Posts Tagged Successful Selling
Looking to Accelerate Sales? Get Back to the Basics!
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION on October 1, 2012
Feeling frustrated about your current sales results? Trying to accelerate sales can be tough, especially when the economy isn’t doing so well, but it’s not impossible. You don’t have to come up with a completely new game plan to accelerate sales. By sticking to these proven basic simple sales strategies you can increase sales:
Sell “Value”: Focusing your sales pitches on short term value helps people justify buying what you are offering, even in an economic climate of decline. Trying to market a product or service that isn’t necessary in a time when people are trying to cut costs is incredibly difficult. A product or service that offers more immediate value, however, is a lot easier to sell. Make sure your value is expressed in the terms that your target audience uses to describe their business issues and business goals.
Become a Resource: Building trust is key to accelerating sales, especially in a down economy. If you can be a source of valuable information and content, your prospects trust in you will increase. Developing trust and relationships with your prospects will greatly increase the likelihood of a sale. Trust can be built through credibility generated from publishing relevant content, being active and helpful using social media, networking and generating referrals, giving impactful referrals, along with many other non-traditional sales activities.
Personalize: Instead of relying on mass email newsletters, mailing campaigns, or newsletters add an element of personalization to your interactions with prospects. A brief phone call from a sales person could be the key to landing a sale. Personalized contact allows prospects to go from seeing you as a faceless organization to seeing your sales team and company as real people.
Follow Through: Sometimes prospects don’t convert to sales the first, second, or third time you reach out to them, and it can be easy to let these prospects disappear from your radar. Lead nurturing emails, a phone call, or any other way of interacting with your prospects keeps you in front of them and increases your chances of moving forward with the sale. Make sure you set up your sales process in your CRM to allow for regular and value added re-connecting touches with your contacts.
Qualify Your Leads: There are a lot of ways to qualify your leads, but the bottom line is that working with qualified leads saves time, and ultimately increases your campaign ROI. Instead of wasting your top salespersons time with cold calling to unqualified leads, find a way to bring them leads with a higher chance of converting to sales.
It’s the basic and consistent blocking and tackling in sales which yields results. If you do nothing else, keep your focus on these five strategies and you’ll have a much better chance of achieving your goals.
.
.
.
The Value of “You” in the Sales Process
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION on September 28, 2012
Any sales professional today will agree customers are smarter than ever. They’re doing their homework aided in full by the internet and the social media. The big question now is: How has your “sales pitch” changed to keep up with your customers and the changing sales environment?
The term “sales pitch” invokes the image of a hard sell. But in this context, a sales pitch is short for the story you tell. A good sales pitch is one you tailored to your customer’s needs and helped to differentiate your offering from the competition. But today, because customers are educating themselves on your products and those of your competitors through the internet and conversations with other customers, the product knowledge gap you filled in the past is getting smaller.
Sure, you have to talk about your capabilities, but the how and when of such a dialogue has changed. Nothing will ever reduce the need for you to understand your products and your customers’ needs. As a matter of fact, you need an even a deeper understanding of both. Beyond that though, you must bring more to your customers than the ability to differentiate your capabilities. Customers expect you to be more proactive and more creative in solving their business issues.
What you bring as you – the value you add to helping customers meet their business objectives, your ability to help them see a broader perspective – is as important, often more important, than what your products will do for them.
Lately, there has been a focus on the need for salespeople to increase their business acumen — and rightly so. Customers expect you to engage them in broader business dialogues, and that demands business acumen. The internet and training resources can help you build business acumen. But one of the best seminars on earth is your customer’s office. Take advantage of your customer’s knowledge. Don’t shy away from asking broader, more strategic questions. If you are prepared and it is a value-based give and take, customers will share knowledge with you. Ask questions to understand how your customers see their business and what they want to achieve. Not only will you be better positioned to customize a winning solution, but you’ll learn from the exchange and be smarter for this customer and the ones after. The successful call is one in which both you and the customer learn something.
Customers value industry knowledge. They value competitive data. They value research and metrics. They value being helped to broaden their perspective. Customers’ product knowledge gaps are getting smaller and smaller, but the areas where you can provide value have changed and expanded. When your product capabilities are framed with what customers’ value, they will reward you for it.
