Category: Sales Management

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Set Your Sales Team Up For Success By Implementing Accountability

Set Your Sales Team Up For Success By Implementing Accountability

Why is accountability so crucial for those who work in sales teams?

Accountability is necessary for sales team members to desire and maintain consistent performance. The key to understanding and increasing accountability is to start with a good, effective sales structure and policy. 

Accountability is a huge factor in sales and one you may overlook. If your prospect feels the need to report to someone or justify their actions, they will be more dedicated and successful in closing deals. This will only increase their drive to make the sale because they want higher approval ratings and are being measured by a third party.

As a sales leader, you must always know the process: who the customer was, what the product or service was, the communication plan, etc. Once a sales team understands what success looks like in the defined sales pipeline, it doesn’t take long to know exactly where they are at all times! Then, as a result of clear expectations from leadership and an understanding of their role and responsibilities and their customer’s expectations… they act!

Establishing Accountability in Your Sales Team

Establishing Accountability in Your Sales Team

That’s what we’re talking about today. Do you want to build a better and more engaged company culture?

Your monthly sales goals are in mind, and you’re happy to see how well your team is performing. But, unfortunately, something’s not right, but your sales goals aren’t being met! Your sales team is doing the work, but you can’t have a sound system to track their achievements.

A sales team is only as good as its goals, and accurate tracking is the key to setting and reaching those goals. A sales accountability system ensures that everyone on your team has a role in meeting your company’s sales quotas and hitting your revenue goals month after month.

Set Clear Goals

The best way to ensure that your sellers are on track is by setting clear goals, backed with objective evidence that they can be achieved. That way, when they fall short of their goals, there’s no room for confusion about whether or not their efforts were successful—and no excuses for why the project failed.

Clear goals also help guide your sellers toward better work habits and practices. If you want them to work toward long-term success instead of short-term gains, everything must be laid out clearly in advance, so there aren’t any surprises along the way.

Establishing Accountability in Your Sales Team

Give Them Tools to Succeed

Setting goals is a great way to keep your sales team focused on the most critical tasks. It’s also a great way to help you measure the success of each member of your team, as well as their individual performance over time.

But for goal-setting to work, you need to provide your sales team with the tools—like reports and dashboards—that will help them track their progress toward those goals.

You need to make sure they have the correct data, can communicate with each other and their clients efficiently, and have access to any other resources they may need—including training and support.

Specifically, this means:

  • You are providing your sales team with the right data. Data should be available at all times for them to be able to quickly assess trends and make decisions based on what’s happening in real-time, rather than having to wait for reports or downloads from other sources of information.
  • Giving them access to a communication platform that allows them to communicate effectively with their clients and other members of their team (and vice versa). This can include texting or email as well as phone calls or video calls if needed—whatever works best for each situation!
  • Giving them easy access (through an app or website) at all times so they don’t miss out on any opportunities.

Follow Up On Their Progress

Accountability is the key to success. It’s how you know your sales team is giving it their all and that they’re not just coasting on their previous achievements.

But if there’s no follow-through on accountability, the system falls apart. Your sales team will start taking shortcuts, relying on old tricks and gimmicks instead of finding new ones. They’ll get lazy and complacent, which means they’ll stop caring about their work as much as they used to—and then you’ll see your numbers start falling off.

Accountability is an essential part of any business, but it can only be effective when there are consequences for not following through with what you’ve promised to do; otherwise, it’s just lip service.

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Why Knowing Key Decision Makers in Prospective Accounts Matters

Why Knowing Key Decision Makers in Prospective Accounts Matters

Sometimes, we find ourselves with too many prospects sitting in front of us. The problem is that not all of them are good.

How do you know which ones are worth spending time on? And how do you ensure that the people who are ready to buy your product or service do? 

Here’s a quick guide to help you out:

  • Set up meetings with people who have expressed interest or are willing to commit to your product/service. This can be done through inbound marketing or a cold call.
  • Use qualifying questions during the initial phone call to determine whether they’re a good fit for the position. They should be able to answer these questions without hesitation:
  • What problem does this solve for your company?
  • How much money will this save you over time?
  • What impact will this have on your business operations?
Focusing on the Right People

Focusing on the Right People

It’s no secret that making a sale is more than just finding a lead. You need to be able to convert that lead into a customer, but how? The answer is simple: by using social media.

With the right social selling strategy, you can get in front of the people who will most likely buy your product or service. It’s a great way to increase sales and reach a new audience simultaneously.

Most B2B companies are using social media these days to find potential customers. They’re using it to connect with them in real-time and build relationships that lead to sales.

This is because social media has become an essential part of business culture. The average consumer spends about five hours daily on social media sites like LinkedIn and Twitter! That’s a lot of time for companies to connect with potential buyers—and win new clients.

Having More Than One Key Contact Per Account

Having More Than One Key Contact Per Account

If you work with just one person in each account and they leave, or something happens to them, you will be left without access to that client. So it’s much better to build a team of people who know you and your product well.

To be sure, establishing multiple relationships with key decision-makers is crucial. But what happens when you’ve identified your entire target list and have built relationships with everyone on it? You still need to keep working and growing those relationships because they are not static—they change and evolve like your company.

