Archive for category SALES BEST PRACTICES
Creating an Effective Thirty Second Elevator Pitch
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on May 29, 2014
A primary goal of marketing is to create and deliver a consistent message at every point of contact with the target audience. This means that your website, brochures, ads, social media, etc. should all communicate similar strengths, services, and core values to a similar audience in a similar way. Any disconnect across media weakens your brand and confuses the message your firm is trying to send.
This consistency should translate into business development and personal networking practices as well. Imagine that a potential client meets two of your employees at a networking event, and each professional provides a notably different explanation of your firm. It’s likely that the potential client will leave that event confused and unsure of exactly what your firm does. Furthermore, if professionals aren’t trained to communicate the firm message clearly and concisely, they won’t be able to maximize the impact of their time spent networking.
The best way to avoid such pitfalls is by creating a “30 second commercial” (aka “elevator pitch”) for your firm and training employees to use it in their face-to-face interactions with clients and prospects. There are four basic parts of an effective 30 second elevator pitch.
Part 1: The Introduction
The elevator pitch begins with a simple introduction. The introduction should include the professional’s name, firm name, industry classification, and the type of clients served.
Part 2: The Client Pain Points
After introducing yourself and the firm, you must explain why your clients choose to work with you and how your firm satisfies their needs. This is best done by focusing on “pain points,” the common challenges and opportunities your clients need help dealing with. Use powerful words such as anxiety, frustration, pressure, worry, weakness, etc.
Part 3: Differentiation
The goal of the third part of the 30 second commercial is to differentiate your firm from your competitors. Concisely explain what makes your firm different from other companies in the market and why that makes you a better fit for the prospective client.
Part 4: The Call-to-Action
Your elevator pitch should never leave the listener(s) thinking “Okay, now what?” Close your 30 second commercial with an invitation to take another step towards doing business together. Tell the listener exactly what you’d like to do next. The specific action you suggest can differ according to who you’re speaking to and the situation in which you’re speaking, but the important thing is that you provide some sort of next step that will keep the process moving forward.
The End Result
Put all of these pieces together, and you get a short yet informative pitch that includes your firm’s core message and provides a solid foundation for a relationship with the listener:
Is the Paredo Principle Outdated in Sales Operations?
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on May 21, 2014
Sales operations leaders are generally in agreement they can reduce the amount of time sales people spend on non-core-selling activities by eliminating, expediting or automating certain activities. But how do you decide which problems to tackle first? Sales operations leaders often reference the 80/20 rule when prioritizing efficiency improvement efforts.
The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle, is a common rule of thumb in business and states that 80 percent of the effects come from 20 percent of the cause. For example: Eighty percent of our profits come from 20 percent of our customers, or 20 percent of sales reps produce 80 percent of sales revenue. The implication for sales operations is that efforts should focus on identifying and eliminating the 20 percent of activities that are causing 80 percent of wasted time for sales reps.
Research done over the last decade suggests we should take a step beyond 80/20 and apply the 4/50 rule, which states only 4 percent of the business issues cause more than 50 percent of delays, defects, waste, rework and cost. In the case of sales effectiveness, we can dramatically reduce wasted sales time, effort and energy if we can identify and eliminate the 4 percent of activities that consume 50 percent of sales reps’ non-core selling time.
Rather than starting with wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling designs and complex, expensive rollout plans, we can achieve results faster, demonstrate success, drive adoption and make course corrections rapidly at lower cost using the 4/50 rule. This offers an incremental, measurable and manageable approach to improvement projects, which we refer to as small, manageable chunks (SMACs).
Here are a few key principles of the 4/50 rule, also called the “crawl-walk-run” approach:
- Aim for 50 percent reduction in delay, defects or deviation within six months
- Use small focused teams to quickly solve mission- and profit-critical problems
- Use just-in-time training to achieve organizational learning
- Celebrate each successful milestone
- Accelerate broad adoption by demonstrating success with a small group
The last point may appear counterintuitive but has solid grounding in research on group dynamics, which suggests that when 5 percent of a target population adopts a new technique or practice, the change has begun. To the extent sales people experience a successful improvement project, they will continue practicing the technique. Once adoption reaches 20 percent, the change is unstoppable.