After your next call, ask yourself what you learned that broadened your knowledge and built your business acumen. Make this as important as what your customers learned from you. Together you will build winning solutions.
.
.
.
This article was originally posted to the Richardson Sales Training Blog on September 28, 2011
.
.
.
Does Your Sales Dashboard Have The Right Indicators?
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION, SALES LEADERSHIP on September 20, 2012
The idea of a sales dashboard is appealing. What business manager wouldn’t like to run their company like a well-oiled machine, with the help of a few select indicators? But in practice, it is ironically the choice of these indicators which can stall the effectiveness of the sales dashboard…
Every company is certainly different, and it goes without saying an industrial equipment maker cannot manage its sales process (for example) like a travel agency, or a service provider. However, here’s some tips on zeroing in on the right indicator can be helpful in the majority of situations.
Choose indicators which are useful throughout the sales process – As the saying goes, you shouldn’t count your chickens until they hatch. Nevertheless, you want to manage your sales process continuously, not just once a quarter. It’s important to avoid indicators which only become meaningful at the end. For example, “Actual/Projected sales” is more useful when compared to its historical average at that stage of the quarter.
Be selective – you start with the laudable intention to stick to the essentials, but find yourself a few months later with a computer screen that looks more like a spacecraft cockpit than the clear-cut dashboard of your dreams. To be more selective, ask yourself this question before adding another indicator to your sales dashboard: is it directly related to what your company is trying to achieve (i.e. prospects progressing along your pipeline), or is it merely informative?
Choose actionable indicators – avoid indicators which look sexy but don’t bring anything tangible to the table. A traditional indicator that clearly points you in the right direction is better than a “sophisticated” one which needs to be explained to everyone and even leaves you scratching your head.
Favor dynamic indicators – one which measures a sales team’s progress. A static indicator only measures an activity. For example, “Number of leads qualified/Week” is a dynamic indicator, while on the same subject “Number of qualification calls/Week” is a static indicator. From this example we can infer that a dynamic indicator is naturally outward-looking (i.e. focused on prospect dynamics) while a static indicator is often inward-looking (i.e. concerned with your team’s processes).
Beware of environmental indicators – those which are focused on your company’s environment (e.g. “Number of RFPs in my sector”) are most certainly outward-looking. Yet, do they belong on your sales dashboard? Not especially. You’re interested in your company’s performance, which only indirectly depends on its environment. Environmental indicators are rarely actionable, unless you are matching them to a triggering threshold. For example, you could decide to re-contact your existing client base systematically when the number of RFPs in your sector falls below a threshold of ten per month.
Certainly there are others, more specific to your particular situation. The objective here is to give you a starting point. Get you thinking about what’s key to steer your sales process to success. As always I’m interested in what you think and what you’ve found to be effective in your sales dashboard. I invite your comments, ideas and suggestions.
.
.
.
Key Ingredients of a Successful Salesperson
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION on September 14, 2012
As a salesperson, your goals are to become as personally and professionally successful as possible. Successful salespeople have a true commitment to their company, products or services but more importantly, have an unwavering commitment first to their customers and then to themselves.
Here are some ideas, when put into practice, will help you to become a more successful salesperson.
Plan your day the night before – it’s safe to assume that if you don’t plan your day the night before, then when you arrive at your office you’ll be more apt to spend much of your time reacting instead of acting. You might be able to sleep better at night knowing that you have a plan in place and ready to go before you hit your desk. More importantly, it will be much easier for you to avoid distractions that will keep you away from achieving your goals.
What to do with your day after you’ve planned it – seems like an easy answer but can you effectively manage your day if you can’t manage your time? Time management is essential. In the world of business, no matter how successful one becomes, time is one thing that there is not enough of. All of the successful salespeople that I’ve worked with practiced disciplined time management and they spent the majority of their time on tasks that made them money and little time on things that were a waste of time.
Research and read every day – the importance of reading and researching your market every day cannot be overstated. I read the online version of my local newspaper, along with a handful of national news services, and I pay particular attention to each business section. There are opportunities that present themselves in companies who both rise and fall and when you read between the lines, your product or service might provide a solution that’s at the right time and place.
