All around us, ‘gurus’ (of varying degrees of credibility) are pushing this system, or that product, or some package or another which will miraculously ‘transform’ your business. Some are excellent, but some are not and there is, of course, a price point for every pocket.
However, I am a great believer in simple things. I have lost count of the number of wonderful sounding tools or gizmos which I have invested in, but which were too complicated to learn or I just never used.
So, as a sales trainer and small business owner, what is my favourite transformational tool? It’s a CRM.
OK – I bet you thought it was going to be something a lot more exciting didn’t you? Or perhaps that I was going to prefix it with words like “Secret” or “they don’t want me to tell you about this”.
Well I am just as fed up as you are of hearing about the NEW BIG THING only to find out it’s a recycled version of an existing thing.
So let me explain. I don’t really care what sort of system you have, but you MUST have some way of tracking your leads and your customers. For some people it’s a pile of business cards (don’t really recommend that, but it does work for some people). Others use notebooks, scraps of paper (ouch!), their phone or products like Microsoft Access.
The excitement, the enthusiasm, the nerves! Read on to learn our 5 tips for starting new sales role!
Anyone who has been in sales remembers this – I know I do. You want to make a big impression quickly – show them that they made the right decision in choosing you and that you are going to not only do well, but crush it.
The trouble is, there might be a lot of blanks – blank diary, blank deals on the table, huge big blank space in your head where there should be lots of knowledge about your customers. Sound familiar? So here are 5 sure-fire tips to get you up and running and performing quickly.
1 Be really clear on what is expected of you
By this I mean have a proper talk with your manager and discuss your territory, your customer base and how things have been performing up until now. Do they expect you to do your target straight away, within 3 months or within a year? Your manager will be able to give you loads of really valuable information – who to focus on first, who is in urgent need of a phone call, who in the team has extra information that will be useful.
2. Work out your metrics
Someone in the team will have loads of statistics on things like:
So work it out. If it takes 50 calls to have a sales conversation and the closing ratio on these conversations is one in 5, then you know you need to make 250 calls to get a sale. If your target is 2 sales per month, that means you need to make at least 500 calls to be safe. You get the idea.
3. Make friends with the high fliers
Who in the team is constantly on top of the leader board? If you haven’t been allocated a mentor, proactively seek out the high perfomers and seek permission to spend some time with them – anything from observing their calls to seeing how they handle their admin. You’ll pick up some great tips (and learn what not to do as well!)
4. Be free with praise
Has someone helped you? Did a more experienced member of the team help you close a deal? Well shout it out nice and loud. Give loads of praise (and keep quiet about the times people didn’t help you – no one likes a moaner) The point here is that everyone likes to be appreciated – especially in sales where a lot of people are really motivated by recognition.
Oh, and if you haven’t worked it out already, get some wine. Not to drink, but to hand out as a ‘thank you’!
4. Don’t Panic!
Remember sales is a long term game. There is a reason why you have an annual target. Your job is to make a difference over the longer term. Now if you are putting in the effort, you know your metrics, you are doing the work and you are keeping your manager in the loop, then if you don’t achieve top spot in the first month, no one is going to mind.
Make sure you keep focused and the results will come.
5. Invest in yourself
Does your company provide training? Ask to go on every course you can. You will need to understand your product or service of course, but anything that can help you with sales skills should be grabbed with both hands.
What if there is not much training available? Well, any decent company will have something in place, but there is no reason why you can’t sort something out yourself – there is a plethora of brilliant sales training available on line or via platforms such as LinkedIn. Here is a link to my website – I do training at all sorts of price points. Also, did you know you can ask for a mentor on LinkedIn and get advice from an expert?
Learning is truly a life-long experience – you genuinely never stop learning, so get in the habit as soon as you can.
I hope these tips will help you – now go earn yourself some commission and show your boss you were worth employing!
Happy selling!