An Effective Strategy Equals Winning More Sales
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on May 16, 2014
For the past two decades, business-to-business selling has been conducted in basically the same way. Salespeople directly approach customers armed with facts, features, and the benefits of their products to convince customers to buy. However, customer decision making has changed and today’s buyers are smarter and more sophisticated than ever. In addition, competitors have not sat idly by. They’re focused on defeating you so they have educated themselves about your products and sales tactics.
Sales success today requires a new way of thinking about sales strategy. The question is, what is the right strategy?
In his classic book Strategy, famous military historian Lidell Hart detailed the “indirect” approach to war. In painstaking detail he described the superiority of the indirect strategy over the direct strategy, using examples throughout the history of warfare. He theorized that the outcome of every major war from Roman times through World War II could be attributed to the grand strategy the parties selected. Instead of a brute force direct attack to overwhelm the enemy, the victors always chose to battle indirectly. When forced to fight, the indirect strategy involves using surprise, intelligence, logic, and human nature to exploit the enemy’s weaknesses.
For example, at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC, the smaller Carthaginian army under the command of Hannibal defeated a numerically superior Roman army using the indirect strategy. Hannibal placed his weakest infantryman in the middle of his line to give the impression of vulnerability while positioning his heavy infantryman and cavalry on the flanks. As the battle progressed, his flanks closed in on the surprised Romans and they were vanquished.
Hart argued the indirect approach was not solely a war strategy but also an influential philosophy that could be applied wherever opposition to new ways of thinking exists. He said, “The direct assault of ideas provokes a stubborn resistance, thus intensifying the difficulty of producing a change of outlook.” For example, “The suggestion that there is a bargain to be secured is far more potent than any direct appeal to buy.”
Here are seven principles of the indirect strategy and their business-to-business sales application.
1. Employ psychology. The first and foremost principle is that the indirect strategy is a psychological operation (“psy-op” in military jargon) based upon understanding, predicting, and influencing human nature. In sales, winning requires earning the trust, respect, and friendship of another human being. The victor builds the strongest customer relationship. The secondary psychological goal is to sew doubts among your enemies, because a halfhearted warrior is more than halfway to losing.
2. Plan your overriding strategy. During a long sales cycle of several months or more, it’s easy to focus on individual battles and lose sight of winning the war. The sales cycle is reduced to a series of battles without an overriding grand strategy. Salespeople become fixated on the next customer interaction, proceeding from the initial sales call to the sales presentation, then on to the product demonstration and evaluation. However, all salespeople are like generals who should create a strategy to win their wars long before the first battle begins. The successful military leader preplans how and where he will attack in accordance with the resources at his disposal. The victorious commander achieves his objective through calculated maneuvers to gain the advantage and counter tactics to neutralize his enemy’s advantages.
3. Know your enemies. How well do you know your competitors? How much time do you spend studying their websites, products, and marketing collateral? Do you take the time to perform an honest win-loss analysis after each engagement? Most salespeople argue that they simply don’t have enough time for these types of activities. However, history repeats itself for those who don’t learn from the past.
4. Be the first on the battlefield. As a rule, it is always best to be the first salesperson in an account. The chance to understand a customer’s environment first, establish relationships, and set the criteria for the selection process has obvious advantages. But if you work for an underdog company that competes against industry favorites, being the first on the battlefield is the difference between success and failure.
5. Get privileged information from spies. Nearly twenty-five hundred years ago, Chinese general Sun Tzu wrote about the indirect strategy when he said, “Knowledge of the enemy’s position can only be obtained from other men. Hence, the use of spies.” These words are still true today. In order to win any complex sale you need proprietary information that only a spy can provide. These spies are members of the selection team, other company employees, or business partners. They provide valuable information about the internal machinations of the selection process and inform you about the thoughts of the various selection team members. Without a spy, you never know how well you are positioned in an account or what the enemy’s next move will be.