Do your homework before you pick up the phone – like reading daily, it is equally important to research the company and individual who you are about to speak with. Thanks to Google, you can find out as much about a company, their products, services and the prospect you are about to speak with as you want and you just might uncover a clue or two that will help you to break the ice before moving to your sales pitch.
Conscious repetition – do you use the same old cookie cutter opening statement every time you contact a prospect or do you mix and match your delivery to fit who you are calling? The oil and gas company your about to call has a much different corporate culture than does the medical instrument manufacturer who is next up in your call rotation. Each prospective customer is a different animal so you need to tailor your message that speaks to their needs and not yours.
Are you in a “helping” or “selling” mode?- most salespeople have adopted the principles of ‘sell’ and ‘close’ because that’s the way they’ve been trained. When you approach a prospect over the phone or in person with this mind-set, there is a high probability that s/he will be able to sense your intentions. When s/he does, it won’t make any difference what you are selling and at what price point, you’ll be out the door as quickly as you came in. Think of changing your thought process to “how can I help this person” and see what a difference it makes in your close ratio.
Don’t look and sound like your competitors – before you meet face-to-face with a prospective customer, you’ve uncovered some ‘buying signals’ that suggest your prospect is interested in learning more about your products and services. Let’s assume that there will be other competitors that will be invited to the table vying for the same piece of business. If all of you are pitching the same value propositions such as “We’re the biggest and best”, “We’ve been in business for 20 years”, “We’re the leaders in our space”, then your prospect has no other alternative than to choose one of you based upon price. Avoid this situation at all costs!
Build relationships across the customer organization – if you want to get a leg up on your competition and close more sales you must develop a business relationship with both the decision-maker as well as others who the decision-maker is directly or indirectly connected with. Successful salespeople never are satisfied with just one point-of-contact within an organization and are continually look for ways to build relationships and credibility with other members of the network.
Endeavor to develop your business and personal skills – when was the last time you ran into Joe the sales ‘expert’? Joe has tons of experience and knows his product inside and out. In spite of this, many of the Joes of this world consistently under-perform because they do nothing to expand their skill set or learn anything new. When was the last time you ran into a Joe who is now working for another company? Joe “left” that company because he was passed over by a more successful salesperson who consistently sharpened his axe (business and personal skill set).
Following up with customers – there are some salespeople who are great at staying in touch during the sales process but virtually never ‘check in’ with you after the sale is closed. They’ll be happy to include you in an email blast (this is called a shot gun approach or ‘trolling for leads’) but can’t quite find the time to pick up the phone and ask you how your event went. Successful salespeople understand that the customer/salesperson relationship doesn’t end with the closing of the sale. Following up with customers will ensure a higher level of satisfaction, generate repeat business, and foster relationships that may turn into referrals.
Make one more sales call before you turn out the lights – we all have good call days and bad call days. When you’ve heard your fill of “No thanks” then make it a point to make at least one more call or keep calling until you get a “Yes” before you call it a night. It will do wonders for your psyche and may move you that much closer to making your quota.
.
.
.
This article was originally posted by Tom Costello on the iGroupAdvisors blog July 12, 2012
.
.
.
Five winning strategies of the world’s top sales organizations
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION, SALES LEADERSHIP on September 12, 2012
The team at McKinsey and Company evaluated the results of over 700 sales projects and identified the companies that consistently delivered industry-leading sales performance, that is companies which grew their revenues an average of 48% faster and their EBITA 80% faster than their peer groups over a five year period.
What were their common characteristics? It turns out that size, geography and what they sold had little effect on performance. It was how they sold which drove the differences.
Here are the five common strategies which McKinsey determined characterized the top performers:
They found growth where their competitors could not. Top-performing sales organizations tended to both look far ahead – an average of 10 quarters – and uncover growth opportunities in the near term. Perhaps most telling, top performing sales organizations practiced micro-segmentation. They divided their potential markets into as many as 100 or more cells and identified areas where significant growth potential existed even when the overall market growth appeared slow or stagnant.
