Selling Power Blog

What You Need to Know to Win at Virtual Selling

Today’s post is by Tom Stanfill, CEO of ASLAN Training & Development.

 

The COVID-19 pandemic is a defining moment for your salespeople to hit their number while working from home. At ASLAN, we’ve spent over 20 years training reps to sell remotely. Salespeople who take the right steps can absolutely learn to influence, engage customers, and close sales virtually. 

We’re happy to share proven strategies that work. Start with the four tips below. You can also download our latest report, "How to Help Your Team Master Virtual Selling," for even more winning advice for sales leaders.  

Tip #1: Increase Customer Receptivity by Building Trust

Receptivity to sellers is a mixed bag right now. Customers are working from home and answering the phone, but they’re overwhelmed by other priorities and taking care of their families and teams. 

If you call customers out of desperation to achieve quota, your tone, word choice, and actions will reflect your self-focused mindset. To put your focus on the customer, ask yourself these questions: 

• Why is it in the customer’s best interest to meet with me? 
• How can I help them in this crisis? 
• What problems can I solve? 

The answers will give you a calm and confident demeanor, which will replace the, “Sorry to call you, but I’m supposed to be selling remotely and I need to fill my funnel” vibe.

When you call, ask (in an open-ended way) what challenges the customer is trying to solve. Your goal is to serve (we call this “dropping the rope”), not force your way into a meeting or get an order. This eliminates an adversarial relationship and allows both you and the customer to relax and collaborate to solve real problems (virtually) or agree to meet after the pandemic crisis is over. 

Either way, you will distinguish yourself from the pack and move from “rep to avoid” to friend, partner, and trusted ally (aka, someone they will always want to meet with). All these actions will increase the customer’s receptivity – even over the phone!  After all, they may not remember what you said during these uncertain times, but they will remember how you made them feel.

Tip #2: Land Meetings by Following a Process 

If you can’t “stop by” to visit customers, how will you land meetings while virtual selling? Likely you’ve already heard customers say things like: “Thanks for calling. Family’s fine and we’re good right now. Look forward to catching up when this thing blows over.” 

In the absence of the intimacy that naturally occurs face-to face, you need to follow a process to land meetings. Take the following steps. 

1. Lead with the customer’s whiteboard. Picture the person you are about to call sitting in his or her office or cubicle. Now picture a whiteboard displaying initiatives and key action items. Whatever it says, lead with that when you call. Response rates will soar.
   
   
2. Ask permission to meet. A request puts control in the hands of the customer, giving them the freedom to choose. This may yield a higher commitment: Research has shown that, when people make small, initial commitments (like agreeing to hold a meeting), they’re more likely to follow through.
   
   
3. Write fantastic prospecting emails. Pay attention to subject lines, narrative flow (how one idea rolls into the next), how you articulate value, and the supporting information you attach or link to. And you can learn more about how to include these five components of an effective email. 

Tip #3: Build Rapport Virtually 

With virtual selling, customers can’t see you in person, and you lose rapport and intimacy. This means customers are less likely to believe you can solve their problems – after all, you’re just another faceless voice or image on a screen. 

In these situations, salespeople must be strategic to uncover the information they need to diagnose problems and offer valuable solutions. You can do so in three key ways. 

1. Ask questions by leading with knowledge. Demonstrate knowledge or expertise, then pose a related question. (Example: “Ninety percent of social media strategies fail because they invest in content and channels that don’t reach the intended audience. How would you assess your current social media strategy?”) Asking a question by leading with expertise causes decision makers to sit up and take notice.
   
   
2. Validate the customer’s point of view (even when it’s something you don’t want to hear). Let’s say your customer says something not so pleasant, like: “Now’s not the time to explore this. We are currently working on XYZ, and that’s our greatest priority right now.” Or: “We’ve been working with (your competitor), and they seem to be doing a great job.”
   
   How do you respond? “Tell me more.” That way, information flows freely, and you uncover the truth.
   