6. Understand how the objective is organized. All battlefield commanders need location-based information so they can map the way to reach their objective. Similarly, salespeople need a complete understanding of how the evaluators are organized within their company because political power during the decision-making process goes far beyond the lines and titles on an organization chart.
If you are involved in selling an enterprise solution, you already know the importance of understanding the inner workings of the various departments within a company. Your product might be purchased by the information technology department and used by accounting and manufacturing. Therefore, it’s critical to map out the political interrelationships between evaluators and their respective departments of the organization.
7. Create turning points. The indirect strategy is based upon creating turning points which cause enemies to lose momentum they can never regain. Like a battle, every deal has a critical moment, or turning point, that determines the winner and the loser. In sales, information can be used to create turning points which eliminate competitors. Your expertise on the customer’s industry, understanding of best practices, knowledge of unflattering facts about your archrival, and the willingness to raise critical issues the customer is unaware of can be used to create turning points.
For the sales warriors of the business world today, the difference between being hailed as a hero or branded a failure hinges on winning. But in order to win, you must know the steps it takes to develop a winning strategy. Winning is everything in sales as it is in war. In the words of master strategist Napoleon Bonaparte, “Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.”
Effective Sales Training Is All About Timing and Quantity
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on May 7, 2014
For many sales organizations, training salespeople is one of the largest investments made in performance improvement. From the onboarding of new hires to annual training events for the rank and file, billions of dollars are spent each year to improve the skills of employees. In fact, U.S. businesses spent more than $62 billion on training last year.
However, sales training is also one of the most perishable investments a company can make if the learning is not immediately and consistently reinforced. At least two factors conspire against the stickiness of most sales training; the amount of content delivered and the timing of the content being delivered.
Too Much, Too Soon
The sheer volume of content included in many training programs is overwhelming to salespeople. It is expensive to take a sales force out of the field, so sales leaders are motivated to jam a year’s worth of learning into a single event. In order to make the most of the investment, it’s not uncommon to see three, four or even five-day sales conferences where training is the primary activity.
With such a vast amount of information being poured onto the salespeople, it would be literally impossible for sales managers to reinforce all of this content when they return to the field. Realistically, a sales manager should spend much of his time reinforcing a single new behavior, such as call planning or questioning techniques, so it would take a team of full-time coaches to address the content of a five-day training event. As the training agenda deepens, the chance of it sticking diminishes quickly.
When the Calendar Allows
Training is typically done when it is convenient for the calendar. And not necessarily when it is the best time to learn. If the annual sales meeting is in September, then the annual training will probably be in September, too.
Unfortunately, if a new skill is not immediately reinforced, whether through coaching or by actually putting the skill into practice, it begins to erode with frightening speed. Ideally, training is held in close proximity to the need for the skill, not just when it is can be squeezed into the calendar. When a vast amount of information is given to a salesperson that does not immediately use it, the knowledge literally goes into hiding… perhaps never to return.
A Just-In-Time Approach
By looking closely at organizations with world-class sales forces, you’ll discover their approach to training is dramatically different than above. These companies have adopted what could be considered an innovative “Just-In-Time” approach to sales training.
Rather than holding comprehensive training events where a year’s worth of content is dumped onto the sales force, they opted for smaller, more focused sessions where very specific skills were taught. This allowed the salespeople to concentrate on mastering one or two skills before moving on to others.
Also, the training took place in close proximity to when the salespeople would need to use the skills. By providing the learning experience immediately before the sales force was expected to demonstrate the skills, these organizations improved the likelihood that the learning would stick. Train today, use tomorrow, allowing no time to forget.
Lose the Fire Hose
Training should be a large investment for every sales force, but the investment must be protected. A clever approach to avoiding post-training atrophy is to rethink how the training itself is delivered. Specifically, avoid at all costs a fire-hose training event that takes place when the calendar happens to allow for a good dousing.
