Welcome back to part two of our three-part series on tackling poor sales performance. If you're an employee or salesperson struggling to hit your monthly targets, you're in the right place.

Today, we're continuing our case study with "Fresh Prince," (not his real name) who sells roofing sheets in Lagos. He's been worried because he hasn't closed a deal in three months, but as we explore in this episode, whether that's actually "bad" depends entirely on your sales cycle.

I break down how sales cycles vary wildly from five minutes for a Bluetooth keyboard to several weeks for a car, and potentially months or years for roofing and government contracts.

In the residential roofing sector, a deal usually closes in two to six weeks, so if you're three months out there, we have a problem. However, for large-scale commercial projects, three to six months is standard. We discuss how to identify the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), like site visits and meetings, that show you're on the right track even before the money hits the account.

A major focus of this episode is how the way you sell is actually your biggest differentiator. I share a personal story about a roofing professional who won my family's business not through the lowest price, but through a rigorous diagnostic process.

By asking the right questions about elevation and square meters, and even catching errors just by looking at a photo of the building, he established himself as an expert. I'll show you how to use your needs analysis to instill confidence and prove you aren't just a vendor, but a subject matter expert.

We also get tactical with two powerful strategies: Referral Looping and T-Selling. I explain how to maximize "development clusters" or estates where multiple buildings are at the same stage. With T-Selling, I walk you through the "left-right-opposite" framework, visiting the neighbors of your current client to introduce yourself, offer free inspections, and build a local reputation.

Finally, we touch on seasonality. If you're trying to sell roofing during the peak of the rainy season when wood frames are prone to warping, your lack of sales might just be the weather, not your skill.

We wrap things up by looking ahead to part three, where we'll tackle how to handle those troublesome clients who always complain that you're "too expensive."

Whether you're in roofing, solar, or even accounting, the principles we talk about today are designed to help you audit your process and start moving those deals forward.