Any sales person knows the process of selling is never as easy as it might appear. The sales world is fast-paced and a good sales person must be able to juggle many balls in the while riding a unicycle. With sales goals, sales metrics, activity dashboards and pipeline targets to manage the need for multi-tasking is apparent. But the real question is how does the salesperson know that they are giving their attention to the right areas? The best sales people make it look easy. What are their tricks and how do they do it?
Great Sales Reps Do Not Waste Time
Great sales reps know that time is precious and not to be wasted. They know that time kills all deals and that time is always working against them. The truth is that successful outreach can take up to 13 weeks to accomplish. If you break the time down that is more than three months (on average) of constant outreach, phone calls, visits, and emails. The secret? The most successful of salespeople compress the timeline to 5 or 6 weeks. Most sales will be made by the 5th or 6th week so anything past that mark will be considered wasting valuable time.
Jumping Beyond the First Prospect
Another area that weak sales reps tend to waste time on is focusing on the initial target prospect for too long and not moving onto their target’s peers. It is reported that a sales rep that moves beyond the initial contact with up to 5 or more contacts is better able to land the sale. Reps that form relationships with others in the company are creating multi-threaded deals. Harvard Business Review points out that the number of individuals involved in purchases has climbed from years ago. This is a result of the better sales reps calling more people at the company.
Bring Value to New Prospects
Great sales reps know they must provide a solution to the prospect. Providing a genuine solution is the proven way to make a lasting sale. Solving a real problem and providing VALUE to the customer is what great sales reps bring to their customers. Great sales reps know that customers and prospects are tired of the same old sales pitches. Customers are looking for something different and reps need to know how focus on value and real problems instead of just pushing their own products. Build relationships first, learn about their business, find a real problem and then worry about whether or not your product can deliver the solution (and then make the sale!). Great sales reps have the art of communication and relationships down to a science.
Sales Reps and Overreaching
Customers today have had their fill of emails and phone calls from sales reps trying to sell them something. Prospects are more apt to delete emails about a service or product that is being pitched. On average it takes about 5 emails to even get the attention of a prospective customer or client. By narrowing down the emails and getting the customer’s attention sales reps are saving both time and energy.
Sales Reps and Tools
Sales reps want to make sales. They want to form relationships with prospective customers. What sales reps do not want to be doing is spending hours inputting data into the CRM. When a salesperson is tethered to the computer performing click after click, they know this time could be used to make sales. Providing the right tools to help with the data input burden goes a long way.
One such tool is SalesDirector’s AutoScribe. Autoscribe provides up to 90 percent of data and contact automation. Autoscribe also allows sales managers to be able to see what is going on with reps and provide guidance in real-time when needed.
Autoscribe is easy to add to the business CRM because it is a plug it and forget it tool. There is no complicated set up from either side and reps can use the user-friendly tool without a big learning curve. It also allows driving sales because all the impertinent data is there to be seen and followed.
Utilizing the right tools to help sales reps remain successful is one of the best things that can be provided. When sales reps are not being tied down to the computer, they can do what they like best and that is forming relationships and making sales.