   If your response is, “Yeah, but…” then the message to the customer is clear: There is a consequence to sharing negative information. So, they learn to just keep things on the surface. (Kind of like having a bad meal at a restaurant and knowing you’ll never return – when the server asks how everything was you’ll likely just say, “Everything was great. Thanks.”) 
   
   
3. Dig to uncover the customer’s truth. Recently, a very competent seller was presenting a solution to our marketing team. During the presentation, the seller stopped to ask, “Tom, you sound a bit skeptical; what do you think about ____?” I told her my concerns – information I wouldn’t have shared if she hadn’t asked. She knew if I didn’t have a clear understanding of what our concerns were, she couldn’t address them. Her response was perfect, and we moved forward. Brilliant!
   
   Bottom line, customers often bury the truth and it’s your job to uncover it. Here are a few areas where “digging” is required:
   

• Concerns. Most customers have learned that sharing concerns leads to conflict. Therefore, gently probe to determine their fears about moving forward (e.g., value of what you offer, ability to deliver, experience). 
• Relationship with the competition. Most don’t enjoy sharing bad news, and positive information about your competition is certainly not good news.  
• Decision maker. People don’t jump at the chance to tell you they have limited power. 

Tip #4: Present Using “Word Pictures” 

With virtual selling, you need “word pictures” to help customers “see” your offering and increase the likelihood of moving the conversation forward. 

Word pictures can help you sell a high-end, expensive product by conveying feel, the cost of shortcuts, or why the expensive materials really matter. Word pictures can also help you sell an offer that’s simple to understand or easy to misjudge (like insurance or medical supplies). 

Here’s how to develop word pictures for your offering. 

1. Figure out and rank the most difficult but important concepts required to sell your solution. 
2. Develop three to five word pictures for your most critical but complex concepts. You need a variety so you can match your customer’s personality types and preferences: some people like sports analogies; others don’t.   
3. Test it. Some of the seemingly best word pictures fall flat when delivered live. Test with an audience of colleagues and refine them accordingly.

Want more expert selling insights to help your salespeople close deals while working from home? We recently partnered with Selling Power to produce a timely Webinar about virtual selling skills every sales team needs to know. Download the report today: “How to Help Your Team Master Virtual Selling.”

Why You Need a Human Connection to Make Sales Soar

Today's post is by George Brontén, a lifelong technology entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of Membrain.com, a sales enablement CRM. His new book is Stop Killing Deals: How to Avoid Deadly Assumptions and Achieve Sales Excellence. 

 

Would it surprise you if I said sales technology does not hold all (or even most) of the answers to common sales challenges?   

This may seem counterintuitive – salespeople use a lot of very helpful technology tools, especially now that 90 percent of sales teams are closing deals remotely. 

But, despite an explosion of technology and tools in the past 10 years, the sales profession has not seen a lot of progress in sales effectiveness in that same time frame. In fact, I founded Membrain.com in 2012 because I saw that current technologies were, in many cases, making problems worse rather than solving them. 

That’s because most sales technologies are built on the same three bad assumptions that cause the problems they’re trying to solve.

Three Assumptions about Sales Technology That Kill Deals 

Take, for instance, the CRM. Most CRMs are simply databases with tools wrapped around them. When the CRM was invented, it was intended as a replacement for the Rolodex. As such, it was effective in making it easier for salespeople to keep track of information.

But it didn’t make salespeople better salespeople, because it still operated on the three bad assumptions that kill deals: 

1. Salespeople are born, not made.
2. Salespeople are naturally self-disciplined.
3. Sellers and buyers are driven largely by logic.      

All these assumptions reflect a misunderstanding of human nature, and all three lead to poor sales results.

In my new book, I explore each of these assumptions and show where they are hidden inside most sales organizations. I also reveal how sales leaders can: 

• Defeat the deal-killing monsters lurking in your buyer’s subconscious
• Heal your organization and help your team win with sales enablement
• Align your strategy, process, and methodology to achieve scalable, world-class sales performance
• Build your sales coaching around your sales process to generate exponential results within complex B2B sales environments
• Understand the essential humanity of your sales workforce, thereby enabling you to recruit better, train, and support the people on your team in order to win more deals
• Turn your sales technology into your servant, not your master

Embrace the Humanity of Selling to Improve Sales Performance 

I lay out a framework for achieving world-class sales performance based on this better, correct understanding of the sales team. The framework starts with a human-centered strategy, and drills down through all the layers of the organization to align every aspect of it with a proper understanding of the humanity of both buyers and sellers.

