Posts Tagged ‘Sales Best Practices’
Sales Metrics Not Just About Measuring Productivity, but Creating Motivation
Most managers will tell you that the primary reason to use good sales metrics and sales management tools is to improve performance.
Good processes and metrics, the old idea states, makes it easier to track productivity, accountability, and reward reps accountable for the work they do.
What’s not talked about as often, however, is the idea that having clear, consistent sales metrics also acts as a motivational force.
When sales and lead generation teams have to work with goals that are unclear and poorly defined, it leads to a psychology of paralysis. Time and effort are precious commodities in a sales organization, especially when agents have to constantly reevaluate and prioritize their activities. Sales reps simply don’t have the time to work on “stuff” that isn’t going to produce a real benefit for them and the organization.
But without clearly stated goals, reps are forced to guess what the most important use of their time is at any given point. Should they take that appointment, or get back on the phone? Is this product demo really going to be worth it, or should they be re-contacting that deal that got put on hold last month, but had a lot of potential?
Without a clear indication of how any given action is going to help a sales rep maximize their time (and ultimately the company’s), it leads to frustration and apathy, and most reps in this situation react by going with their gut instinct of what’s going to make them more money, regardless of whether it’s good for the company or prospect.
Good metrics and processes allow managers to be more effective, but don’t forget that a rep who doesn’t know how to get maximum reward is rarely going to give maximum effort.
Sales Tips – Progressing “Pain Avoidance” Prospects
In business, we’re all familiar with the concept of the “Idiot Tax.” If I don’t want to take the time and energy to change my oil, I pay a price premium to have a service center do it for me. In some respects every restaurant on the planet preys on this instinct (“I don’t feel…
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 MoreQuick Sales Tip – Don’t Forget the Gap in “Big Account” vs. “Small Account” Technology Needs
The guys and gals up at SEO.com recently announced that they were partnering with Boostability.com to address a “hole” in their service offerings. Recognizing that up to this point the bulk of their clients had been high-level enterprise, SEO.com felt that they needed to add a service offering for locally focused, small-to-medium-sized businesses to continue…
Read More15 Time Wasters vs. The Desperate Three Percent
I don’t normally like to do shameless self-promotion of my company on this blog, but Steve Watts, one of my chief marketing gurus, posted something interesting today on the InsideSales Insider. He brings up an article from CopyBlogger discussing Chet Holmes’ book, The The Ultimate Sales Machine. Having read Chet Holmes’ books for a number…
Read MoreInside Sales – Getting More Than the “Desperate Three Percent”
CopyBlogger recently posted an incisive blog about The Desperate Three Percent.
The core concept is relatively simple. Taking data from Chet Holmes’ The Ultimate Sales Machine, author Sonia Simone states that the reason SEO and PPC marketing continues to ratchet up in competitiveness is because we’re all fighting for the “The Desperate Three Percent”—the top-tier potential clients that are ready to buy now.
I don’t want to summarize the entire article (just go read it instead), but the crux of Sonia’s argument is that the vast majority of any business’s future sales are more than likely people not in the Desperate Three . . . .
Read MoreInside Sales Tips – No Vacations the Last Week of the Month
The message of this post is pretty simple: Managers and reps should never schedule vacations during the last business week of the month. I’m sure some of you—most likely front-line sales reps—growled a little bit at hearing that. On the surface it sounds harsh, right? Companies don’t control our lives; we should have the freedom…
Read MoreSales Management – “Hello, Massive Disconnect? This is Your Friend, Crappy Performance.”
I bumped into this post on The New Sales Economy, and thought it was a worthwhile read on inside sales best practices (thanks to Trish Bertuzzi for the link). Using The Bridge Group’s data, author Chad Levitt asks nine highly relevant, incisive questions about the current state of professional inside sales. I was particularly interested…
Read MoreLead Management – JS Bach, Music, and Your Sales Pipeline
I absolutely loved this recent post by Copyblogger. As someone who took piano lessons for over eight years, I’ve played my fair share of Bach minuets, and hearing about the sheer amount of effort he put into creating his music inspired me.
And I think there’s a lesson to be learned here that’s eminently applicable to sales:
“Researchers concluded that the rate of [musical composition] hits to misses was pretty constant between major and minor composers. The truly great composers produce more masterpieces than the others, mainly because they produced more work overall.”
Change “musical composition” to “prospects,” and “masterpieces” to “sales” and suddenly we’re on to something.
You want to know one of the secrets of the top sales people? The agents in the “20 percent” category of the “80/20 Rule of Sales” (i.e., “80 percent of all sales are generated by 20 percent of the reps”)?
Read MoreSales Best Practices – Seth Godin Vs. The “Faceless Factory”
Seth Godin is a pretty smart guy. I own several of his books, and I typically enjoy reading his blog to get interesting snippets of marketing conversation.
His posts are usually short and aren’t always earth shattering, but they always have a clear underlying message, and they almost always get me thinking.
Today’s blog entry was no different, but I wanted to add a small corollary to his post.
As he has stated on many, many other occasions, Seth’s message was once again that the company that “wins the battle” is the one that creates new and unique ways to interact his/her vendors and customers, the one who doesn’t act like a “faceless factory.”
Here’s my addendum: You need to be a “faceless factory” before you can be anything else.
Let me explain what I mean . . . .
Read More