When you have one relationship in an account, you have a greater chance that the other people in that account won’t know you or your value proposition. If they don’t know you or your value proposition, they won’t be able to help you make deals. This can lead to wasted efforts because nobody knows who you are or why you’re there.

On the other hand, if you build multiple relationships within an account and with different stakeholders (for example, executives and mid-level managers), then these people will be able to introduce you to others within their organization who might also benefit from knowing about your product or service offerings. In addition, this strategy allows for more opportunities for introductions and referrals without relying solely on one person who may not always be available due to their busy schedule or priorities within the company.

The fact is that your customers are going to change too. That means that if you don’t stay involved in your customers’ lives and how they use your product or service, you risk becoming irrelevant—and potentially losing them altogether.

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Surefire Outbound Sales Strategies That Will Drive Your Growth

Surefire Outbound Sales Strategies That Will Drive Your Growth

Outbound sales, in a nutshell, is any form of traditional selling initiated by salespeople to the target customer – meaning they start and drive the interaction. Given the nature of selling and buying these days, it’s more appropriate to call it outbound communication. However, some proven strategies help an outbound effort be more effective while reducing attrition rates regardless of what you name it. 

Here are some tips that can serve as a guide for sales professionals who want to improve the execution of their outbound sales strategy:

Craft Your Ideal Customer Profile

Craft Your Ideal Customer Profile

Creating an ideal customer persona is a three-step process:

  1. First, identify the traits of your ideal customer.
  2. Understand their problems and how they’re currently solving them.
  3. Determine what makes your product or service superior to the alternatives for this customer and their particular problem(s).

Additionally, you can create a customer persona by asking yourself a few key questions:

  • Who are the people using my product or service? 
  • How old are they? 
  • Where do they live? 
  • What kind of job do they have? 
  • What is their annual income? 
  • Do they have kids? 
  • Do they own a car? 
  • Do they own a home? 
  • Are they married or single? 
  • What do they like to do for fun? 
  • How much time do they spend online per week? 
  • What search terms do they use when looking for products or services like mine?

Once you have all this information, it will be easy to develop marketing strategies targeting them directly.

Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing

Social media provides an excellent opportunity for businesses to reach consumers with relevant content that is easily accessible on their devices and in real time, making it highly effective at getting customers interested in what you’re selling.

The advantages of using social media are:

  • It’s a great way to build a community around your brand, which can help with customer retention, loyalty, and growth.
  • It can be used as a lead generation tool, where you can offer incentives to those who sign up to your email list or follow you on social media.
  • Social media is free! It could be a good option for you if you have time and resources available.

Here are some strategies to help you make the most of social media marketing:

  • Post regularly. Posting on your company’s LinkedIn page or Twitter account daily is essential for maintaining visibility and keeping customers engaged.
  • Use visuals. Visuals help attract attention with their bright colors and graphics, so include photos and videos in your posts whenever possible.
  • Focus on engagement. Engagement is critical in social media marketing because it helps you better understand what people want from you—and how they want to interact with your brand.

By sharing relevant, engaging, and helpful content, you will be able to attract new clients looking for a particular type of service.

It is also possible to use social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Twitter to drive traffic to your website or blog so that potential customers can learn more about the products or services you offer.

Invest in Outbound Sales Tools and Tech

Invest in Outbound Sales Tools and Tech

Inbound and outbound sales strategies are not mutually exclusive—in fact, they work together to create a holistic customer experience that makes you stand out from your competition. But what is the difference between these two approaches?

Inbound sales focuses on attracting new customers through content marketing, SEO optimization, and other digital tactics that drive traffic to your website. 

Outbound sales focuses on attracting potential clients who are already in motion toward making a purchase decision; they require more active engagement with customers via phone calls or email campaigns, which can be automated through a CRM system.

It’s not enough to have a tool like Salesforce, HubSpot CRM, or others. You need to use it as the baseline for everything else you do—and you need to ensure it’s set up correctly from the beginning. Outbound sales teams will be responsible for driving your company forward, and if they don’t have all the tools they need, it will be much harder for them to succeed.

Outbound sales teams will rely on data for their success, so make sure that you’re making it easy for them with an intuitive interface and seamless integration between different systems (CRM and marketing automation). They’ll also want access to information about their leads’ behaviors and preferences to tailor their pitches accordingly. Finally, they’ll need access to customer data to anticipate what each person wants before they even ask them!

Final Words

If you want to increase sales, you need to start selling. Although most companies have moved to an inbound approach, they still struggle with inbound sales because they don’t understand what makes people buy something. Outbound sales techniques are still very effective at generating leads that convert customers because they focus on the right things.

Outbound sales is not about pushing people into buying something from you (although that can be part of it). It’s about building relationships with prospects so they know who you are when they need what you offer. 

By creating a relationship with prospects, you can build trust and credibility and establish yourself as an authority in your industry. Show them how valuable their business is by providing helpful advice, free resources, or even just engaging them with questions about their business.

