Anthony Caliendo's 4 Sales Steps for Success

Often it is said, “It's hard to see the forest from the trees.” It seems that it’s rampant in sales, especially when sales are down. At times, when sales start to fall, sales people becoming so caught up in the “slump” that they fail to focus on the four critical steps to consistent sales success.

Question 1: If your income comes from sales, are you making as much as you want or need?

If you answered, yes - Stop reading!
You are awesome. Go back to doing what you do best. 

If, on the other hand, you answered No – then you need sales. Sales begets income and lack of income equates lack of sales. What to do? Get more sales, of course. How, you say, do we just go get more sales? We’ll get to that, but for now stick with me. The first step is increasing your sales volume. Simple. There is nothing hard about this concept. It is critical to grasp, however, because the solution is always to the left. That statement will make sense a bit later.

Question Two: Do You Have Enough presentations or appointments?

This one seems obvious. If you are not generating enough sales volume either you lack people to see (enough appointments) or your closing skills need improvement. More times than not, the issue isn’t just closing skills, it’s people to present to and close.

Let’s look at this two ways: (1) if you are having trouble setting appointments from your leads (which, by the way is closing), then you will have more trouble closing the sale when you do make a presentation; and (2) inadequate presentations will always result in inadequate sales.
So let’s look at our matrix thus far. Remember the solution is always to the left!

PRESENTATIONS = SALES = YOUR INCOME

O.K., so you get it? The solution is always to the left. If you don’t have enough presentations you won’t have enough sales. So what now?

Question Three: If I don’t have enough presentations,
then how many leads do you have in your pipeline?

Well, I don’t know. Probably enough! Really? Ask yourself this question; do you suspect that highly successful business people guess at their income or assets? Better still, if you were having surgery tomorrow would you want the person administering the anesthesia to guess at the amount? Of course not! Then, why would you guess about your leads? If you don’t know how many leads you have, then you don’t have a finger on the pulse of your lifeline. For sales professionals, lead acquisition and management is critical. You can take it to the bank, if you lack presentations, you lack a sufficient number of leads to support your sales efforts.

Let’s go back…remember the solution is always to the left. Look at the matrix again.

LEADS = PRESENTATIONS = SALES = YOUR INCOME

The point is - you have to have leads in order to make presentations and enough presentations equal sales and that creates your income…right? So are those the four things?No – those are three things that help to generate your income. Your income is the outcome and we’ve just identified three of the four critical steps to success. So what is the fourth?Question Four: Since you’ve identified that lead deficiency is a problem, what’s the solution?Good question! Any building built on a weak foundation is subject to crumble. Likewise, any sales professional who misses the foundation of sales success will struggle and, likely fail. This foundation is prospecting.

How many times have I heard someone say to me in a job interview, “You hand me a lead and I’ll close ‘em. I’m a closer.” Well, let me say, I didn’t hire those folks because they were applying for a sales position and closing is just a part of the process.

True sales professionals do four things:

1. Prospect for leads;
2. Develop the leads they identify;
3. Make sales presentations;
4. Close sales.

Each of those represents the four critical steps to sales success.
Remember the solution is always to the left!

PROSPECTING = LEADS = PRESENTATIONS = SALES = YOUR INCOME!

COMING SOON! THE HIGHLY ANTICIPATED SALES BOOK 

“THE SALES ASSASSIN” BY ANTHONY CALIENDO