Every sale is a good sale... right??

What makes a sale a good one? Is it how much profit? How about the length of contract? Maybe it's how many units of something were sold... Everyone has their own criteria for what makes a sale great. Each sale we make adds to our bottom line. It feeds our business and helps us succeed. We need sales to survive. So, I guess it would be fair to say every sale is a good sale... right? No. The trouble is that we focus so much on our revenue that we forget our customers in the process. Our sales people are so focused on making their budgets that they are cramming sales in to meet target. We are in some cases shoving square pegs into round holes.

We can't be in such a rush to make sales that we neglect to do our homework on our customers. We need to understand what they need in order to generate a good sale. Good sales come from proper needs assessment, proper treatment of the customer and the ability to sell yourself as well as the product. Bad sales (yes they do exist) consist of poor assessment of the customers needs. They won't come back to you when you sold them the wrong solution. Congratulations... you are now a one hit wonder! The same goes for the sales person that pressures a customer into a sale... All the customer will remember is how much they disliked the sales process. Sales managers and business owners can be as much at fault for this as the sales people themselves. We as managers can put so much pressure on our sales people that they make decisions that they would not normally make. The will push too hard or sell the wrong product just because they need to get it in for the month.

There are more bad sales out there. Sales that at first glance look great. They are the sales that could have been so much more. When a proper assessment is not done we miss things. Things that could have brought more value to the customer and more money in our pockets. When we don't do our homework we are doing ourselves and the customer a great disservice. With a proper assessment of the customers needs we can find more places for our products and services. Maximizing revenue while enhancing the customer experience.

We won't differentiate ourselves unless we make sure our sales are all "good sales". This is what separates the flash in the pan business or sales person from the businesses and sales people who stand the test of time. At the end of the day, our customers have to be happy and we cannot have left anything on the table.