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Outbound Sales: The Follow-Up

Outbound Sales: The Follow-Up

You’ve just sent an intriguing and persuasive email to a prospect. You get a reply. They’re interested. They want a demo. They’re ready to speak with you. And then…that’s it. All work and no follow-ups make Jack a dull boy. 

When making outbound sales, it’s easy to focus on setting the hook. The initial contact. The opening email. But more likely than not, you fail to continue the conversation and close deals after your first outreach.

In this article, we’re going to explore the often-overlooked follow-up.

What is an Outbound Follow-Up?

You’ve just made a sales pitch. You’re excited and hopeful, but there’s one small thing you need to do before you can put your feet up: follow up.

Following up with a potential customer is a great way to ensure that the customer does not forget about you or your company after the initial contact at the top of the sales cycle.

A sales follow-up can be the key to landing a sale. Follow-ups are a salesperson’s prompt to the prospective customer to take action, whether making an appointment, scheduling a meeting, or placing an order.

Setting your follow-up schedule can be challenging. You don’t want to annoy your prospects, but you also have a limited time frame to get the appointment or sale. The best way to approach this is to send emails or calls, beginning immediately after your initial contact and continuing for about a week after.

Sales follow-up is essential because it helps create a friendly, familiar relationship with your potential customers. It also allows you to answer any questions they might have and ensure they understand exactly what they’re getting into if they decide to purchase from you.

How Many Follow-Ups Should You Make?

How Many Follow-Ups Should You Make?

When you reach out to someone cold, you must realize that they might not be expecting your email. The best way to get through that mindset is by following up with them multiple times. The first time, you should send a terse and concise email explaining who you are and what your company does, along with a link to your website and an offer that will help them.

You can follow up three days later with another email or call-to-action, but if they haven’t responded, it’s probably time to move on to other prospects.

If the prospect responds positively, it’s time for a more extended conversation—maybe over the phone or in person!

If the other person is a colleague or someone in your network, you might have an opportunity to connect with them again. But if it’s a stranger, you should probably move on.

You can usually tell if someone is interested in your offer when they say something like “I’m interested in learning more about [product name]. Do you have any time next week?” or “I know our schedules won’t sync up but let me get back to you when they do! Thanks for thinking of me!” This doesn’t mean they will buy from you—just that they’re willing to learn more about what you’re offering.

Here’s a general outline you can follow. It is possible to tweak this depending on your product and what conversations you’re having.

  • 1st day: Follow-up #1
  • 3rd day: Follow-up #2
  • 7th day: Follow-up #3
  • 14th day: Follow-up #4
  • 28th day: Follow-up #5
  • Two months after: Follow-up #6
  • One follow-up for each month after
What To Do (and Not Do)

What To Do (and Not Do)

DO: Be persistent but not annoying. Inbound leads are easy because they come to you, but outbound sales require a little more work and persistence, so don’t give up too quickly if someone doesn’t respond immediately. If they don’t answer their phone or email, try again later in the day or week. If that doesn’t work, send them another email or call them again later in the week (but not too much later).

DO: Take notes about what worked for each person you call so that you know where it went wrong with others and can adjust accordingly the next time someone from that company calls you back.

DO: Be specific about what you want from them. Don’t just say, “Please reply if interested in scheduling a meeting next week at 3 p.m.,” because many people will simply delete that email without replying or taking action. Instead, clarify why they should respond (e.g., “If interested in scheduling a meeting next week at 3 p.m., please reply with confirmation and availability details by Tuesday morning”). 

DO: Send them your email only when you have something relevant to send them. Don’t send random emails just because you haven’t sent one in a while. That will annoy them more than anything else.

DO: Follow-up with them if they reply to your email with a question or comment. You don’t have to write an essay every time, but at least acknowledge that you received their message, so they know you read it and care about their response.

DON’T: When you send an email asking someone for their information or a quote, you mustn’t make them feel guilty about not responding. If they haven’t responded yet, that means they’re busy and haven’t had time to get back to you yet. If you contact a prospect and they don’t respond, it’s not necessarily because they’re ignoring you. It could be that they just haven’t had time to reply. Or maybe they’re waiting for something else (like a response from another sales rep). Or perhaps they’re just not interested in what you’re selling.

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Outbound Sales: Renewal, Upsell, and Cross-Sell Discussions

Outbound Sales: Renewal, Upsell, and Cross-Sell Discussions

You’ve reached your first revenue milestone once a customer makes the initial purchase. But your sales opportunity doesn’t end here — it’s just beginning. While products sold are a great way to measure revenue, there’s so much more potential beyond this initial transaction. 

By putting in place cross-selling, upselling, and renewal processes, you’ll be able to improve customer lifetime value and grow your bottom line even more.

Let’s define each process first.

What is Cross-Selling?

What is Cross-Selling?

Cross-selling is a term that gets thrown around a lot in business, but do you know exactly what it means to cross-sell?

Cross-selling is the concept of encouraging a customer to purchase additional products in conjunction with the primary product. This is critical and very powerful in the subscription business model, where recurring revenue is the goal. 

What is Upselling?

What is Upselling?

