Working in sales may seem like an endless cycle of hitting quotas, responding to emails, and taking long calls. This causes many sales professionals to feel burned out after a busy month when they should be gearing themselves for the next month. The sales process is changing more with the use of new technologies as clients require less facetime, and have more options now. Below are some tried-and-tested sales tips used by top sales professionals to distinguish themselves from their competitors, get results, increase revenue, and focus more on the customer.
- Reach out in a timely manner.
A Harvard Business Review study suggests that salespeople who reach out to leads within 1 hour are 7x more likely to qualify than those who wait one to two hours, and 60x more likely than those who wait a day or longer. This suggests that quick, timely responses are crucial, and will help differentiate you from your competitors. A Salesforces study shows that 35-50% of sales go to the vendor who responds first.
- Reach out focusing on the customer’s’ needs
Sales professionals should really think about their sales processes, and how that is interpreted by the customer. Are your salespeople sending the same email over and over again to no avail? Do your clients constantly ask to get off your mailing list, or block contact? These are real concerns, and if these things are happening, than your sales strategy has to be revisited. This Salesforce study shows that a phone call followed by an email is the most effective sales process. Not only are phone calls more likely to be responded too, but they also a better way of selling your company. Emails are a great prospecting tool, however many times sales emails are left unopened or deleted without being read. Tweak your sales strategy with the use of tools that can help your sales campaigning – a good feature to look for is email tracking.
- Stay hungry and persistent
Unfortunately, salespeople are not always welcomed by prospects. Many times the company your are trying to reach simply does not want to be reached. Don’t give up! Persistence is an important trait for sales professionals since eight is the average number of cold calls it takes to reach a prospect, and at least 80% of sales require at least five follow-up calls (Source: The Marketing Donut vie Jake Atwood).
- The customer usually knows what they want, a salesperson’s job is to give them the final pieces to make the right decision.
Nowadays, customers can easily hop online and easily find information about your product, company, and competitors. Most of the time, when a customer reaches out, they already know what they are looking for, and expect the sales people to simply help them with the last step. Therefore it is becoming more important for salespeople to learn about their customers, focusing on their specific needs, price points, and communication methods.
- Use specialized tools such as rapport building, best-practices for creating predictable revenue and also get your sales force “rejection proof.”
In conclusion, sales departments are changing with the increased use of technology. Successful salespeople understand that their customer wants to be cohttps://www.bigspeak.com/speakers/robert-cialdini/ntacted in a timely manner, and that their efforts need to be continuous to ensure a conversion. Salespeople must continually tweak their strategies as there is always room to improve. Lastly, sales people must know about their customer’s needs. It is easy for a sales person to get online and do the research necessary prior to a call or email to ensure that they are communicating with the customer in mind, first and foremost.
