STOP for Sales Effectiveness

As a salesperson, the most valuable resource you have is time; your success highly depends on how you spend it. Are you operating in the right geography and the right market segment? Are you targeting the right customers with the appropriate solution and the most profitable products? Are you chasing the right deals? 

The answers to those questions give a great deal of information about a salesperson’s effectiveness. But… who has time to ask those questions? And who has time to look for the answers on a regular basis? In the daily hustle, it is hard to look for those answers.

Tim Gallwey, the founder of modern coaching in business, proposes a simple tool in his “The Inner Game Methodology”. It is called STOP; Step back, Think, Organize, Proceed. In my selling experience, I worked a lot on overlaying this tool into my daily activity. And I am still using it. 

Let’s have a look at how to implement it in selling.

Step Back

This is the most difficult one, although it appears the easiest. Particularly in a high-stress, a high-pressure profession like sales, it is hard to find a moment to take a pause and step back. From experience, I can say that the easiest way to achieve it is to allocate some time in your calendar. It must be a relaxed time for reflection.  

Think

I used to book some time during my flights, take my notepad with me and start with broad questions, such as “What is going on here?” Are you happy with your current activity? Is it aligned with your priorities? What would you like to change? What resources do you have? What is holding you back? What would you need? The key to answering those questions is focusing on the things you can control. It happens to me to take pages of notes while searching for the answers to those questions. 

Organize

Now you have your thoughts written down, and it is time to put them in order. Recheck your priorities, define what is important, what is urgent, and what things can wait. Simplify them if necessary. 

Proceed

Plan your first step. It can be very simple, such as calling a specific customer just to get their news. At that stage, progress is more important than the task’s weight. Focus on incremental improvement. 

This process helped me to say no to some customers, become more persistent for some deals, and run some deals as long-term projects even if I lost the first deal. It also helped me to stop complaining about me constantly being under the water. Instead, I could decide when to go under the water. Overall, I felt more in control of my activity rather than dragged by my calendar. 

To sum up, STOP tool helped me to operate more selectively and effectively in field sales, and it is still helping in my current activity.

What do you think? Is it applicable to your daily routine?