Millions of dollars are wasted every year because of the inability of salespeople and other customer-facing staff to upsell effectively. A lack of precise questioning on the value of a product often leads to costly, low-quality purchases that never even get used.

Upselling is a strategy focused on encouraging these purchases through improved and enhanced products, but it can be challenging to pursue. Your first business sale was only part of the way towards financial growth; you must now do everything possible to ensure that customers will return for upgrades and add-ons. Here is where upselling comes into play.

But take note – The idea behind an effective upsell is to build rapport with clients and show your expertise so that they understand you’re suitable for their needs.

What is a Renewal?

What is a Renewal?

A renewal sale, or a repurchase conversation (“repurchase” only if it is the same product/service), occurs when a customer has a question, concern, or issue needing resolution. 

The challenge is that customers will likely not come directly to you with a renewal question unless they have some form of complaint, issue, or problem. A renewal discussion often occurs at the right time. There are five primary categories of renewals — based on the date when the existing contract expires –, and each can be handled differently based on the company policy and sales strategy.

For anything you sell (SaaS, recurring billing, etc.), renewal conversations constitute a significant component of any sales strategy. 

One Thing in Common

Salespeople are constantly using different strategies to find leads. This can be limiting, though, since new sales reps may not have the tools they need to find leads. Enter outbound marketing: one of the best tactics you can use to reach leads and generate new business. Using this method, you’ll be able to get prospects and stay on their radar intelligently.

The best salespeople always reach out to their leads and existing customers to stay connected and make sure they’re both happy with the deal they’ve struck. The more they build that relationship, the easier it’ll be to find that next opportunity together – an upgrade, an expansion of services, or a renewal.

Conclusion

Sales, like any other profession, is a game of numbers. Hopefully, you already have your sales machine in place and are starting to see sales trickle in for your product or service. The next step is to build a stronger team to handle these incoming sales and help you reach even higher numbers. Renewals, upsells, and cross-sells are highly effective at achieving this goal.

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Why Your Outbound Sales Sequences Are More Important Than Your Product

Why Your Outbound Sales Sequences Are More Important Than Your Product

Outbound sales sequences are a foundational component of an outbound sales strategy. Think of them as your digital playbooks: you create the structure that guides how your team initiates and closes new business opportunities.

How to Analyze and Improve Your Outbound Sales Sequences

Sales sequences are among the most potent tools that outbound sales teams use to close deals and provide value to potential clients. Sales sequences allow reps to execute predictable, consistent workflows. But not all sales teams are using outbound sales sequences — many still rely on organic email outreach, cold call/cold email, or general best practices. This can result in wasted time, missed opportunities, and unsatisfied customers.

Your Targets Should Be Clear and Defined

Your Targets Should Be Clear and Defined from the Get-Go

Your outbound sales strategy is only as good as your target.

So what makes an outbound sales sequence successful? It all comes down to knowing your target audience. Your target for each sequence should be either a persona, industry or specific company. Once you know who you’re talking to, it’s easier to tailor your messaging and get them excited about using your product. You’ll also be able to create a consistent tone that resonates with them.

If you can’t define your target audience clearly, it’s impossible for any of this to work. If you don’t know who you’re selling to, how will you know how to sell them?

The amount of time and effort you put into your outbound sales sequences depends on who you’re targeting. Your sequence may last longer if you’re targeting a VP-level persona, and you may need to manually touch the lead more often than you would a lower-level persona.

In other words, the more critical your target customer is to your business, the longer your outbound sales sequence should be.  The longer the sequence, the more chances to make an impression on your target customer before they become part of your company.

A/B Testing is Crucial to Success

A/B Testing is Crucial to Success

Do you know how your outbound sales sequences are performing?

If you’re not testing, then you’re flying blind. And we all know that flying blind is a bad idea when trying to land a plane full of passengers!

Why? Because even the best product in the world won’t be able to sell itself if the sales sequence is poorly written and structured.

There’s a reason why the best-selling products don’t use generic email templates: they know that it’s not just about writing copy that’s good enough but also about writing copy that converts.

That’s where A/B testing comes in. By running A/B tests on your emails, you’ll be able to learn what works best for your audience and what doesn’t work at all. You’ll also be able to see which versions are most effective at getting signups or sales from customers who have given their contact information in exchange for information about your product or service.

You might think that having a great product is enough, but if no one knows who you are or what you do—let alone cares—then how will anyone buy from you?

Use the “Right” Mix of Sequences

Use the “Right” Mix of Sequences

As you’re reviewing your sequences, make sure you look at the types of steps involved in your email and call sequences. Some sequences lend themselves to more calls, while others are email-heavy.

But no matter what sequence type you’re reviewing, make sure you have a mix of step types. This is what makes sellers appear authentic and genuine to buyers. And that quality, in turn, ups the likelihood of a response and builds rapport.

When building out your outbound sales sequences, make sure you have a mix of step types.

It’s easy to think that all you need is an email. But if your buyer is expecting a call or LinkedIn message, they’ll be disappointed and annoyed when you don’t deliver on the expectation you set. This will hurt your chances of getting a response and building rapport with the buyer.