Instead, deliver bite-sized training to your sales force when the skills are actually needed. If relevant and timely training is provided in easily digestible chunks, salespeople are more able to focus on the new skills and reinforce them through immediate usage. Usage leads to adoption, and adoption leads to improved capabilities, and that leads to a wiser training investment with better sales results.
Sales Situations When You Should Slow Down
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on May 2, 2014
Many sales people are notorious for speaking too quickly and this habit can cost them money in lost sales. Here are 15 critical times sales people should slow down:
1. When opening a telephone call with a new prospect. Most people are not fully engaged when they initially answer a call. The majority or still focused on the task they were working on when the call came through so slow down until you have their full attention.
2. When speaking to someone who is calling from their cell phone. Most cell phone connections are not as clear as a landline so it is important to slow down your conversation to ensure that the other person hears everything.
3. Immediately before you ask for the sale. Many people are nervous asking for the sale. To relieve the stress associated with this, try slowing down and taking a deep breath before asking your prospect for their agreement or commitment.
4. When you begin your sales presentation. Too many sales people race through their sales presentations often due to nervousness. When you slow down before a presentation it gives you the opportunity to collect your thoughts and to think about the key points you need and want to make.
5. Before you respond to a question. Instead of blurting out a quick answer, take a few moments and carefully think about your response. This will help you build credibility and gain your prospect’s respect (providing of course that your answer is appropriate).
6. Before sending an email. One of the biggest time wasters is sending an email and forgetting the attachment. Do yourself a favor and slow down before you press ‘send’. Use this time to make sure your attachment is included and that your email is properly written and free of mistakes, spelling errors (including your prospect’s name!) and grammatical errors.
7. When introducing yourself. Do people ever ask you to repeat your name when you introduce yourself for the first time? If so, you are probably speaking too quickly. Slow down when you state your name so people can hear and understand it the first time.
8. Before you respond to an objection. Avoid the impulse to react quickly to an objection. Objections are not necessarily negative and slowing down before you respond can help you position your solution more effectively.
9. When you notice that you’re speaking too quickly. I often catch myself talking too fast, especially on the telephone and during presentations so I constantly remind myself to slow down.
10. If you feel your emotions getting the better of you. Sometimes people will say something that triggers an emotional response. Slow down before you say anything and prevent your emotions from affecting what you say.
11. When you don’t understand the other person’s perspective. When a prospect or customer references something and you are unclear what they mean, slow down for a moment before forging ahead with the conversation. Ask them what they mean by saying, “Can you clarify that for me?” or “What do you mean?”
12. When writing a sensitive email. If you need to write a sensitive email slow down and carefully choose your words so your message is not misinterpreted. However, I highly suggest that instead of sending an email in these situations, that you pick up the telephone and speak directly to the other person.
13. Before returning a call from a customer or prospect. Make sure that you have all the information necessary for the call before you dial. This includes a list of questions you need to ask if it is a prospect calling about a particular product or service. A few minutes of preparation can make a big difference in your results.
14. When you’re rushed. I realize that this sounds contradictory but here’s the rationale. When you are feeling rushed, you are more apt to make a mistake. So, in these situations, make a concerted effort to slow down, check your work and prevent a mistake from occurring.
15. When you don’t know the answer to a question. Many sales people feel obligated to respond to questions even when they don’t know the answer. Instead of falling prey to this fatal mistake slow down and tell your prospect that you don’t have an answer and that you will get it for them.
Speed isn’t everything especially in sales. You can stand out from many of your competitors by slowing down at opportune times. Great sales people know that slowing down at the right time can improve their sales results. Determine which of the suggestions in this article most apply to you and begin integrating them into your sales approach.
Words To Avoid During Your Sales Presentation
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on April 23, 2014
Needless to say, it’s essential sales professionals are comfortable in their roles, but when comfort turns into complacency language barriers can start to appear.
In sales training what to say to customers and how to say it is covered extensively. These keystone skills are the backbone of any sales career and every good salesperson knows that they need to be constantly sharpened in order to remain effective.
Communication is the sales expert’s main tool. In negotiations a good communicator can make the difference between a non-sale and hearing the words “sold”. When following that age-old advice “ABC – Always Be Closing”, the only way this is possible is by being able to freely and naturally talk to clients and customers.