Key take-away: take a look at your current approach to market segmentation and targeting. Are you looking at a sufficiently granular level to identify the pockets of segment-leading growth potential?
They sold the way their customers wanted to buy. There’s no excuse any more for basing your sales process and sales pipeline stages around sales activities, rather than stages in the buying decision process, and the results of the top sales performers validate this strategy. In a striking validation of the “Challenger Sale” philosophy, McKinsey also pointed out that top performers focused their attention on the prospects for which they had something original to offer.
Key take-away: even if it means dramatically restructuring the way you manage your marketing and sales processes and pipelines, you must refocus your efforts on understanding, tracking and facilitating your prospect’s buying decision process.
They freed up their sales people to sell. Sales people in the top-performing sales organizations tended to spend far more of their time on customer-facing front-line sales activities rather than wasteful back office administration, and it’s no accident that these organizations used technology and process as key weapons to make their sales people more productive.
Key take-away: look carefully at what your sales people are currently spending their time doing, and systematically eliminate or offload any tasks that are not directly contributing to the customer sales experience.
They focused on developing their people. The top-performing sales organizations not only recruited thoughtfully, they also implemented induction programmers that served to turn “rookies into rainmakers” far faster and more effectively than their competitors. They established a tempo for reporting and targeted intervention that helped the sales people with potential to realize that potential faster. They inoculated the whole sales organization with the winning habits of their top performers, and they refused to leave new hires to “sink or swim”.
Key take-away: the consequences of making a bad hire are horribly expensive. First, make sure that you recruit for attitude and not just experience. Then, involve every new hire in a carefully crafted skills transfer, induction and mentoring program.
They expected exceptional performance. The top performing sales organizations drove growth from the top. They set stretching targets, challenged the status quo, established role models, and created a culture that expected results. The pains they took to equip their sales people to be successful were balanced with the expectation that their sales people would succeed, and persistent poor performance was constructively addressed.
Key take-away: if you have taken pains to establish a winning environment (and only if you have), and invested in recruiting and developing the right team, it is reasonable to expect your sales people to rise to the challenge.
So there you have it: five winning strategies which have driven exceptional results for the organizations that have put them into practice. Together, they make a smarter approach to accelerating revenue growth. It should be noted: none of these winning habits require huge budgets or large staffs. All they require is smart thinking, focus, discipline and willpower. So if your organization hasn’t yet put every one of these principles into practice, what’s holding you back?
.
.
.
This article was originally posted by Bob Apollo in the Inflexion Point Blog on June 12, 2012
.
.
.
Active listening – a forgotten key to sales success
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION on September 5, 2012
When talking about sales skills, the first thing that comes to mind for many is asking questions. Asking questions, however, is not one-way. Often the best questions are ones that build on prior statements – resulting in a sales call that resembles a business conversation with a smooth flow between those participating.
This necessitates the sales person not only hearing what the customer says but actually listening to what’s been said. And, the customer must know you have listened. This means listening isn’t a passive activity – it’s an active sport. What do we know about listening?
Remember the old adage – “in one ear and out the other.” Unfortunately this is one of those cases where the old adage rings true. Research tells us that after listening to someone talk, immediately after you only remember ½ of what was said. And after 8 hours, you only remember ½ of that!
This means sales people need to follow the “100 Percent Rule” – sales people must take 100% of the responsibility for making sure the customer understands them. And take 100% of the responsibility for understanding what the customer says. Let’s explore seven best practices for getting that right:
1. Test Understanding. “That’s a need I haven’t heard you talk about. Before we move on could you just tell me more about …” Testing understanding invites the customer to continue to discuss or explain so you can achieve a more comprehensive understanding of their needs and opportunities.
2. Summarize What the Customer Says. Summarizing is a great way for sales people to demonstrate they understand what the customer’s saying. “From what you have said it sounds like your major concern with the existing support could be summarized this way …” Summarizing restates what the customer said in a way that demonstrates understanding. Here, it is important to distinguish Summarizing from “parroting” – the latter being a bad idea. Summarizing paraphrases only the essentials and is stated in your words.