So what does it mean to have a good mix of step types?

Let’s say your sequence has three steps: email, call, and LinkedIn touch. If those are your only three steps, it might be time to add something else there! If this is true for you, think about what kinds of calls would work best in this case—maybe two emails followed by two calls? Or perhaps a series of emails followed by one call and then another email?

Consider Adding More Steps to Your Sequences

Consider Adding More Steps to Your Sequences

Yes, you can add another step to your outbound sales sequence.

If you’re following a sequential sales process, you can use the same logic to determine when to add more steps.

The reply rate for each step will tell you how well your target audience is receiving your product and give you insight into where they’re getting hung up. If your first step has a low reply rate, then it’s likely that people aren’t interested in what you have to offer. If the second step has a low reply rate and the third step has a high reply rate, then it’s possible that people are interested but don’t know how they can get started with what you’re offering. And if all three steps have high reply rates, then it means that people are ready to buy!

If you want to increase your sales success rates, try adding another step and see how much impact it has on your overall reply rates.

Note:  It’s easy to feel like you should keep adding steps to your outbound sales sequence. You want to be sure that you’ve exhausted all possible resources, right?

But what if adding another step doesn’t help?

It’s tempting to add another step to your outbound sales sequence because it seems like it could help—and it might! But you also have to consider the cost of doing so.

Every time you add a new step, there are associated costs: time spent creating and refining the content and time spent running A/B tests on the content (if applicable). It increased the cost for each contact who will receive the additional message.

So before you start adding more steps, look at how many contacts are still clicking through from your last step (or from the first step). If their click-through rate is still high, go ahead and tack on an additional step if you think it might help! If their click-through rate has dropped significantly, you can feel confident that you’ve exhausted all resources and won’t see any gains from adding additional steps.

Change the Focus of Your Language

Change the Focus of Your Language

What’s the first thing you think of when you hear “outbound sales?”

If you’re like most people, it’s probably “pushy” or “annoying.” But if that were true, why would we keep doing it? Why would companies spend so much time, energy, and money on outbound sales when all they get in return is a bad rap?

Because it works.

The truth is that inbound sales—when your customers come to you—aren’t enough anymore. With so many options for customers to find what they want (and for them to do it without talking to anyone), it’s no wonder that inbound sales have become less effective than ever before. That’s why outbound sales have taken over: because they work! They get your potential buyers’ attention in ways that other techniques don’t.

The key is not being pushy or annoying; instead, it’s helpful. Your buyer doesn’t care about how great your company is, how many awards you’ve won, or how great your product is. They care about how you can make their job easier and make their business more money.

Do you ever wonder why your outbound sales sequences don’t seem to be as effective as they should be?

It’s not your product. It’s not your salespeople. It’s not even the market.

It’s all about the buyer.

No matter how great those things might be, your buyers aren’t interested in hearing about you or your company. They want to know how you can make their job easier and how you can help their business make more money.

So what does this mean for your sales process? It means that it’s time for an overhaul! You need to start making it about THEM, not YOU, from the very beginning of your outbound sales process until the end.

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4 Tips on How to Get Past The Gatekeepers

4 Tips on How to Get Past the Gatekeepers

If you’re in B2B sales, you’ve probably battled a gatekeeper. They can make or break your sale. This is especially true of B2B mid-market sales. Gatekeepers hold the keys to the kingdom. If they don’t see an opportunity, they can ensure no one else sees it either. That’s why we call them gatekeepers.

Without a doubt, B2Bs hate gatekeepers. They frustrate salespeople and hurt business relationships. The real trick is finding ways to overcome these obstacles. If you’re interested in selling to B2B companies in the future, it’s essential to know how to get around gatekeepers.

4 Ways to Get Past the Gatekeeper

You can’t just pick up the phone and call to accomplish this. Gatekeepers live to prevent salespeople from getting through. Here are four ways to bounce over, under, and around gatekeepers to reach prospects you otherwise couldn’t.

Whether a receptionist or an account manager, a gatekeeper is designed to keep you out. They’re tasked with filtering visitors, calls, and emails from prospects and determining if the person you want to reach will be willing to listen to what you have to say.

Respect the Gatekeeper

#1: R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

A gatekeeper has control over whether or not you can speak with your prospect, but they don’t have to be the end-all-be-all of decision-makers. Most gatekeepers are just doing their job—managing their boss’s schedule and ensuring they don’t get interrupted by unnecessary people.

You can win over gatekeepers by showing them that you value them as an essential part of the process and that you’re not just trying to get past them so you can sell something. You need to have a sense of empathy for their role in the company and understand how much they must be juggling on any given day. That way, when they say no, it won’t feel like a rejection from someone who doesn’t want to hear from you at all—it’ll feel like a rejection from someone who does want to help but just doesn’t have time right now!

#2: Make It Personal.

1. Handwrite a note.

If your prospect is someone who cares about personal touches, this can be an excellent way to break through their defenses.

2. Make an appointment in person.

If you’re able to arrange an in-person meeting, do so! It’ll help show that you’re serious about wanting to have a conversation with them, which can go a long way toward getting past their defenses (and gatekeepers).

