Posts Tagged ‘Inside Sales Best Practices’
How to Use Score Cards to Improve Inside Sales Performance
Prominently displaying each sales reps’ numbers in your sales room can create a motivating atmosphere and positively influence the performance of your sales team. This works because sales people are generally a competitive bunch. Additionally, such a tool enables management to hold their sales team accountable for whatever results they generate. Here at XANT, our…
Read MoreSilence on the line. When is it a good thing?
It’s been described as awkward, painful, uneasy and empty. But it’s also something else, and for a sales rep, the word to describe silence is powerful. When it comes to questions we, as salespeople, are an impatient breed that want an instant response. We want to move things along in the process and get the…
Read MoreResponseAudit Research – AA-ISP 2012
Since 2007, we at XANT have published research on the best practices around how and when to respond to marketing-generated leads. In October 2007, we presented early findings at both the Boston and San Francisco Marketing Sherpa B2B Demand Generation Summits. Since then, we have published our landmark Harvard Business Review article, “The Short Life on Online…
Read MoreInside Sales Training: Measure First Downs
Over the years, I have experienced a lot of different sales training strategies. One of my favorites is one that was formulated by a mentor and friend of mine by the name of Dr. Scott Baird. He founded Griffin Hill Consulting. We hired Griffin Hill to coach our sales teams for several years. It made…
Read MoreA Common Mistake from a VP of Sales
I have been selling for many years. As the VP of Sales at XANT, I do not usually give demos of our PowerDialer for SalesForce software. Today, however, I took the opportunity to present to Brian Geery, Interim VP of Sales at Sustainable Minds and a managing partner at Sales Productivity Architects. Brian was a referral from a friend and sales expert, Trish Bertuzzi of the BridgeGroup. I have been evaluating what XANT can do to improve our game and increase our sales growth in 2012. I figured that doing the demo would not only clear my mind, but also get me close to our product and a prospect.
My demonstration was not as polished as one of my best salespeople, but it lasted the standard 45 minutes, and it covered in content and form, what a standard demo would include. It was also received favorably with the prospect requesting a formal proposal. It is good to know that an old dog still can do a few tricks!
At its conclusion, Brian offered a personal critique. Simply stated, “The demo was good, however, I think you could sell more, faster, if your demonstration was less about what your software does and more about how it solves my problems.” Brian was exactly right!
Read MoreInside Sales Tip: 7 Slump-Busting Ways to Get Your Mojo Back
Everyone goes through sales slumps. If you haven’t yet, you’re either too new to the profession . . . . or you just haven’t been doing it long enough.
We’ve got some sharp sales reps here at XANT, so I thought I’d talk to them about what they do to get out of their personal pipeline woes.
- Separate the real opportunities from the fluff: “When I hit a slow period, sometimes I’ll throw some stuff overboard and just start over. When your pipeline sucks, it means you’re wasting time chasing stuff you can’t really close. Focus on generating better deals instead of chasing garbage.” — R.J. Tracy
- Focus on “touch” quality, in addition to quantity: “Our software [the XANT Lead Response Management Suite] has built-in safeguards to make sure we do enough follow-up, but let’s be honest, not all follow-up activity is created equal. A call is a call, as far as your numbers are concerned, but being ready and engaged . . . .
Sales Tip: Customer Symptoms vs. Root Causes
As sales reps, we occasionally forget that sometimes a prospect isn’t looking to solve a problem, they’re trying to alleviate the symptoms of something else.
This isn’t to say that you can’t make money selling solutions for both. Just be clear with the prospect about what it is you’re actually attempting to solve.
Inexperienced sales reps can be particularly susceptible to the fallacy of assigning need based on the requested solution—”Well, they’re asking about X, so clearly their problem is Y” (even though your solution is massaging a symptom, not solving the root cause).
Carried to its logical conclusion, the idea can apply nearly universally. For instance, if you’re selling outsourced HR services, you’re not actually solving your buyer’s need to eventually improve its own internal resources—you’re just applying a particular band-aid to it (i.e., your services). As soon as the value of managing HR in house is higher than the cost of outsourcing, the buyer will inevitably make the switch.
Does this mean you shouldn’t pursue deals if you’re not meeting the direct need? Of course not; that’s why service-based solutions and outsourcing exist to begin with. But it does mean you should be careful . . . .
Read MoreSales Best Practices – Outsource Infrastructure, Not People
Businesses of all sizes have more options than ever when it comes to outsourcing basic services to save time and costs.
IT. Payroll. Shipping. Point-of-sale. Credit checks. Credit card processing. Legal.
I bring this up because at some point, a lot of companies ask the same question about their sales organization: “Can we outsource this?”
The reasons for asking are pretty compelling. For businesses without a lot of experience, building a fully-realized sales team—one that’s aligned with company goals, product, and marketing initiatives—is at best a challenge. At worst it’s Mission: Impossible.
The problem is so pervasive that at least once a month we get a prospect who expresses disappointment that we AREN’T an outsourced sales prospecting company (“Oh, you mean you just sell the product and consulting, you don’t actually make the sales calls? Shoot.”) . . . .
Read MoreInside Sales Tip of the Day: “Interest is Often the Counterfeit of Need”
It’s one of the sales industry’s oldest maxims, and I told it to my lead gen reps last week: “Interest is often the counterfeit of need.” When a B2B purchaser buys it’s because they have recognized the importance and necessity—the need— of solving a particular problem, and doing it now. Interest can, of course, be…
Read MoreThe 2 Lead Routing Criteria that Produce More Sales
At some point, every sales manager on the planet has heard a sales rep gripe about how and when they’re getting their leads.
“Who’s deciding this?”
“Why aren’t I getting more leads?”
“Why aren’t I getting more leads from industry X / hot leads / leads for large accounts?”
Most companies struggle to find and keep a consistent stream of good, warm leads, and handing out a fresh, qualified lead can almost feel like an event in and of itself—but that doesn’t mean a rep asking these questions is out of line.
However the decision is made, the fact is that lead distribution is a selection process. Somewhere along the way, someone is making a decision about how leads are being handed out. Even if the decision is totally random / ad hoc, that’s still a decision . . . .
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