3. Build Support. “That’s an interesting point – might there be other reasons for building that into the equation? For example, we’ve found in a similar case that …” Building support reinforces or extends the customer’s support or agreement by applying what you have learned from a previous experience or by suggesting its application to a new situation. In a business development conversation it can provide a proactive approach against competitive action and can provide additional answer to the question – Why us?
4. Take Notes. You can listen four to five times faster than someone can talk so use the time to evaluate what is being said and take notes. Do it in a transparent way because it indicates you are interested in what the customer is saying. One unintended outcome from talking notes is often the more notes you take, the more the customer will share. And, of course, by taking notes you’re more likely to recall what was said and what commitments were made
5. Evaluate the Entire Conversation. It is important to not only listen to what is being said, but also to listen to how it is being said, and to what is not being said. Qualifiers or evasive language is informative and the absence of information about a particular issue can be an important signal for future action.
6. Tune into High Fidelity Situations. Sometimes it is important to turn up the volume. When topics enter the conversation such as: new challenges, high risk issues, or key decision criteria, it is time to up your game. Plus it’s a good time to pay attention to non-verbal communication.
7. Be On the Same Page. It’s always a good idea to remember that a good sales call is all about keeping your eye on the customer. A classic trap is doing a really good job in talking about the wrong thing. This means periodically asking and really listening to the response as to whether the topic under discussion is a priority for the customer. If the answer is no – it’s time to change topics.
.
.
.
Originally posted by Richard Ruff, on the Sales Training Connection – September 16, 2011
.
.
.
Leveraging Social Media for Your Offline Business
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION on September 2, 2012
Social media is important for all businesses, whether they are bricks and mortar businesses or online Internet-based businesses. There are many offline businesses that can effectively leverage social media to strengthen and grow their businesses in creative and effective ways.
Many of the popular social media websites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google +, and Foursquare are capable of engaging local customers, increasing the popularity of your business and boosting your sales. There are many ways that an offline business can use social media to its advantage:
- Exciting and high-quality online presence: Once you have created profiles on the various social media websites, you need to update them on a regular basis. You should pay close attention to comments from your customers so that you can respond to them, publish new and interesting content, and continue to form new relationships and maintain existing ones. The more you update the status of your different social media, the stronger your business’s reputation will be.
- Get the whole company involved: If you have a staff, allow them a certain amount of time during their workday to post updates on your business’s social media websites. This is an excellent morale booster and your staff’s involvement will strengthen your marketing effort and increase your business’s online exposure.
- Social integration: Ask people to “like” your offline business on Facebook and follow your offline business on Twitter. You can then promote the social integration on your business receipts, signs and invoices so that your existing customers will want to jump on the social media train as well. You can also ask your customers to check in to Foursquare or one of the other geo-location applications once they arrive in the general proximity of your store offering them special promotions enticing them come in.
- Scope out the competition: Depending on what sort of business you have, you may or may not be heavily involved with social media. Always remember to stay on top of what your competition is doing by reading everything that they post. Remember that you and the other businesses are always fighting to stay on top.
- Strengthen the sense of community: the relationship that you should have with your customers, whether the relationship is online or offline is one that makes them feel like they are family (or, at the very least, very close friends). The way to achieve this is by having live events at your store as well as events online. You can promote your community and your business at the same time and people will begin to feel as though they belong at your store and that you want them to be there.
- Don’t do too much and become overwhelmed: If you don’t have any help in managing your social media platforms and you try to do it all by yourself, you may find that you aren’t doing it well. Be selective in your choice of social media channels and make sure that you go for quality over quantity.
- Guard your business’s reputation: Are you aware of what your existing customers and potential customers are saying about your business, products and services and brand? Pay special attention to the comments that people are posting online. It is also a good idea to set up Google alerts and to immediately handle issues as they occur. This is your chance to show people how much you care about them. Help them to solve their problems and address whatever concerns they have.
- Exercise patience: Remember that it takes time to see significant results with social media when it comes to the success of your business. Always remember that your hard work will definitely pay off and the more relationships you build and the more you interact with others, the more interested other people will be in connecting with you again and again.
- Reciprocate: When you post content online and you receive comments, not only is it important to respond to the comments but it is also a great idea to share other people’s posts if they hold value for your connections. After all, the idea is to enhance the experience of your online connections.