Becoming too comfortable can be just as much of an issue as being too uptight however, as complacent language has been found to be one of the biggest complaints among customers. Here are the most used words in sales pitches which can turn-off clients in an instant.
Obviously
“Obviously” sounds vague at best and patronizing at worst. If you have to explain something, it probably wasn’t obvious to the client. Dissect your pitch and find out where your explanations could be clearer. If you are using this word just to fill up your sentences, don’t. It’s a messy way to use your speech and off-putting to customers.
No problem at all
Should you find yourself using this tired old phrase fairly often, it’s probably because you feel obliged towards your customers for the job you are carrying out for them. Sales jobs can be challenging and some clients can demand more than others, but in their opinion, what you are doing for them is a part of your job so naturally, it isn’t (or shouldn’t be) a problem. Try to limit this phrase to once a conversation towards the end. Remember: The more you use it, the less genuine it sounds.
To be honest…
Either you’re lying now or you were lying before. Your entire conversation should be genuine and pointing out that you’re being honest only makes you sound dishonest. Honestly.
Erm
“Erm”, “Umm” and “Ahh…” are all noises a client hates to hear. Filling up the spaces in your pitch with background thinking sounds is unprofessional and can be very off-putting. The worst thing is the more you say it, the less you realize how prevalent it is in conversation. Practice confidence skills in telephone and one two one conversational situations and learn that short, snappy sentences and silent pauses sound so much better than a long thread of unbroken speech.
Basically
Many of the things said in a sales pitch might be simple for the salesperson to understand, but especially in cold calling this might be the first time the customer or client has heard of anything like what you’re proposing. “Basically” is often used wrongly in place of more helpful terms like “in other words” or “to put it another way” by well-meaning sales professionals. Unfortunately the word itself can sound like quite a put-down, especially when twinned with a confident attitude and pushy manner. Your customers are not stupid, so don’t treat them as such!
All of these words and phrases can easily be substituted and omitted from sales pitches and conversations, so there really is no excuse to be breaking the rules laid out here. All salespeople should be enthusiastic about providing the best services to their clients and this relationship starts from the very first phone call. Cut these know-it-all phrases out and see what a difference it makes to your sales figures!
Are Your Sales Suffering Because You’ve Picked The Worst Times To Contact Prospects?
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on April 16, 2014
In the digital age, more and more communication takes place via email and text messaging, but a person-to-person conversation is still the most engaging way to contact a prospect and convert him into a customer. If your sales are down, perhaps you should reconsider your timing and preparation for making contacts.
Why Cold Calling Still Works
Cold calling, contacting someone you don’t already to know, is one of the most effective ways to make a business connection because it’s so direct and personal. Note, however, that once the conversation begins, you only have about 20 seconds to launch a great first impression.
Your prospect’s reaction is decided in moments and you’ll likely be able to gauge by the end of the call whether the prospect is warm or cold. On the other hand, a marketing email or campaign piece, though effective and compellingly well-written, is less personal and once mailed, is beyond your control; it may not even be opened and read for days (or never), and even if opened, you may not get a response.
Cold Call Timing
Research has shown that the best time to contact a prospect is between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. and between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. Calling at these times catches the prospect first thing in the morning when his mind is fresh and he has not yet become too involved in the workday. Likewise, at the end of the day, he is winding down and preparing to relax and therefore may be more receptive to a call that could help him with tomorrow’s work.
The worst time to call a prospect is between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m. when he is returning from lunch and energy is at its lowest point of the day. The best weekday to call is Thursday, followed by Tuesday then Wednesday. On Thursday, the week is nearly over and minds are beginning to focus on the weekend. Fridays and Mondays are the worst days to contact prospects as these are the least productive days of the work week.
Peak Interest Timing
Additionally, Stride’s analysis of response metrics has revealed another optimum time for contacting prospects. Stride had a set time in the a.m. for contacting prospects after collecting their opt-in responses to their email drip but discovered the open rate for these email contacts was very low. Changing the strategy to contacting prospects within 30 minutes of receiving their opt-in address dramatically increased open rates.
