‘Eat the Elephant one bite at a time’ – a famous saying you’ll often hear when you’re attempting a very large task, or aiming for a very difficult goal. Sales is about satisfying customer needs, and achieving our own business goals in the process.
Many sales people want low-hanging, easy fruit – sales that literally fall into their hands. Certainly, if you’ve got a cash-flow crisis, those low-hanging fruit type of sales are vital. If those sales are that easy to close, you should be definitely be capturing them for your company’s budget.
However, the sales we all long for, the really big ones, are often more of a slow-burn. If you can look at new business development, knowing that it’s a big task ahead of you, you will have a more realistic idea of just what it will take to break through into big new client opportunities.
There is only so much time in the day. Many salespeople will give up on those large sales, because they do take more effort to win.
It’s not a matter of having to choose between lots of smaller sales and a few bigger sales. It’s a matter of creating a new business development plan that allows you to develop multiple income streams for your business.
It can take months to get some very large sales over the line. During that time, you could be selling to multiple smaller clients, while you continue to chip away at the big new potential clients you’d like to win.
Prioritise your time. Book in some time for long-term new business development each day, and keep that time sacrosanct. Large sales happen just like eating the elephant – one bite at a time, one email at a time, one phone call at a time, one coffee at a time.
So take heart. The elephant you’re facing will get smaller, you will start to make progress.
And your company’s sales figures will be very full once you’ve finally eaten that new business development elephant!