3. Send swag!

If your prospect is the type who responds well to gifts or small tokens of appreciation, send them some marketing swag as soon as possible after making contact with their gatekeeper—it’ll help show that you’re serious about wanting them as an account

Changing Your Perspective.

#3: Changing Your Perspective.

Every gatekeeper is a resource. Each of them has access to valuable information. They know where your prospect is, their schedule, phone number, and much more.

You must view each gatekeeper as a resource rather than an obstacle. Viewing each gatekeeper as an obstacle can lead to some frustration if you’re not careful. Asking for the name of someone’s assistant can be an excellent way to get around this problem and make sure you have the right person on the line when you call back.

You should also try to be polite and respectful when dealing with gatekeepers. Remember that they are people too and may be working in an uncomfortable situation themselves (for example, fielding calls from angry customers). Don’t take it out on them just because they’re not letting you through!

If you’re having trouble getting through to someone by phone, try sending them an email instead or following up later in the day when their schedule might be less busy.

Bypass the Gatekeeper.

#4: Bypass the Gatekeeper.

If you have a sales team, they probably spend most of their time on the phone and emailing leads. They may be spending more time doing this than they are selling.

You should be if you’re not using a CRM (customer relationship management) system to track your contacts. But even with a CRM, there are still plenty of people who aren’t using it as effectively as they could be.

Gatekeepers will always exist in some form or another — whether it’s a secretary or someone else who answers the phone or screens your emails — so it’s vital for you to find ways around them if you want to get through to decision-makers

The most effective way to bypass gatekeepers is to invest in sales data. Partner with a B2B data provider, such as Pipeline Signals, to secure your most important prospects’ direct dials and email addresses.

Once you have these contacts, send them an introductory email explaining who you are and why you’re reaching out. If they respond, it’s time to start building rapport and working on establishing a relationship over time.

Another approach is to research your prospective company and find out what their employees are talking about online. Look for groups or communities where they participate and join those groups yourself. This will allow you to engage with them online in a more organic way than sending an email cold call — which could see it as spammy or intrusive (and therefore not read).

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Sales Management sales people sales performance sales pipeline Sales Process sales professionals sales strategy

How to Effectively Manage Objections in Sales Conversations

how to effectively manage objections in sales conversations

Almost every prospect you speak with has sales objections or reasons for not buying your product. If they didn’t have qualms about the price, value, applicability to their situation, or purchasing ability, they would have bought it already.

While dealing with objections is an inevitable aspect of the sales process, it may be a significant stumbling block for moving prospects through the pipeline. Accepting the complaints and sending a breakup email right away may be tempting. If you’re going to be successful, you’ll need to learn how to find and overcome these concerns.

What is a Sales Objection?

Any concern a prospect expresses about a barrier impeding their ability to buy from you is a sales objection — an unambiguous indication that you’ll need to handle more areas of the buying process than you thought.

According to Brett Trainor in an Expert Talk, customer objections are a sign that they don’t grasp your value or your ability to solve their problem. When customers raise objections to a purchase, it’s a sign that they’re interested in what you’re offering. They enquire, demand more information, and express their worries.

Instead of being afraid of sales objections, learn to see them as chances to move your sales process forward.

how to deal with sales objections

How to Deal with Sales Objections

While objections are one of the hardest and more unpleasant aspects of sales, they are not necessarily dead ends. Let’s look at how you can get around these potential stumbling blocks.

Taking care of objections 

Dealing with objections is an inevitable and frustrating part of the sales process. The process entails specific actions and skills that every salesperson should be familiar with. Situational awareness, gathering background knowledge, leading with empathy, and asking intelligent, open-ended questions are just a few.

assessing the situation

Being aware of the situation

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to managing objections that will address all of a prospect’s concerns. You’ll need a good sense of where you are in the sales cycle, the kind of the deal you’re chasing, and your prospect’s demands and interests, among other things.

Understanding the conditions that shape a prospect’s objections is critical to effectively addressing them. As a result, you must retain situational awareness as your talks with a prospect proceed.

Getting a lot of background information

This argument follows the previous one: comprehensive background information informs effective, actionable situational awareness. Investigate your prospect’s company and, to some extent, the prospect themselves.

What are the company’s current challenges? What problems do the prospect’s industry peers regularly have? If you’ve previously worked with similar-sized firms, try to recollect their concerns.

And, in the event of your contact, be aware of their responsibilities. What authority do they have to make decisions? Daily, what areas of the company’s operations do they deal with? What are the most common issues that someone in their job faces?

If you know all of this and more, you’ll be in an excellent position to answer objections gracefully.

sales leadership skills

Empathy in leadership 

Objections are a normal part of the sales process, and they often — if not always — reflect legitimate concerns. When your prospects push back a little, you must avoid being visibly upset and impatient with them.

Every great sales effort starts with empathy. You shouldn’t sell to a prospect solely to make money; you should sell to them because your product or service is the best fit for their problems. As a result, you must always keep their wants and interests in mind.

You may set yourself up to anticipate and effectively answer their objections if you stay on top of their problems and circumstances and approach them with compassion and understanding.