Calling prospects within half an hour of demonstrated interest in your business is the optimum time for you to close sales. While interest is fresh in their minds, they are much more likely to be open to engagement, as opposed to say calling the next day, when they have already forgotten what you’ve spoken about.
Achieving Positive Results
According to research done by Forbes, businesses lose 46 hours and 53 minutes before they pick up the phone and call a lead and only make 1.3 call attempts before abandoning the lead and moving on to the next. These are warm opportunities lost from prospects who have already shown interest.
Rather than engage the lead while interest is high, businesses allow the lead to languish and then don’t do enough to follow through and establish contact. Following up within 30 minutes, as Stride discovered, may be seen as positive and responsive by the prospect and direct the path toward closing a sale.
To increase your conversion rates, take steps to improve the quality and effectiveness of your sales calls and make them during the optimum contact hours. Research your prospect in advance and find out as much as you can about his organization and needs.
Get a working understanding of the industry and determine specific and viable solutions you can offer to resolve actual challenges. Your prospect may appreciate your knowledge and be more receptive to an approach tailored to real needs than a canned, generic sales pitch.
Speak naturally and never read from a script; it always sounds practiced and insincere. Once you’ve engaged your prospect in conversation, take good notes and review them immediately afterward to ensure you capture the pertinent issues while the conversation is still fresh in your mind. Pay attention to your prospect’s responses and listen more than talk. When you follow up, you will have your notes to remind you of what you discussed.
Success Metrics
To measure your success rate, track all metrics on your sales calls, including the number of calls you make, the time of day and day of the week you called, whether you actually spoke with the prospect or left a message, the length of your conversation, level of engagement and number of sales closed. Analyze your results over time and look for correlations between metrics. This will give you valuable information for adjusting your timing and increasing your conversion rates.
Reconsidering the times you make your sales calls and really knowing and understanding your client’s industry and needs can contribute to helping you close more sales. It’s all a matter of research and timing.
This article was originally posted to the PointClear Blog by Mike Kamo on April 10, 2014.
The Most Critical Skills in Sales
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on April 3, 2014
Sales teams have multiple responsibilities over the course of their workdays, and it is inevitable that many of these tasks pose a significant challenge. Seeking out new leads, hustling between prospects and clients and attending meetings with marketing and management can get overwhelming. Because time management is integral to the success of a sales team, how can one better manage?
Tips for Time Management
Managing time can become an ingrained habit that can produce amazing sales results. In order to boost productivity, different methods can help sales teams best manage their time.
Delegate lead generation: Finding leads is part of a sales professional’s job. Simultaneously, it’s important not to spend all time and resources searching for new leads and ignoring the leads that may turn into valuable customers. A wise decision is to ask existing customers for referrals. This way, a salesperson can obtain leads who have heard about the company’s product from a loyal customer. The sales team is not neglecting current leads and still saving time and energy hunting for new leads.
Allot time: Before starting on a task, a sales person should decipher when the best time is to complete an appropriate project. When do customers like to be contacted? When are prospects more willing to talk? When do you need to have the proposal finalized? If sales professionals answer these types of questions prior to their work days, they will decide times most fitting to carry out each task, which will organize their daily schedules.
Log activity: To stay better organized, sales representatives should log their activity as it occurs. This decreases the chances of forgetting who they spoke to, who they tried to call but failed to reach, who asked them to call back later and who gave a positive response. By the end of the day, the sales professional will know where he/she stands. Rather than trying to remember all of the activities from the previous day, work the next day will be much simpler and enjoyable.
Tips for Lead Management
While managing time is imperative for salespeople, an important aspect of time management is lead management. How does a sales professional improve lead management so leads are not wasted or contacted before they are ready? Although there is not one, fixed process that works across sectors and industries, a lead management system is valuable for any sales team. The following tips will make organizing leads and following up on them a less daunting task.
