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Winning a strategic sale requires many interactions. Concentrating on success in advance distracts them from what they want — performance in the present.

When they focus on closing the deal, their natural inclination is to talk. They want to make sure the customer executive appreciates their solution’s full range of value. But instead, the customer may sense their anxiety, especially if the conversation doesn’t go as expected. They may wonder if they really understand what they need.

Learn new skills

Listening starts long before the first meeting.

On the sales call, be sure to:

• Listen to their answers. Follow this maxim:

“We were born with two ears and one mouth, so we can listen twice as much as we speak.” This advice dates back nearly 2000 years to the ancient Greek philosopher, Epictetus. It’s simple advice but hard to follow.

• Practice active listening. Active listening means you respond to the speaker. If you don’t have this skill, practice it every day.

Experts say it takes about 21 days of disciplined practice to learn a new skill. Phrase responses to a prospect’s statements in the form of another question. This helps clarify your understanding, solicit more information, and advance the purchase decision.

Pursue excellence over perfection

When we focus solely on closing the deal, we’re drawn into hopeless perfectionism. A good example of the perfectionist at work is Howard Hughes, the aviation pioneer who fell short of his potential.

His biographers wrote: “Hughes never learned how to convert his knowledge to practical application. Instead he sought a perfection that assured failure.”

By seeking excellence rather than perfection, you can accept and learn from mistakes. And you have less cause to feel discouraged and disappointed. This change in attitude and practice will result in a higher percentage of closed deals.

Follow these 4 tips to perform in the moment

1. Early in the sales cycle, validate the customer’s initiatives. Show that you both understand these drivers and see how they fit into the customer’s strategic plan.
2. Mid-cycle, secure agreement on the alignment between your customer’s business and your solutions. Extend this focus beyond the deal, to the formation of a partnership between your organizations.
3. As the deal nears closing, quantify its advantages. Underscore the return on investment, and relate it to your customer’s investment criteria.
4. Throughout your meetings, emphasize process and performance goals. When you come to a meeting, know the steps it must achieve to lead to the next stage. Make that the business of the meeting.

Here are the worst 10 boilerplate phrases –

* Results-oriented professional
* Cross-functional teams
* More than [x] years of progressively responsible experience
* Superior (or excellent) communication skills
* Strong work ethic
* Met or exceeded expectations
* Proven track record of success
* Works well with all levels of staff
* Team player
* Bottom-line orientation

Sales/revenue goals are important when measuring effectiveness, but they cannot be the sole determinant of performance in down times. Other criteria such as net activity levels, attitude and motivation are equally important, as they demonstrate an individual’s efforts to keep the company visible in the marketplace.

Are your sales professionals bringing positive outlook? Are they aggressive and proactive at identifying and qualifying new prospects? Are they doing what it takes to close sales in a bad economy by working harder to build out their prospect pipelines to achieve the volume necessary to generate returns?

Top sales professionals with a deep understanding of the company’s products and services remain the best weapons in this economy. The key to success in this economy is to arm them with qualified leads, proper coaching and good training then turn them loose!

1. Invest in material to assist with resume/CV writing. This can be in the form of workshops, software or even books.

2. Use internal or external talent to assist with creating formats for resumes and cover letters.

3. If your company has a strict policy against providing references rethink this at least temporarily in order to give the employee the added edge duing the interview process.

Remember employees are people first and they will appreciate your added effort.