E201: The Unbelievable way Consistency Grows Trade Sales Overnight, & how to use it in Your Own Business

In this episode, we are going to work through the unbelievable way that consistency grows trade sales overnight and how to use it in your own business. Welcome to Sales Growth Made Simple, the show helping 7 to 8 figure trade, construction and industry sales and business leaders finally end the stress of inconsistent sales by simplifying your sales systems so your team can close more deals and grow faster. I'm your host, Ben Wright, a leader who has been building businesses and sales teams just like you for the last 20 years. One of my favorite quotes from the last month from our customers went something like this: for the first time, I'm not chasing my tail hoping that every deal goes through to keep my schedule full. Your guidance has driven that, and your support has pushed me to get consistent with meetings and proposals for the first time in my journey. Now this is from a customer who is growing pretty fast. They're well into the multimillion dollar turnover phase of their business. They've got a team out there. They're not having to do everything themselves. And I'd say had already managed to grow their business somewhat before they came to us. But they were in a state when it was chaos in their business. They had so much going on, they didn't know what to focus on. The pipeline was inconsistent. They were chasing customers to an extent and really struggling to consistently understand what they need to do to drive revenue. Now that quote came about 6 weeks after we started working together. And we did a few key things to set this customer up to really succeed consistently moving forward. And I'm going to quickly skip through those in this short and sharp episode today. So number 1 here was for this customer was all about setting them up with really clear timelines for key activities. When do I quote? When do I go to site? When do I follow up? Super important. When am I ringing customers? When am I engaging with them? When am I dealing on team issues? What are my KPIs around getting quotes out to market, right? But building them a framework within which they would work with. It's very simple. It sounds simple and it is simple, but in my history in working with hundreds of business leaders, I find that it's very rarely practiced. There's a loose schedule in there. They have times when they like to do something, but outside of needing the, you know, the first hour in the morning for urgent activities, I very rarely see leaders be able to put in some concrete times when they do things. However, those that do, it makes such a huge impact because not only do they become predictable to their team and their customers, but they become predictable to themselves and their brain and their bodies. They start to line up knowing what they need to do each day. They prepare effectively for it and they become so much more efficient at generating it. So number 1 is all about setting themselves up with clear timelines for key activities. Number 2 is using templates. So that is building out the things that they do again and again and again. And in this modern world, using an AI agent or AI tools is becoming incredibly important. We've rolled out AI bots now for ourselves and we're in the process of doing it for our customers. But being able to set yourself up templates or reminders or support staff to allow you to do the same thing again and again and again, particularly from a back-of-house point of view, is critical. And the examples I'd really like to give here is around quote templates, quote templates, site visits, information collecting, all those things that you do repeatedly, but perhaps have done so many times that you think you know them inside and out and wouldn't benefit you know, from writing them down. But for me, this person that I worked with, one of the key things that we did was get their design and quote templates really clear. They really were focused on adding value. They were consistent and they were fast to roll out. And that made all the difference for them. And the third here, third but not last, is to build out a mini sales process. And I say the word mini because for many businesses who are in that $1 to $10 million mark in particular, a sales process only needs to be short and sharp. But a short and sharp sales process versus none at all has a significant impact on close rates. And in fact, I'd say that I don't think I've ever had a person join my program who hasn't been able to implement some changes to their sales process for immediate sales results. Things like how they follow up customers, things like how they design the first page of their quotes, things like how they get really clear on what customers need before they get those quotes done. Right? All these very basic activities that form part of a mini sales process that are implementable very, very quickly, but most importantly, ensure that customers get the best version of that supplier, of that business owner, of that sales leader every single time they go out to site. So those 3 things in a recap, right? And please, as you're working through those, I want you to think that these 3 things are exactly what we rolled out with a customer who was able to in their words, for the first time, feel like they're consistent with their meetings and their proposals and how they're running their business for the first time in their journey, they're able to get there by 3 simple things. Clear timelines for activities, for key activities, the use of templates, and the last one is building out a mini sales process. So as you leave today, and again, you'll hear this from me very often, what would I like you to think about doing? For me, number 1 is pick one of those, roll it out. Then for the other 2, put some timelines into your calendar as to when you're going to get them done. If you need help, go and get help. Great. Make that happen. Right. But certainly put all 3 of these in your calendar and make them happen. They're very much a focus on being 1% better every day. I'm grateful that you not only listen, but I'm even more grateful when you go and implement some of the things we talk about. So that's the focus from today. If you have any questions or need to throw any ideas around, get in touch with us. Otherwise, that's it for today. We'll see you on Friday. Bye for now.