Category: Sales

Be More Productive in your Sales

Posted on | by Emi Lesser | Leave a Comment on Be More Productive in your Sales

Lots of us struggle with productivity and especially the pressure that comes with it. Almost every company faces its struggles with sales productivity.

Companies place a tremendous amount of pressure on the sales team despite not always giving them the tools they need to succeed.

Organizations need to understand that growing its sales teams and creating more aggressive goals is not going to solve its productivity issues. Businesses need to dig deeper into the sales rep world and teach them how to be more productive within their field.

The following tips are to help salespeople be more productive in their sales.

  1. Get organized

    It’s hard to juggle multiple accounts, manage countless meetings, and respond to dozens of follow-up emails and tasks every day. With a lot on salespeople’s plates, they must stay organized. Finding a solution that fits you, whether it’s a planner, sticky notes, calendar, a reminders app, etc. can help. Being organized will allow salespeople to know what you can and can’t take on at the moment and what project you need to focus on here and now.

  2. Track your time

    Observe how you spend your day working. How much time does it take to find, research, and contact leads, send emails, check your accounts? Know what you are spending your time on, analyze your day to see where you can be more productive.

  3. Use data to your advantage

    Data helps you sell. Get the right data in the right context. Setting up your data flow to cover the right topics and deliver it to you in the correct way can ease and speed up your selling. Be able to deliver up to date statics in seconds to your client.

  4. Generate high-quality leads

    Finding high-quality leads can be tough, but being productive means you need to find them the first go around. Remember that quality trumps quantity. Create a lead qualification system to guide you in the right direction. Know your target market and find individuals that fit it. There are hundreds of lead generation services out there for little to no cost.

    Here are a few we recommend:

  5. Invest in on-boarding and make ongoing sales coaching a priority

    On-boarding allows you to teach your new employees the necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviors to become effective within your organization. On-boarding allows for upfront teachings of how you do business, speeding up the learning curve. By continuing training with ongoing sales coaching, you and your salespeople will be well educated and know how to close a sale quickly and effectively.

  6. Automate your sales process

    With the newest technology, there is plenty of software and services that can help you automate tasks you otherwise have to spend time doing by hand. If you automate everyday activities, you will save time and allow sales reps to get back to core selling activities. There are numerous ways to automate processes for your reps, including using email templates and follow-up email generators.

  7. Align Marketing and Sales

    These two should go hand in hand. Marketing and sales professionals are both working towards the same goal and therefore should be supporting each other. They should share research, insights, and plans. Knowing what the marketing team has learned and is doing can help salespeople refer to and bounce off of when trying to close a sale.

  8. Start social selling

    Sales reps need to develop relationships whether online such as social media or offline such as at meetings and events. Social media specifically, allows you to network, prospect customer service, and learn about your target market from demographics to interests to community. Knowing and understanding the target audience from social media allows sales reps to effectively drive an engaging and meaningful conversation they otherwise wouldn’t get from the typical ways.

  9. Evaluate and reevaluate sales processes

    Make sure you are continuously reevaluating your sales processes to make any improvements necessary. By first determining what works and what doesn’t work about your existing process, you can start to recreate and monitor a new model. You want to be continually integrating optimized processes into your workflow. The beginning of each new quarter is a good time to reevaluate your procedures and readjust accordingly.

10 Tips to Close a Sale

Posted on | by Emi Lesser | Leave a Comment on 10 Tips to Close a Sale
Closing a Deal

The ultimate goal of a sales call is to finish with a new customer, but closing a sale isn’t as easy as some make it out to be. From believing in what you’re selling to researching your client and the industry to know exactly what they want, you can be on top. Knowing how to sell yourself, the product or service, and your client will get you the sale.

Let’s look at ten points that will get you closer to closing the deal quickly and easily.

  1. 1. Identify the decision maker

    Lots of companies use middlemen but why use up time explaining your product or service to just them if they aren’t the one to make the final decision? A middleman will most likely have no authority and won’t be making the decisions. With a middleman, there’s also a lot of potential for misunderstandings, confusion, and uncomfortable situations.

    Ask upfront if the person you are speaking with is the final decision-maker. If they aren’t, ask to have the person with the final decision making capabilities present at all your sales meetings. If there are multiple decision-makers make sure to create a relationship with as many as you can.

  2. 2. Believe in what you are selling

    There’s a noticeable difference in your tone and attitude when you believe in what you’re selling. Having a passion for the product or service creates a livelier conversation. Potential clients will be able to tell you believe in what you are selling, which in turn builds trust in what you are telling them.