Posing open-ended, thoughtful questions 

Every other element on this list can be bolstered by the capacity to ask meaningful, open-ended questions. If you want to comprehend and effectively resolve the objections raised by your prospects, you need to go to the bottom of their problems.

Asking them meaningful, courteous questions and providing the opportunity to address them thoroughly is an excellent place to start. Avoid queries that can only be answered with a single word, “yes or no,” and don’t be afraid to use silence to your advantage.

There could be more underlying objections that the prospect hasn’t expressed or has merely hinted at. Before you can react successfully, you’ll need to ask open-ended questions to assist you in uncovering all of the objections.

Allow your customers to express themselves. Determine their issues – and put yourself in a position to anticipate their objections.

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Sales Inspiration Sales Management

How Focusing on Clients’ Success Can Pave the Path to Your Own Success

Client Success

Customer success is critical to every company’s progress in modern selling. This strategy is intended to ensure that the client successfully uses the company’s products and services. As a result, customer loyalty and retention improve, churn decreases, renewal sales remain consistent, and the business owner can upsell these accounts.

The distinction between customer service and customer success has recently aroused much debate. Although the two require similar skill sets and objectives, they take distinct methods.

What’s the difference between customer success and customer service?

difference between customer success and customer service

Reactive vs. Proactive Management

Customer service is often “reactive,” meaning that it responds to a customer’s request for assistance or when they contact them with an issue or query. Customer success, meanwhile, is “proactive,” concentrating on assisting clients in identifying and achieving their objectives.

Relationship-Oriented vs. Transactional

The majority of customer service and support contacts are transactional. It starts when a client contacts you and terminates to respond to their request. Customer success, on the other hand, does not have an endpoint. It’s a continuous, dynamic, and persistent focus on enhancing current connections to strengthen the tie between the client and your business.

Key Performance Indicators and Metrics

Customer service metrics are focused on monitoring and improving both the speed and quality of assistance interactions. This level of assessment usually ignores events that occur before or after the support engagement.

On the other hand, customer success is concerned with the beneficial effects that those interactions may have on a happy client, such as improved retention rates, rising repeat purchases, higher lifetime value, and higher upsell or cross-sell rates.

The path to customer success

The path to customer success

Make the client, not your product, the focus.

There’s a reason it’s called customer success. Make it such that you assist clients in achieving their objectives and your product benefits as a result, rather than the other way around. 

You must also be aware of your clients’ journeys. To do so, lead them through their journey from awareness to retention. You must be familiar with your product, including what it can and cannot accomplish. Always make sure that your reaction is in line with their cultural beliefs. Never make a promise you can’t keep. Make sure they know how much you respect their time.

Clients’ perspectives must be taken into account when speaking with them. Avoid sounding excessively professional or bombarding them with jargon. Use their degree of comprehension to communicate. You could think that using templates and prepared replies is a good idea, but clients will notice. As a result, you must leave such replies to automated communications. Also, pay attention to what they’re trying to say. Make your replies and background on your inquiries as precise as possible. You must make every effort to please them.

Keep expectations in check.

The requirement to manage client expectations is inextricably linked to creating an Ideal Customer Profile. Success should not be defined by closing a sale; instead, it should be determined by resolving your clients’ problems. Accounts don’t buy your product; they buy a solution. When they get the result they want, their problem is solved. The question is, what problems are you tackling specifically?

Clients with different issues will demand varying levels of solutions from your product if you don’t narrow down the value proposition. You’ll wind up with many unhappy and furious clients whose issues your product isn’t addressing, and they’ll tell your genuine clients about their bad experiences.

So, how do you keep track of your accounts’ expectations? Of course, by being precise about your value offerings. Don’t be an all-in-one bargain for your clients. Instead, choose your product’s finest qualities and advantages and promote them in your communications.

Ask regularly.

Requesting feedback is standard corporate practice. What’s to stop you? It aids in the development of a clear image of how real people use your product. This is the foundation for making product changes and enhancements before they become serious problems. It also aids in the development of client loyalty.

Customer success, as previously said, takes a proactive approach. You may also apply this to your clients. Inquire about their work and feelings towards your product or service. Maintain an open line of communication and various communication channels so that people may contact you at any time and via their chosen mode.

Assign the right people to the job.

Assign the right people to the job

To increase your bottom line, success management is essential. As a result, it should go without saying that the individuals in charge should be outstanding. They must be able to deal with various situations and communicate effectively with consumers.

At the absolute least, your customer success team members should possess the following characteristics. 

  • Experienced

They must have extensive knowledge and experience in the industry they work in. They’ll provide guidance, answers, and directions, among other things.

  • Great listener

When clients take the time to come to you with a concern, the least you can do is listen. Good customer success people, on the other hand, go beyond that. They pay attention to the issue at hand and recognize the issue they’re experiencing, no matter how minor. This is the most effective technique to deal with their technical and emotional problems.

  • Patient

Early consumers demand a lot of hand-holding and assistance. In addition, they have great expectations. As a result, successful sales teams must be competent in dealing with this. They must be able to lead their clients through the entire process, including the ups and downs, and answer any questions they may have, all the while retaining a calm and polite approach. 