Know your buyer profile: Before contacting leads, sales representatives must know who their ideal buyer is. Knowing the characteristics of their potential buyers will help salespeople work toward capturing the right customers.
Nurture leads that are not ready: Some leads may fit a sales representative’s buyer profile, but are not yet willing to buy. These prospects need to be nurtured by a structured nurturing solution. Not all nurturing processes are alike, but they should include the same types of goals: Build a relationship with prospects and try to gain a deeper understanding of their needs. Through smaller interactions, sales representatives should keep their company’s brand at the top of the prospects’ minds. Eventually, the buyers will open up about what the sales person can do for them.
Follow up: In sales, following up is crucial. Once a connection is made, sales professionals need to continue targeting those leads so they are aware of the prospect’s status: Did the potential buyer receive information they requested? Did they have a chance to think about a purchase? Do they have any new issues that the sales professional can take care of? Without a follow up, a potential sale and loyal customer could be abandoned.
Track and report: A tracking and reporting system makes it convenient for sales managers to log calls and stay up to date about the position of potential buyers. With a prospecting process, sales managers know exactly when a connection was made, whether a conversation took place or if the sales representatives left a message. By staying organized with a prospecting system, sales managers are using an efficient way to help facilitate the human touch.
This article was originally posted to the Sales & Marketing Management Blog by Bill Johnson on March 17, 2014
How to Cultivate and Harvest Your Leads Effectively
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on March 26, 2014
Businesses often set aside a large budget to generate leads. But they don’t follow up with enough eagerness, vigor or persistence. That’s lead waste, and it’s preventable.
Consider a farmer who has gone to the trouble of tilling his soil and planting, watering and fertilizing his crops, but come harvest time, neglects to pick the crops. After all that time, energy and money, the produce is dead on the vine.
No business owner wants to be that farmer, which is why it’s so important to eliminate lead waste. Evaluate your processes and sales strategies to ensure that not only are you harvesting new leads, but you’re also cultivating them in ways likely to convert them to sales and long-term customers.
The Causes of Lead Waste
You may be losing money and opportunities simply because there is no efficient system in place for following up on leads. Re-evaluating your processes could reveal ways to make more meaningful and lucrative connections with prospects.
Poor communication between departments can result in lost leads. For example, marketing teams are often expected to generate interested customers, while sales teams are expected to convert them. This multi-department process can cause miscommunication, accountability problems and finger-pointing — not to mention wasted budget dollars.
Leads need to be nurtured and encouraged to opt-in — not just by well-crafted automated emails. Phone calls or in-person meetings will provide you with far more information about where prospects stand on your offers, what their financial circumstances are, and what might be needed to convert them into paying customers.
Assessing Lead Waste
It’s smart to establish incentives for your sales team to go after shiny new leads, but don’t forget about existing contacts. Look at how you’re doing with customers you’ve already brought in. This can tell you a lot about where you’re falling short and likely losing money.
Simple reports from your customer relationship management system (CRM) can highlight lead waste in the following areas:
- Leads with no activity
- Leads with no activity in last X days
- Leads with no future activity set
- Lead inquiry date to first lead activity date
Another option is to run reports on the number of inquiries in the past month, the number of introductory meetings based on those inquiries, and the number of opportunities created. Use this information to develop a strategy for gaining traction on lapsed leads.
Preventing Lead Waste
Now that you’ve raked out lead waste, you can work on yielding more sales than before. Here are four ways to do so:
- Establish a clear process to assign, manage and track leads. Make sure there’s a backup plan for every process. Don’t let the system break if one person doesn’t follow up with a contact.
- Research industry metrics and set realistic goals for lead creation and conversion rates.
- Make sure sales and marketing are aligned and playing nicely. Streamline their communication processes and clean house when it needs to be done. If something doesn’t work, say so, and fix it. Avoid finger-pointing.
- Allow for an amnesty period during which everyone who committed a lead-related sin gets a do-over.