The book is a fast read and supplemented with extensive additional material, including white papers, tools, and calculators, available for download via an online resource center. My hope is that the book will provide a new way to structure complex B2B sales organizations to yield substantial performance gains while honoring the basic humanity that connects us all. 

In a world saturated by more and more technology and inundated by artificial intelligence, I believe returning to our humanity is the only real way forward.

Contact George at george@membrain.com and purchase his new book, Stop Killing Deals: How to Avoid Deadly Assumptions and Achieve Sales Excellence.

How to Increase Sellers' Productivity with AI

Today’s post is by Sergey Medved, head of product at ClearSlide.

 

 

A good mix of creativity, personality, and persistence is the hallmark of a successful seller. When the mixture can be seasoned with a healthy pinch of technology, sellers can find more time in their days and close more deals. That’s a boon for most sellers because, right now, they’re only able to use 34 percent of their time for actual selling. The rest of the time, they are consumed with other work – from manual data input to administrative tasks.

This time crunch combines with salespeople’s busy schedules to make hitting their numbers a challenge. One of the ways artificial intelligence (AI) solutions are reshaping the sales industry is with tools that can boost sellers’ productivity and give them more time with prospects.

Productivity Drain

The majority of sellers’ time is spent in sales technology that doesn’t always directly support their sales efforts. Sometimes, reps spend hours just tracking down the right content to send prospects. Then they have to figure out what content is current, approved, and appropriate for a prospect’s specific stage in the sales funnel. That’s a lot to ask of people who already struggle to find time in the day to accomplish all their tasks.

Rather than asking sellers to sort through and familiarize themselves with a massive library of content, use AI-enabled tech in the following three ways to boost your sales team’s productivity and give them more time to focus on selling.

1. Automate low-value tasks.

Start with the low-hanging fruit: Automate easy, low-stakes tasks. For example, leverage automated email campaigns to help your sales reps check in with and send relevant content to prospects. That will save sellers from having to draft a long personal email each time they contact a prospect.

Of course, there’s still a time and place for personal communication – especially as prospects make it further down the funnel. But, at the top “awareness and education” stage, a prospect is just as happy to get a free white paper via an e-blast. Automated email technology is also helpful for one-off sends like birthday emails and check-ins. Sales reps can still personalize their message (or have it automatically personalized for them via language processing software). But, with the email timing and content already automated, your sales team will get back hours of time – time they can use to actually meet with prospects.

2. Use AI to tailor content.

While AI starts with automation, it doesn’t stop there. It’s constantly learning from the data it analyzes. That’s how Google – which you probably use every day – knows you, knows your preferences, and ranks Websites based on how well those Websites have helped others accomplish their goals. Sellers can leverage a similar approach to further personalize their interactions with prospects.

Sellers spend too much time searching for content and often end up with outdated decks. To get back some of that time and ensure content accuracy, AI can recommend the most appropriate content for a sales rep to use based on what’s known about the opportunity. For example, a sales enablement platform can help you find relevant content or even recommend specific content based on what has worked for a similar buyer, industry, or stage before.

3. Leverage power calendaring.

Even if admin tasks do take up an inordinate amount of sellers’ time, AI can help by turning time management into time intelligence. For example, platforms such as Woven – an AI-powered calendar app created by the former CIO of Facebook – scan users’ emails for signs of meeting requests. It then generates suggested meeting times and sends options to the attendees to book. On a more basic level, options like Calendly give your sales team the ability to ask prospects to book a time that works for them, via a simple link. That means no more weeks of back-and-forth emails requesting bulleted lists of days, times, and narrow windows of availability.