- Giveaways: You can use social media to give away free products from your store. There is a guarantee that that will attract attention and people will want to interact with you and will want to be the first to know when you introduce new products and services.
Conclusion
If you use the tips that are discussed here, your offline business will become more and more successful and more and more people will want to connect with you and will want to buy what you are selling.
.
.
.
This article was originally posted by Michael Cohn in the CompuKol Connection Blog on November 25, 2010
.
.
.
Do You Know Your Customers’ Customer?
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION on August 30, 2012
It’s often the simple or obvious things which escape notice leaving sales people frustrated and wondering what to do next. The knee-jerk response to this question is more times than not; “Yes!” But, if you stop and really think; How much do you know about your customers’ customer?
This may seem like an odd question, but it really is relevant. Sometimes I find that salespeople are incredibly knowledgeable about their product or service, but they forget to broaden their perspective to try to see things through the eyes of their customers’ customer.
Put in the effort to truly find out what motivates your customers’ customer. When you understand their decision-making process better, you will be more equipped to meet the needs and wants of your customer.
Obviously a good way to find out more is simply by being curious and asking more questions — and then asking more follow-up questions. Yes, you can find out a lot from talking with your customer, but it’s even better if you can find opportunities to interact with the end-user of the product or service.
You might be surprised at what you learn. And you likely will discover vital information that can be revolutionary to your selling process and bottom-line.
So, chew on this question for awhile and answer it honestly: Do you know your customer’s customer?
.
.
.
This article was originally posted to AG SALESWORKS on August 28, 2012 in Sales Productivity
.
.
.
Selling value – an innovative framing
Posted by Rick Pranitis in OTHER CONTENT on August 28, 2012
Anyone who knows me can tell you I am constantly scanning the web for interesting articles relating to Sales and Marketing. This article recently caught my eye, and I agree with the author’s comment it’s a new twist on an old – yet still very much valid – concept of value being key to successful selling.
.
.
.
Source: www.salestrainingconnection.com
The Dangers of Discounting
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION on August 27, 2012
This article is over two years old, but I think it is well worth repeating. Too often sales people fall into the trap of “I have to make the sale no matter what”, and forget the impact of their actions – not to mention the responsibility they have to their organization and fellow employees.
You know how difficult it can be out there to maintain your effective pricing strategy. How often have you been drawn into a price battle with your customer, with the biggest threat going through your mind that you’ll lose the sale if you don’t discount?
Before you do offer a discounted price, bear in mind the following dangers associated with lowering your original figure:
- When you offer discount, you set a precedent. The new price you offer is the reference point from which your customer will start negotiating. When you discount, it’s telling the customer that’s the starting point, and it’s going to be mighty difficult to raise prices again in the future.
- Your pricing point creates an image for your product and your company. By discounting, you effectively reposition your brand message. You are sending the message that your product isn’t as good as you say it is, and you turn it into a commodity, rather than something of value to the customer.
- You tell your competition you are willing to start a price war. When your competition see you discount, they will retaliate by cutting prices, and it’s a downward spiral.
- You are less profitable, and you earn less money. You become more dependent on a price-only strategy, eventually leading to a policy that focuses less on what you can do for the customer and more on cutting costs. This means you have less to invest in R&D and product enhancement, stifling your growth and leading to poorer quality.
- You send the message to your customers that, because your focus is on discounting, you might as well shop around for the cheapest price anywhere, because I have nothing to offer you but a lower price.
- Since the only way your company makes money is through the profits you bring in, you have to start looking inside your company to cut costs. You start asking questions like ‘how can we save a little on quality costs?’ and ‘do we need all these people to support our discounting salespeople? You have to cut costs on the inside because you aren’t making the profits on the outside.
- You tell the whole world that your products and services are not as valuable as you suggest they are, making the customer wonder where else you might not be strictly honest.
If you do a study on just how much your discounts actually cost your company. You may be surprised by how much your short-term thinking affects your long-term prosperity.
.
.
This article originally appeared on The MTD Sales Blog posted by Sean McPeat – July 2, 2010
.
.
.
.
Follow On The Web!