Slow Down and Smell the Revenue
Nobody’s suggesting you turn off the faucet for new leads in order to revisit existing leads; you need to do both. Consider splitting your teams in two:
- New/active leads team
- Older/reinvigorating leads team
This division of duty can lend focus to your sales team and ensure that every type of lead is being touched or revisited regularly. And if anyone’s ever suggested that nurturing email marketing is good enough, I can tell you firsthand that it’s not. Our company has made millions in revenue running inside sales campaigns behind failed email-only campaigns.
Before you tell your sales team to chase those new leads, stop and see what actually makes sense. Are you converting when you bring in leads? If not, why? When it comes to marketing, get your people in the habit of having live conversations with prospects. Follow-up based on accurate intelligence gets leads unstuck.
Most importantly, consult your books. The numbers will show how well you’re doing with leads. If the bottom line stinks, it’s time to rethink your approach.
This article was originally posted on the Sales & Marketing Management blog by Steve Hayes on March 13, 2014.
Is your Sales Process Fresh?
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on March 12, 2014
One of the most devastating conditions to a seasoned veteran sales person is the onset of complacency. This can occur anytime is a sales person’s career. But usually it follows a period of repeated success or recognition of achievement. It’s easy to fall victim, and easier to not recognize it’s happened. The best way to avoid such a situation having an impact on continued success is to be constantly looking for means of improvement. The best place to start is a regular review of your sales process.
As a professional sales person, you know the value of having a sales process or strategy which must be followed to be successful. In developing an effective strategy, it’s often helpful to look at the progression of the sales process as relates to your particular business or service. By reviewing the specific aspects of each step in the process, you can determine an effective method to apply. When you break the sales process down into specific steps, you can often improve your sales results by focusing on areas where you feel you may be weak.
Prospecting – The first part of the sales process is looking for promising leads which can bring you a sale. This can include cold calling and leads generated by referrals. Prospecting is not limited to the phone. This can be done via email or in person.
Appointment Setting – Once you have made the initial contact with the prospective client the next part of the sales process is to set an appointment with the client. It is always preferable to have an in-person appointment. If this is not possible, a phone appointment is acceptable, but you should try to turn it into a face-to-face meeting with the potential client.
Qualifying – The goal of qualifying the prospective client during the sales process is to make sure the client has a need for your product or service, is interested in buying your product or service, and, most importantly is in a position to buy. Part of the qualifying process is to make sure you are talking to the person who can actually make the decision to purchase your product or service.
Presenting – The presentation is undoubtedly the most important part of the sales process. It’s important you be prepared. This includes knowing your product and service inside and out. It also includes knowing the needs of the customer inside and out. You need to make sure your presentation is professional, interesting and relevant to the needs of the prospective client. Try to make your presentation interactive and fun. Make use of different media to keep it interesting. Don’t read your information, but have it memorized and present in a natural manner. Handouts should be relevant, fresh and simple.
Answering Questions and Resolving Concerns – As perfect as your presentation may be, the client is bound to have some questions. This may be one of the more difficult parts of the sales process. Many sales are lost when a sales person is not able to satisfactorily answer objections posed by the prospective client. If you’re not prepared, you may very likely not get the sale. If you are prepared, it makes your product or service look good, it makes your company look good, and it makes you look professional.
Closing – In this part of the sales process, you have completed your presentation and answered all questions and concerns. Now you ask for the sale. Many sales people skip this part of the sales process thinking that the presentation is the same as asking. You must directly ask the client to buy your product or service. You don’t go through the whole process and expect the client to stand up and yell “I’ll take it!” You need offer them the opportunity to buy.
Referrals – After the success of the sale, you feel good and, very often, the customer feels good too. This is the perfect time to ask for referrals. The client may know of other companies or individuals who would be interested in your product or service. Once you have the referrals, the sales process starts again with a new client.
It is important to have a sales process to follow. The sales process will help you to stay on track, keep focused and will allow you to break down each step you take that leads to the sale. Breaking the process down will allow you to make changes and adjustments in any of the stages where you might be able to improve. Reviewing your process and making necessary adjustments regularly will help you to avoid complacency in your activities and keep you on the path to continued success.
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