By using AI, sellers can get out of their email and calendars and into more – and more effective – meetings. 

Want to learn about how AI is shaping the future of the sales industry? Download the ClearSlide white paper, “AI-Powered Selling.” 

Get a Big Sales Coaching Boost for Your Salespeople Right Now

Today's post is by Ed Ross, CEO and founder of The CORE Results, Inc.

 

 

We’re hearing a lot about which businesses are “essential” and “non-essential” in this pandemic. No matter what condition the market is in, I think we can all agree that sales teams are in the “essential” category. Salespeople will drive your ongoing operations and may even help you tailor your offerings to appeal to markets with growth opportunity. 

Sales Coaching Is Critical to Success

That said, this is a new world for salespeople, and they’ll need proper coaching to find their footing and yield the best performance. (Salesforce research indicates that 67 percent of companies that have had a formal sales coaching program in place for three years or more experienced high revenue growth.) 

For the time being, this coaching will have to happen remotely. At The CORE Results, our AI-enabled approach to sales coaching was developed to maximize a sales manager’s ability to leverage data to improve the level of individual, targeted training – absent the need for physical interaction.  

How AI Enables Great Remote Sales Coaching 

Innovations in machine learning and AI are leading the way to fully automated, personalized sales coaching programs built on precise insights and remote interactions. 

Real-time coaching fosters greater coaching competence and proficiency among managers (so you support your team at all levels – both managers and sellers). Our system helps you in the following ways. 

• Takes the guesswork out of sales coaching. For decades, sales managers have led teams by relying on instinct while cherry picking data buried in multiple systems. This is time consuming and, honestly, an elaborate form of A/B testing.
  
  Our technology identifies coachable moments for the sales manager and the individual contributors throughout a coaching interaction by establishing clear and concise actions to advance an opportunity in the sales process. Focusing on the core behaviors aligned to each stage and/or milestone enables sales organizations to increase sales-funnel velocity. 
  
  
• Helps you coach efficiently and with greater precision to save time. One of our global healthcare clients has used our system to provide just the right amount of coaching for each salesperson on his team.
  
  As he put it: “There’s never enough time in the day to spend time with every rep, on every deal. CORE’s dashboard allows me to quickly see my team’s progress, then drill down to gain insight into each rep’s individual skills and competencies. With this level of visibility, I know exactly where I need to focus on developing an employee – whether a top performer or rising star. We’ve never had insights like these all in a mobile platform. It has allowed me to be more effective as a coach, in less time.”
  
  
• Fine tunes your sales coaching insights and increases deal velocity. Our proprietary technologies analyze emotion, context, and sentiment in real time for nuanced coaching insights. Because interactions on our platform are powered by AI, our system delivers more precise and useful suggested action steps the more you use it.
  
  We’re on track to create a fully automated cycle in which sales managers receive the key insights, feedback, and analysis they need to be exceptional sales coaches, while also sharpening their skills. When insights are converted into predictive analytics about selling and coaching behaviors, they have a great impact on deal lifespan and revenue. 
  
  
• Accelerates sales managers’ progression from individual contributor to game-changing sales coach. Recently promoted a rep to manager? This transition often leaves the new manager feeling overwhelmed and under-prepared. Our Six Elements of Coaching™ methodology enhances your newly-promoted manager’s ability to measure key competencies of individual sales representatives, as well as analyze the performance of the entire team. This data can then be combined to understand and improve the proficiency of a sales manager’s coaching ability.

During this time, it is more important than ever that we all leverage technology to stay productive and keep sales moving forward. Adopt remote sales coaching strategies today that will yield your team greater success tomorrow and beyond. 

For more insights about sales coaching, download the Six Elements of Coaching Guide.

How to Equip Your Team for Virtual Selling

Today's blog post is by Ben Taylor. He is the content marketing manager at Richardson. He has an MBA in finance from LaSalle University and over a decade of business and writing experience. He has covered content for brands such as Nasdaq, Barclaycard, and Business Insider.

 

Virtual selling requires more than a camera.