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7 things that we all hate about sellingEspecially when they ‘forget’ to tell you and you’ve physically travelled to the venue before you find out. Also annoying when you have done tons of preparation and they no longer want to see you.
This image persists, yet nearly every salesperson I know is a thoroughly decent (normal) human being. In fact, the people who are best at sales are usually highly focused on helping clients. They are some of the kindest and most empathetic people out there, but everyone else thinks salespeople are a cross between Attila the Hun and Gordon Gekko.
You get to deal with all sorts in sales and so by the law of averages, you are going to come across a few you don’t like. However, if their money is good and they are a good fit, you must still deal with them and try and make it look like a pleasure.
You do the work, you agree terms, everyone is happy so you shake hands (or get verbal agreement, or whatever your standard is for the thing you do). Then, you get that call (and often they just leave a message) saying they no longer want to go ahead or they have changed their mind. Can you get back to them to talk about it? Of course not. The draw bridge has gone up. Leading me on to ….
When they are interested or want your help or advice, clients will talk to you. In fact, they may call you at all sorts of strange times. However, when they have other things on their mind, or when you just need a bit of feedback to move the sale forward, what happens? Yup – suddenly it’s impossible to get through. Messages go unanswered, colleagues can’t say when your contact will be available and you hit a brick wall. You know what’s coming next don’t you?
I prefer speaking to actual people. I suppose we all do – but now everyone has an answer machine, somewhere between 50% and 85% of calls go straight to voicemail. Do you ring once, twice, 5 times, 10 times? And at what point do you turn into a Stalker? And then there are the messages left on your own phone that you miss, then 3 days later you just decide to check, only to discover that something urgent needed to be dealt with yesterday.
I blame car boot sales for this. It’s acceptable to ask for a discount when someone is selling their leftover and unwanted things from their home, but actually it’s not OK to ask for a discount when you are discussing a high quality, well crafted, bespoke product or service that is probably priced fairly for the market place. Yet still prospects do this. Even if, as the person selling, you have done everything right; showed the value of what you offer and demonstrated how many of the prospects needs and objectives you solve, you can pretty much guarantee that, before you get the sale, you will be asked if you can drop the price.
So, if you’ve been in sales for more than 5 minutes, I’m sure you recognise a lot of these. Fortunately, nothing comes even close to that feeling you get when you smash that target!
Janet Efere is an award-winning sales trainer based in Enfield, North London
Whether you are a one-man band, or a multinational organisation, you will inevitably be spending a chunk of your budget on marketing and promotion. The idea of course, is that you will encourage sales, or at the very least, leads and enquiries. So what you do with these leads is critical.
I do a lot of work with companies who have a front line sales/customer service team and, despite pouring loads of resources and effort into generating interest, suddenly seem to lose the plot a bit when it comes to responding to the leads that marketing generates.
Let me tell you what I mean.
These are just 4 of the things I see frequently when inbound calls are not handled properly:
No proper introduction
Have you ever rung up a company to be greeted with just ‘hello’? It doesn’t inspire confidence. After all, have you got the right phone number? As a potential customer it makes you feel uneasy and slightly wrong-footed. So use this SIMPLE formula every time – it’s clean, professional and straightforward:
• Good Morning/afternoon
• Name of company
• Your name
• How can I help?
So for me, this would be: “Good Morning, Tadpole Training, Janet speaking, how may I help?”
Don’t ask the person’s name
What is one of the easiest ways to build rapport? Yes, use a person’s name. How do you get their name? You simply ask: “Who am I speaking with please?”
Don’t get a contact number
I used to head up business development at an international college. We got enquiries all the time from overseas and often, the line was dreadful and conversations vanished. If we lost an enquiry, that could mean that £6,000 in fees had potentially just evaporated. So we developed a simple strategy to ALWAYS get the phone number as soon as we had the person’s name. Try this:
“[their name], just in case we get cut off, what’s the best contact number for you?”
It is simple and people then understand why you are asking.
