by Mona Hilton

Have you ever been so close to a situation that you knew there was a problem, but couldn’t for the life of you, figure out what it was?

I think we can all relate to that.  Sometimes our intimacy with a situation clouds our objectivity – especially in a tough competitive market.

We’ve worked with senior sales teams across the country, and we’ve seen them struggle with the same issues and challenges.  The faces, names and geographies change, but the challenges remain fundamentally the same.

Although these challenges may seem intimidating, they are by no means insurmountable.  It first takes seeing the challenge, then acknowledging it, and then being willing to make the sometimes hard changes required to address them.

The great news is, the more challenges you recognize in your organization, the bigger your payoff will be when addressed.  And the more you have to gain!

1.      Follow Up Failure.

65% of business managers surveyed cited “Follow up” as their #1 failure, according to an April 2008 survey.

Follow up failure is the biggest reason for lost sales.  And leaving follow up to a sales person’s memory is a hit or miss proposition – at best.  Even those who follow up do not sustain it long enough – it now takes at least 7 touches to make a sale.

2.      Weak Leadership.

Despite how it sounds, it’s really not always leadership’s fault.  Most managers (even in Fortune 500 companies) do not have information, tools or accurate statistics on their sales team’s performance to manage properly.

Surprisingly, they almost never have an objective measuring stick to measure performance – only subjective “gut feelings” and sales revenue or contracts to go by.

3.      Disorganization and Poor Time Management.

A Sales & Marketing Manager with a Top 10 Assisted Living company expressed his frustration when he told us that it was “every man for himself” when it came to sales systems and strategies.  That only leads to disappointing results, frustration and turnover.

Sales teams greatly benefit from organization and a “plan” every day.  Most of them will readily admit that what they need is a “Sales Assistant” to keep them on target and keep things moving forward.

4.      Distractions.  Distractions.  Distractions.

Whether it’s Twitter, Instant Messaging, FaceBook, LinkedIn, MySpace or good old fashioned email, all those pop-ups serve to distract and pull even the most disciplined person away from the task they are on. 
And before you know it, the day (or “money hours”) are gone and the “to do” list hasn’t been completed.

If you can relate to these challenges, don’t be alarmed.  You are not alone.  And they are very fixable.  The more challenges you face, the more you have to gain – in revenue – by addressing them!

What if you could have a perfect system for the senior living sales process that increased your sales conversion rates by 9% – 38% and solved all of these challenges? 

Find more tips, webinars, videos and articles at www.OccupancyAdvantage.com or join us for a free webinar “5 Ways to Increase Occupancy at http://tinyurl.com/3hejdss. 

Part 2 – Coming Wed., 6/22