Selling Your Ideas

“It is useless to be an original, creative thinker unless you can sell what you create.”
– David Ogilvey

This article is for those who have decided they need a sales strategy. It’s an overwhelming idea with an overwhelming number of components for those who are tackling it for the first time. What we think is phenomenal about your decision though, is that you’re already leaps and bounds beyond your competition that is still stuck inventing ideas that do not sell, or sell poorly. Don’t get us wrong, we are huge proponents of having big ideas and bringing them to the forefront of your organization. But selling your idea, your company, or your product or service is an entirely new adventure.

If you’re ready to build a sales strategy you’ve already won half the battle. The second half is picking and designing each component such as social selling, outbound, and inbound strategies, direct marketing campaigns, email newsletters, and more. What many entrepreneurs may not know is that you do not need to implement every strategy at one time. Your sales strategy can be adaptable, meaning you can start with social selling and an email campaign, and add outbound strategies at a later date. This will take a significant load off your shoulders at the beginning, allowing you to focus on 1-3 items, instead of ten or more.

To get you started, a great first step is to outline when you may want to implement each strategy. For example:

January-February: Implement social selling and email campaign
March-April: Observe and report on social selling and email campaign success and improve where needed
May-June: Implement video marketing and/or ebooks as part of your inbound strategy
July-August: Observe all strategies implemented so far and improve where needed
September-October: Implement the outbound sales strategy (sales presentation scheduling)
November: Observe and report on outbound sales strategy success and improve where needed
December: Implement a direct mail campaign targeting a specific area that highlights sales and discounts for the holiday season

Whether you’re implementing a sales strategy for the first time or the tenth time, outlining your plan and incorporating each new strategy over time takes the weight off your shoulders for the first several months. You may want to tweak the timeline above to fit your needs and add/subtract components you think you may or may not need. Whatever you choose to add/subtract, establishing a plan for the year will help you to stay on track, and prepare for what strategies you’d like to implement down the road.

If you’d like to simply discuss your prospective sales strategy with someone, let us know, and one of our Guides will give you a call. If you’d like to leave a comment, or piece of advice, or if you want to share an idea related to this post, drop us a line. We’d love to hear from you!

His guidance, leadership, and friendship are PRICELESS

He has mentored me to achieve amazing professional goals without losing sight of the most important part of my life as a wife and mother. His guidance, leadership, and friendship are PRICELESS!!

Brian is a Full Service Mentor

Over the years, Brian has not only mentored the sales team, but also our Department Managers throughout the corporation developing personal goals, department goals, leadership skills, and execution.

A Great Motivator

He has been a great motivator for me, my team, and our organization’s management team. Outside of the impressive sales increase, there is an abundance of projects and initiatives that Brian has successfully led I would like to highlight some of them that ultimately changed my life both professionally and personally.

Learned How to Grow Territory

During the time I work with Brian, he challenged me, showed me how to sell and how to win in almost any circumstance. Brian helped me grow my sales territory (Chicago) from nothing to a $1,000,000+ book of business.

The Summit Solutions is not a one-fits-all process

Is the Summit Solutions a one-fits-all process that will lead to selling more? No, there are plenty of national programs with regional support that will sell you on that. I will tell you from my experience, they are outdated, not personalized, and don’t work. They typically also only focus on the sales department. Brian’s method is to work with the whole organization, while stressing the importance of creating a company culture that people want to be a part of.

As the VP Sales Manager, I was initially skeptical

As the VP Sales Manager, I was initially skeptical and guarded as to why we had to bring in an outside sales expert. I perceived this as an insult to my abilities and the performance of our team. Today I can honestly say that the association, teachings, and concepts Brian presented were the BEST thing to happen to our Company, myself, and our team.

When we started with Summit Learning Solutions we had 62 employees

When we started with Summit Learning Solutions we had 62 employees mostly serving the state of Michigan. Now, we have nearly 200 employees serving 17 states; and we’re still growing consistently. Moreover, when we started with Summit we sold about 3-5 Million a year in new business; now we sell 13 Million a year in new business.

They sourced and hired our first-ever sales team

They sourced and hired our first-ever sales team and created the sales and marketing plan to start the process. They designed our sales team’s compensation plans, trained them on appropriate sales methodology, and lead our overall strategy. Candidly, we thought they were way too optimistic in their sales projections. It turns out they undersold the possibilities. The program was very successful, very fast.

We are a better, healthier, and the more performance-driven company

We are a better, healthier, and the more performance-driven company now thanks to Brian’s training and support. Most importantly, it’s more profitable.