Don’t find out the source of the enquiry
Remember that we are talking about your marketing money here. Often inbound staff don’t ask how people get to the stage of picking up the phone to enquire. You need to know how they found out about you. Apart from anything else, you need to understand which of your marketing pounds are pulling in the punters (spend more if required) and which are not (get rid, reduce or change).
This simple question will not only tell you how they heard about you, but it also gives you the opportunity to position yourself as a trusted company to work with:
“Who recommended you to us?” [wait for answer]
Whatever they say, then respond with:
“The reason I ask is that most of our business comes to us from personal recommendation.”
And before you worry that ‘most’ of your business does not come from personal recommendation, simply adapt the wording to ‘a lot’ or ‘X%’, whatever is authentic and accurate for you.
So there you have it, some simple tips to get your inbound team answering the phone more effectively and making sure they have the most important details of every single call.
Happy Selling!
If you would like more information about how we can help you transform your sales team, please contact Janet on 07748 994 334 or email jefere@tadpoletraining.com
About this time of year, 43 years ago, I was sitting in my classroom at Goldsworth Middle School in Woking. The teacher was asking us to audition for parts in the Christmas carol service. The format was simple: come up to the front of the class and read a passage. Then the class would vote for whoever they thought did the best reading. The winner would take part in the carol service as the representative of our class.
Many hands went up to volunteer, all of them belonging to boys. Read More
There are always some high achievers in sales who, no matter what, always seem to be able to smash their targets, whatever else is happening in the world. So what do these individuals have in common and what can you learn from their behaviours to improve your own sales? Well here, in no particular order, are my top 10:
They believe in what they are selling – anyone anywhere would struggle to sell something that they don’t like or believe to be great (interestingly, it doesn’t actually have to be great – but the salesperson must believe it is). If there is no genuine belief, then customers will sense the insincerity and they will not buy.
Persistence – Top sales people keep going even when times are tough, because they know that hard work now will pay off later. So they just keep plugging away, doggedly. It might not be sexy, but it’s very effective.
Spend time planning – great sales people have a plan – they know their targets, their territories, their ideal customers and their products. Chances are your highly successful person has a tight diary and knows exactly what they are doing several days if not weeks in advance.
They ask really good questions – they know that it is all about the customer – what are their pains, their goals, their challenges? Once a salesperson knows that, they can determine whether their solution will help. Without this knowledge, they won’t know what really matters to the customer.
They are prepared – when an over achiever has a meeting, you can bet they have a their business cards, laptop (with all the right data on it), a notebook, a pen, research about the client, examples, case studies, pricing details, order forms [insert or delete as appropriate depending on your situation]. There is a good chance they have spares too – extra pens, spare chargers, whatever they think they might need. There is no chance they are going to lose a deal because they forgot to bring the right document.
They are on time – actually they are early. If customers have given you their time to meet them, the least you can do is get there promptly or start that call when it is scheduled. When you arrive early at a customer’s premises, you can learn lots about them too.
They never stop learning – these are the people who are always reading the latest book, going on all the training they can and who invest in self-development. Although so much in sales is the same as it has always been, change is a constant, so they know they must keep up to date and stay ahead of the competition.
They have a mentor/coach – if you wanted to be a top Olympic athlete, there is no way you could do it without using a coach – well the same is true in sales – high performers always have someone – whether it is a brilliant boss, or someone you employ to coach you individually, constructive feedback and advice can enable you to continually get better.
They practice – by this I mean they practice scenarios, closing techniques, questions. Whether it is in the car, in the office, with other people, they visualise different outcomes and how they can respond to move the sale forward.
They are always truthful – if they don’t know something, they say so, if they cannot do something for a customer they will be honest about it. They do not ‘enhance’ the truth in order to win a deal. Instead, they will overcome any genuine objections with confidence and remain authentic and genuine.
I hope you have enjoyed this list. Is there anything you would add?
Happy selling!
Come and have a chat about how we can grow your sales. Here’s a link to my calendar
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