
- Jill Konrath’s blog (good, tactical advice)
- The Sales Blog (from Anthony Iannarino)
- Salesty – a Sales Community (a very large LinkedIn group)
- B2B Sales, Marketing, Social Media & Lead Generation (another LinkedIn group)
- The Advanced Selling Podcast (I don’t listen to a lot of podcasts… but I do listen to this one!)
In addition to the time you spend attending workshops and conferences, the real key to continual self-improvement is to block off time every week for selling skills learning. One hour – at the same time every week – and commit to doing nothing else during that time, except reading, watching, listening and learning.
It’s the personification of the old phrase, “If it is to be, it’s up to me!”
Good luck and good selling.