Sales teams are discovering that virtual selling is different from executing normal sales conversations in front of a screen. They are learning that being effective over video requires more than simply transferring in-person selling skills to a video interface. 

Understanding these new skills is critical because virtual selling isn’t temporary; it will become an accepted method of business as selling organizations become accustomed to the time and money saved with an approach that doesn’t require travel or logistical burdens. 

Let’s look at the top selling skills salespeople need to move sales forward and close deals while working remotely. 

Skill #1: Pace yourself so you have energy to engage customers.  

Selling virtually can be unexpectedly draining. 

During in-person sales presentations, individual sales professionals have an opportunity to catch their breath as they hand off the floor to a teammate. In a virtual setting, this recovery time is not possible. Every sales professional is always on camera. Therefore, they must be engaged – and engaging – from beginning to end. 

Maintaining continuous engagement is difficult because a virtual connection often lacks the energy sharing that occurs when everyone is in the same room. The spontaneity of lively discussion can feel dampened as individuals wait for their opportunity to talk or when customers choose to mute themselves. 

The solution to these challenges is to enter every virtual sales presentation and discussion with the expectation that it will require enormous energy and stamina. Knowing this aspect of virtual selling in advance prevents the unexpected exhaustion (which some are referring to as “Zoom gloom”) that can set in during the second half of the call. 

Tip #2: Embrace difficult questions to advance the sale. 

Your customers face new and unexpected challenges right now. In nearly all cases, the customer’s challenges have intensified and become more near-term. 

Many customers are seeking ways to maintain revenue and preserve capital amid growing threats from diminishing GDP. This reality of our current economy has changed the dynamic of the sales conversation. The customer’s challenges will shape your key selling challenges. 

Helping customers clarify the specific nature of these challenges is critical to properly positioning the right solution. The problem: Seeking clarity on these issues means asking the kinds of questions that may yield unpleasant truths. Sales professionals who fear this discomfort choose to avoid sensitive topics.

A better approach: Face this stress directly. Sensitive questions are necessary. In fact, avoiding such questions “can be economically costly,” according to social science research from The University of Pennsylvania. The researchers worked with nearly 1,000 participants in their study. After reviewing the findings, they determined that “question askers believe that asking sensitive questions will cause greater discomfort than they actually do, and they expect that asking sensitive questions will harm the respondent’s impression of them more than they actually do.” So, go ahead and ask sensitive questions. 

Doing so often fosters a sense of candor that advances the relationship and encourages openness among the stakeholders.    

Tip #3: Safeguard against external distractions.

Distractions have an outsized influence on virtual selling. Stakeholders are either at their screen or in a conference room with their phone or individual laptop nearby. As a result, they are still exposed to the alerts, updates, emails, and notifications that have become the “white noise” of our daily lives.

In an in-person setting, these distractions are limited because social norms keep people focused on the speaker. However, in a virtual setting, stakeholders can listen to and respond to these distractions inconspicuously. Therefore, sales professionals need to take a proactive stance against distractions that are unseen but not uncommon.

Sales professionals can overcome this characteristic of virtual selling by asking individual stakeholders for their feedback. This person-to-person approach keeps stakeholders alert because they know they may receive a question about their opinion at any time. This interactive approach encourages participants to keep their video and microphone on.

The key is to avoid a one-way conversation in which the sales professional merely presents information. A conversational approach is more effective because it keeps distractions to a minimum, and it enables the sales professional to understand the details behind the customer’s challenges and goals.

Succeeding in selling virtually requires understanding the new rules of engagement. As this approach to business normalizes, sales professionals need to develop heightened energy, incisive questions, and a proactive approach to distractions to succeed.

For more insight about transitioning your sales team to sell virtually, check out Richardson’s Virtual Selling Training Program.

How to Find Your Next Remarkable Selling Idea

In March of this year, just before social distancing started in response to the coronavirus pandemic, I hosted the Sales 3.0 Conference in Orlando (along with our amazing Chief Networking Officer, Alice Heiman).