  3. 3. Personalize your package

    Before using your service, prospects will be looking to compare to your competition. They, of course, want to compare side by side to get the best price. If, however, you uniquely personalize your services, prospects will have a harder time comparing services by just price. They will have to look more into your product/service and find that you offer more benefits.

  4. 4. Highlight your current customers

    By this we mean show them off – highlight testimonials and case studies from your best customers. These actions will quickly build trust, showcase your expertise, and make prospects want to work with you. Prospects will picture themselves as current customers seeing that you can help them achieve similar goals.

  5. 5. Offer Rewards and Bonuses

    If you are speaking with a customer who is on the fence, be ready to offer a special reward or program just for them. You can also give away free stuff, as people love it. Offer different types of bonuses with each package. These offers will entice potential clients to take action. Make sure to give a deadline too, as you are only offering these rewards and bonuses because they are on the fence.

  6. 6. Find ways to help the customer

    You are in the industry, what other things can your potential customer do or use to help improve their business. Giving suggestions as to other products or services that will help their business will create reliance and trust between you and the client. It shows good character to give suggestions to solve the client’s needs even when you won’t benefit from it. The prospect will know they can count on you to receive helpful advice and, in turn, will lean more towards choosing to do business with you.

  7. 7. Know your competition

    Be able to point out the differences in your business versus your competition. What do you have to offer that’s different and better than your competition? You’ll be able to convince the potential client that you are better if you know what your competition is offering and showcase those key differences to them.

  8. 8. Ask for the sale but do not obsess

    Be forthcoming and ask for the sale; at the end of the day, that is why you are contacting them. They should know that you are there to answer any questions they have, but more importantly, you are calling to convince them to choose you. However, don’t be too pushy and obsess over getting a sale right then and there. Give them a deadline, 48 hours, the end of the week, next time you get in contact, etc. Make them know you’re excited to close a deal with them, but don’t sound like you are desperate for the close.

  9. 9. Improve follow up

    Only a small amount of sales occur on the first contact. That means follow-ups are essential – you don’t want to underdo it, but you also don’t want to overdo it. The recommended amount of follow-ups lies between five to eight times. When following up, make sure you are adding new and valuable information to the ongoing conversation. You always want to have a specific reason for contacting your prospect, don’t just have a follow-up conversation. Be persistent but also know when it’s time to stop.

  10. 10. Provide flexible payment options

    Your prospect may want to say yes but choose to decline because they can’t match the price at the moment. Don’t make payment in full now be the reason the prospect walks away. Be open to working with your clients to remove payment as an obstacle.

Let’s Make Sales Calls Less Stressful

Posted on | by Emi Lesser
Image: man screaming into phone

If you are not a seasoned salesperson making sales calls can cause a lot of anxiety. No one wants to be a bother, and they certainly don’t want to get yelled at just for trying to reach their goals.

When you look at how essential these calls are to growing businesses and moving towards goals, we see it’s worth getting through the anxiety. If it’s something that makes our business grow or our career successful, it can’t be that bad.

So how can someone who’s just starting their business or career make sales calls less stressful?

  1. 1. Research

    Learn about the client. You want to gain a solid understanding of the person, company, and industry you are going to be talking to. Make a note of details that would stand out to the client to show you put in the effort before the call. You want to fully understand your prospect’s market or industry before the first call. Also, make a note of information that would make the call more personal, things you have in common.

  2. 2. Have a plan

    There’s a lot of back and forth on whether salespeople should stick to a script or not. No one ever said though that you have to read it word for word or not have one at all. It’s more so there as a guide or a plan.

    Having a plan will almost always guarantee to take the nerves down. When you’re nervous, it always seems your brain won’t work quickly, already having a functioning plan written out that you can fall back on will help tremendously. It’s hard to think on the spot so just avoid it altogether.

    Having your notes from your research and a plan mapped out will give you a lot more confidence and give the person on the other line more confidence in you.

  3. 3. Get comfortable

    Don’t sound rushed to make a quick sale and move on, you need to settle into the call and know you are going to be on the line for a little while. Try to make the conversation comfortable for your prospect by adding in personal touches (this is where part of your research comes in handy).

    While you want to explain who you are and what you have to offer, don’t dominate the conversion, listen to the prospect’s needs and wants. After your opening statement, let your prospect do most of the talking. By allowing them to do most of the talking, you can gather information on them and their needs to which you can turn around and use to your advantage later in the conversation.

  4. 4. Don’t be too hard on yourself

    No matter how nice and respectful you are, some people just won’t care or will act rudely towards you. It’s nothing you did, so don’t blame yourself, and especially don’t let it carry into your next call. Those people aren’t worth your worry, so chalk them off as rude and move on.