Issue link: http://psai.uberflip.com/i/994700
W EEKLY EDITION JUNE 20, 2018 Survey of Sales Staff Reveals Rapid Change …continued By Karleen Kos, PSAI Executive Director Sales Statistic #6 : It's slightly harder to get in front of new prospects than before About 54% of professional sales respondents thought it was harder or much harder to get in front of prosp ects today than it was 5 years ago. That's just more than half. These sales pros say prospects never answer their phones or respond to emails. But wait – the other half (well, almost half) of the sales pros don't think it's any harder than it has ever bee n. So, this should give us pause and make us think about what's going on here. Yes, maybe prospects are answering their phones less, and maybe they're less inclined to respond to emails. But there are so many more tools available today to help us get in f ront of new prospects than there have ever been , at the same time. Getting in front of prospects today isn't necessarily that much harder. Perhaps it's just a little bit trickier. So, it appears the lesson is that sales pros have to be more creative. Whether that means using text messages, Facebook Messenger, Linked In, hiring a skywriter or breeding carrier pigeons, sales pros need to think about how customers are accessible now and use that method – or combination of methods – to connect. The name of the game is getting in front of as many qualified prospects as possible. Sales results are generally a function of this simple truth. Sales Statistic #8 : The vast majority of salespeople today barely ask for referrals – but top performers do it a lot A whopping 57.9% of respondents said they ask for fewer than one referral per month, while 40.4% report rarely asking! Only 18.6% ask every person they are in front of. This is one of the most eye - opening sales statistics from the study. Why? Because asking for referrals is one of the easiest ways to grow business. And yet, so few salespeople are doing it. P AGE 4 CONTINUED ON PAGE 5