During one of the breaks at the event, I recorded a video interview with ConnectAndSell CEO Chris Beall. I always love talking with Chris. He is an original thinker, a true fan of the science of selling, and always has great, transformative ideas to share.

Even as of March 11, Chris could feel the fear taking over the world of business and sales. As he acknowledged in our interview, this fear is not altogether unfounded. However, we must ultimately meet fear with two things: courage and creativity.

We're living in a historic time, and B2B sales teams need creativity and courage. They need transformative ideas to turn customer fears into mutual value. But where will these ideas come from?  

What Makes a Great Selling Idea? 

The American philosopher Mortimer Adler once directed a team of experts, who wrote two books containing the 102 greatest ideas that shaped our world. Adler’s team rated the books of great minds from Aristotle to Albert Einstein and extracted all the great ideas they had come up with in their lifetime. Adler defines an idea as an “object of thought that we cannot touch, or perceive with our senses, but that, as thinking individuals, we can discuss with one another.”

The interesting part is that it is the quality of our conversation that either shrinks a great idea or enhances the idea to the next level, where it becomes transformative. Transformative ideas contain the key to sales success.

Great Ideas Begin with Great Questions

Werner Heisenberg, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1932, once said, “Nature does not reveal its secrets. It only responds to our method of questioning.”

A salesperson’s method of questioning can determine the success or failure of a sales call. Customers appreciate a salesperson who leads them to think and causes them to critically examine their situation through the lens of a great question.

While good salespeople persuade their customers with great (but often prepackaged) answers, great salespeople ask great questions that transform the customer’s position from a sales target to a cocreator of the sale.

How The Right Questions Can Push the Sale Forward

Let’s assume we’re engaged in a thoughtful conversation about current events. For example, we might discuss a news item we both read about research being conducted to find a COVID-19 vaccine. Without a doubt, our conversation will reveal our understanding of what’s good or bad, and it may cause us to review what’s right and wrong. The chain of ideas could lead, through artful questions, to a better understanding of what both parties value.

While a conversation about current events leads to a chain of ideas that helps us better understand the world we live in, a great conversation with a prospect will help us understand the customer’s world. As a result, we will be able to generate better ideas for creating customer value with our solutions.

Asking great questions can often lead to great responses from customers. But here is the big challenge: How do we process the customer’s response? By listening actively, we will get much closer to the great selling idea that will add value to the customer’s business.

Listening to the customer is similar to catching a baseball. It takes an agile mind and body to catch a ball thrown by a professional player. One customer may throw a curveball, another may send a fastball, and yet another could launch a knuckleball. The goal of active listening is to catch more balls, which ensures complete understanding of the customer’s true situation.

Five Qualities that Can Yield Great Selling Ideas

Top salespeople develop the five qualities listed below and, in turn, come up with the great selling ideas that lead to more sales.

1. The ability to recognize and understand a great idea during a conversation with the customer. This is the starting point for all good selling. Top salespeople speak two languages: the customer’s language and the company’s language. In essence, great salespeople are like ambassadors who speak the language of the host country and their own county.

2. The ability to analyze an idea. Top salespeople will look at a customer’s problem from many different angles with the help of smart questions. Examples: “What would be the cost of doing nothing? If it turned out that we found a solution, what would be the impact on your business?”

The salesperson’s job is to extract enough information from the prospect to be able to define the core problem and establish a value for the solution.

3. The ability to objectively compare one idea with another. Top salespeople will lead the conversation to an observation point, at which the customer can objectively compare where the path leads by adopting solution A or pursuing solution B. Comparisons are near impossible when salespeople are unable to appraise a situation objectively.

4. The ability to place the ideas on a map that lead to the best solution. Great salespeople are like mapmakers, and they show their customers where they are on the map, how far they can go, and how to get there.

5. The capacity to assign a value to each idea. Top salespeople will break down the value of the final solution into concrete numbers: time saved, money saved, troubles avoided, reduction in cost, gains in productivity, etc.