Conclusion

Producing a high-quality product and marketing it to your target market is no longer enough. Clients are more demanding than they have ever been. They won’t settle for anything unless they’re confident the solution they’re investing their money in will work for them. To keep your clients loyal to your business and generate sales, you must be the best match for them. Ensure this by implementing customer success in your business.

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Sales Management

The 5 Components of a Winning Sales Team

As sellers, it’s our responsibility to stay abreast of the latest sales trends and best practices. So when we read the Harvard Business Review article “The Sales Playbook of Successful B2B Teams”, we immediately wanted to share it with you because it really resonated with us.

Right at the onset, the article, which was written by four Bain & Company partners, mentioned one of the most common problems that sales teams face: underutilizing the tools at their disposal.

“Every major B2B company invests millions each year in sales technologies, yet 62% of 167 companies surveyed recently by Bain & Company said the return on their investment fell short of expectations. What companies hoped would be an intelligent CRM system ends up being used as a simple accounting and workflow management system. They’ve bought a high-octane car but lack driver training.”

At Sales for Life, we’ve also encountered a lot of companies with this same problem. Solving it isn’t as easy as it seems. It’s not just a matter of installing the tool on everyone’s computer or browser and enforcing its use. All the technology in your roster should work together seamlessly to achieve your organization’s goals, and there has to be an overarching strategy governing their usage.

The 5 Factors of a Winning Sales Team

Revenue teams need to develop different sales strategies for different occasions. Similar to how sales teams these days use data and statistics to select their players and create training routines and game plays, all of your revenue team’s moves should be based on proven facts instead of relying on gut feel or following what’s popular.

While different revenue teams have different priorities, thus having different strategies, the article’s authors observed that the highest-performing sales teams have certain distinct commonalities. These factors, described below, enable them to surpass their peers in terms of revenue growth and market share gain.

1. Detailed, specific data and sales signals that lend insight into an account’s priorities and spending habits at the individual customer level.

These data should go beyond contact information and surface-level company and financial data. Sellers should likewise know their target accounts’ priorities and goals, ensuring that their communication efforts address these.

Sales reps should also take note of Compelling Event Signals, which are specific, time-sensitive insights and events that can be leveraged to gain a competitive advantage. Compelling Event Signals give sellers a heads-up when there’s a particular situation that the seller can capitalize on, such as the installation of a new C-level executive that used to work at one of your existing customer accounts. If such a Signal comes up, the seller should act fast and play the appropriate sales strategy.

2. A sales play factory that can churn out a variety of plays that can be used for every conceivable occasion: Securing new accounts, upselling and cross-selling to existing accounts, renewing expiring accounts, and winning back former customers.

Selling isn’t a one-size-fits-all scenario. Different customers have different priorities and situations, and they will naturally have different ways of responding (or not responding) to your outreach efforts.

That’s why it’s important to have a selection of various sales plays, ready to be deployed if a particular situation calls for it. By applying a variety of themes, messaging, engagement strategies, your sellers would have a higher likelihood of providing value to your customers during the activation cycle.

3. A command center that tracks and manages sales plays, pushing out the most effective plays to the rest of the team.

In the same way that sports teams analyze their games and continuously refine their strategies and training regimens, sales teams should keep working on their most effective sales plays in a strategic manner, at the same time shelving sales moves that failed to produce favorable results.

In addition, the best sales teams also have a global command center for their sales signals. All their signals are aggregated on one platform, which is easily accessible to the entire revenue team. This way, sellers can take note of the hidden links connecting all the accounts in their total addressable market, allowing them to see the sales opportunities and risks that might be present. When all the information is centralized, they can roll out the best sales plays for any situation.

https://youtu.be/aNJ42H3UtZY

4. Consistent, intensive coaching like what Sales for Life offers, which delves into specific areas of improvement and requires actual results.

Sales training and coaching give your team the knowledge and skills necessary to keep growing and supporting your client base. It also fosters accountability in your sales leaders, allowing them to guide their sellers to produce better results.

Remember, building the best B2B sales team doesn’t just entail hiring the best sellers and investing in the best sales tools. While these could propel your revenue team to the top, you’ll need to invest in regular sales training and coaching in order to stay there for a long time.

5. An array of interconnected sales technology tools that are integrated within your existing sales system and are fully utilized by your whole team.

Even if you have all the best sales tools at your disposal, they wouldn’t make a difference if they are not maximized.

“One software-as-a-service (SaaS) company had invested in technologies for customer relationship management, marketing automation, sales enablement and cadence, and call recording, but it was barely using them. By taking the time to embed these technologies properly into its sales processes, the company was able to increase revenue growth by 200 basis points within a few weeks.”

Conclusion

These five factors are essential for revenue teams that want to succeed in today’s cutthroat sales environment. With these systems in place within your strategy, all the departments within your sales and marketing teams work better with each other.

These five components also allow you to address your customers’ needs efficiently. You’ll be able to provide more value at the right time, benefitting your customers and giving you more opportunities to successfully close a deal.