The big idea is not to prepackage ideas before visiting the customer, but to engage the customer and then co-create the idea that you placed on the map before the call. In the ideal scenario, your customers will end up thinking that it was actually their idea that created the solution. The smart salesperson will always give the customer the credit, while he or she gets the commission.

Join Me for the Virtual Sales 3.0 Leadership Summit

During the coronavirus pandemic, courage and creativity will lead to transformative ideas among sales teams. And your ideas will give you the cutting edge you need to win and remain competitive.

I'm excited Selling Power will partner to produce the new Virtual Sales 3.0 Leadership Summit on May 28. Top B2B sales experts and sales leaders will be on hand to answer all your pressing questions (live) about how you can succeed and thrive amid via virtual selling and making human connections with customers.

My good friend Chris Beall will be there -- he's already shared some interesting data on LinkedIn illustrating how sales reps are using ConnectAndSell to connect with customers in high volume while they work from home. Our agenda so far includes these topics and more will be announced soon. 

• Creating a Revenue Resilient Sales Team
• How B2B Decision Makers are Responding to the Coronavirus Crisis
• Six Great Strategies for Selling in Tough Times

Register now for this FREE event and as a bonus you'll receive 500 free prospects from our data partner, MountainTop Data. 

In the meantime, keep asking questions that move the sale forward. I wish you good luck and good selling! 

 

How to Be Ready to Serve Customers in the New Normal

Today's post is by Mike Fisher, master facilitator with Integrity Solutions and chief sales officer of Sales Bullpen.

 

In the mere months since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, much has been written about the need to adjust to a new normal in how we’re doing business – and from where. We get it: We’re all working from home. We’re socially distanced. And we’re collaborating in new ways. Yet, as we continue to make sense of all that, one question looms large: When the day comes, what are we going back to? 

Said another way: What’s next – in how we’ll serve customers, lead teams, and collaborate with each other? 

Are You Planning for Sales Success? 

Permit me to skip the one question that is hotly debated lately: When? Nobody really knows. Let’s just say it’s someday, and maybe soon. In fact, it may have already started for you – depending on where you are and when you’re reading this. And, as we know, not everyone is shut down – many people in essential jobs never stopped working.

But, whenever everything starts again for most of us, we can guarantee that the world into which we reemerge will be different from the one we left behind.

Now’s the time to look at that and think through some important issues. How can we make the best use of the time we have now to get ready – even if we don’t have all the answers?

As I think this through myself, I’m reminded of the times I’ve been to a busy fast-food place or a bustling coffee shop – standing in line for 5-10 minutes as the line inches forward. There’s always the risk that a person one or two in front of me, as he or she steps up to order, will utter, “Um, huh, let me see now…” and then spend another few agonizing minutes scanning the menu before deciding what to order. 

Here’s what’s most maddening in such a scenario: Number one, they have already had five or more minutes to read through the menu and decide. And number two: They have been there hundreds of times, no doubt. 

Top Considerations for Sales Leaders Right Now

In terms of where we all are now, one goal now needs to be: Don’t be that person. You should be ready when it is your turn to order. Before we’re ready to get back in the game more fully, we need to know that, if we’re not ready to operate in a new-new normal – if we drop the ball in any number of key areas – that might be just the spark to inspire a customer to go elsewhere.

Without attempting to have all the answers, here’s what to think about now:

Preparation is key: When this thing breaks loose, you cannot afford to have set-backs. Your people all need to be forward thinking, not excuse making. No hiccups allowed: You have had time to prepare, so your supply chain, inventory, distribution, and more all need to be at the top of their game.

Things will be different: Some of your customers were hit really hard; some may not be there. You will need to prepare to develop new relationships. Asking how their business has changed and how you can best serve them is good practice. 

Needs have changed: Do not assume things are the same as before you left. For example, in the medical device field, when elective surgeries open up, the need for inventory and a fast process will be high. Prepare and put these systems in place right now. Communicate with your customers now and try to forecast if you are in an industry with a similar situation.

Top people are accessible: Business owners are accessible right now. Many gate keepers are not there to answer calls, so don’t be afraid to pick up the phone – you might just have a direct line to your prospect.  

Expect orphan accounts: Let’s be honest: Some businesses will not survive this, leaving their customers looking for the services you provide. “We are offering this, this, and this to our customers. We would love to serve you as well…” 

No doubt many of the points I raise here will spark a pain or two, as you grapple with intangibles or find yourself in a haze of ambiguity. That’s to be expected, but don’t give up on working through some important questions that will help you prepare. There’s so much at stake. 

I spoke to a business owner recently and he confessed to me his biggest fear: He didn’t want to let down his team. He said, “I am writing the chapters now of how I handled this storm. I want to look back and know I communicated with my team effectively and made good choices.”  

That’s as good a motivation as any, in my view. Make the decisions on how you work with your customers now, based on how you want them to judge you after – because that is exactly what they will do.

For more information visit www.integritysolutions.com.

How Companies Can Leverage AI to Benefit Sales

Today’s post is by Matt Langie, CMO at XANT.

 

 

We have all seen enough Hollywood movies to know the stereotypes of sales. The sunburned door-to-door suspect. The slicked-back smooth talker at the car lot. The buttoned-up professional in the boardroom. Among the more recent additions is the caffeine-driven tech bro working the phones and email.

Good Sales Leads Always Drive Revenue

But the one thing these caricatures tend to get right is the driving need for good leads. Good leads have always been the backbone of any sales organization to build pipeline and drive revenue.

With each new technological revolution, the way sales teams found, sorted, and pursued leads improved. The humble act of knocking on doors drastically decreased as more households adopted the telephone. Cold calling began to disappear as computers helped teams find better targets and communication preferences shifted from phone to email.

However, even as more sales representatives adopt digital communication, they struggle to get the right data to do their jobs. This is where artificial intelligence (AI) can take sales to the next level. AI is not just a reworking of tried-and-true technology; it is a genuine game changer. Companies that utilize AI to drive sales leads are finding that it does more than just level the playing field – it raises the entire field. These companies are becoming more efficient and reaching more of the right prospects, at the right times, in the right ways. 

Find Sales Leads More Efficiently with AI

There are three primary ways companies can reap the benefits of AI for sales:

1. Implementing data algorithms that comprise the right statistical and machine learning code that helps an AI learn data patterns.
   
   The right data algorithms can fuel automation capabilities to improve the sales process. Those same algorithms can also enable automation to improve a sales rep’s visibility and productivity. Utilizing these algorithms correctly breaks down which sales activities will have the greatest impact, at the right time of day. 
   
   
2. Gathering enough data volume and depth of information so AI algorithms can sort, compile, and understand these inputs.
   
   CRM and sales activity data can be merged, anonymized, encrypted, and enriched. Once complete, that processed data can be used to train AI models that deliver predictive insights to sales organizations. This will help sales reps target the right customers – improving the quality and effectiveness of any given engagement. 
   
   
3. Ensuring proper data quality – including variability, freshness, and uniqueness – so AI can provide the best outputs.
   
   By enriching and extending customer data, an AI system can best identify not only whom to target, but, more importantly, how they behave and how to best engage them. 
   
   This enables every sales representative to effectively execute a “cadence” when they reach out via email, phone, social media, etc., to initiate a conversation with a potential prospect. The art of a cadence is determined based on myriad factors, fueled primarily by the quality of data regarding the company and contact being pursued.

These three levers help sales teams produce exceptional data intelligence and, in turn, more sales. The intelligence behind these levers is also not new – essentially, sales leads have been driven by patterns, raw data, and quality for many years. But AI helps leverage much larger datasets than ever before, find the best variables and fit, and then predict business outcomes with high accuracy.

Imagine a world with no more cold calling and fewer leads that turn out to be duds? Imagine a world where you’re not wasting time and resources selling to the wrong individual at a company? Using AI to improve leads and manage the sales team will make everyone from the EVP of sales to the junior associates happy, which will turn around the stereotypes and present a kinder, gentler form of salesperson. Where will scriptwriters turn in the future for examples of burned-out, frustrated professionals? Maybe the marketing team.