Online meetings are rapidly becoming the new de facto standard.

Savvy sellers have discovered that the ability to quickly move a phone conversation online yields a richer, deeper interaction with prospects. It enables them to discuss, demo or present using a variety of resources. As a result, prospect engagement goes up, new opportunities emerge, and deals close faster.

That’s a competitive edge worth paying attention to—especially since only 58% of salespeople met or exceeded their quota last year. But right now, most sellers are barely tapping into online meetings because they don’t know how or when to best use them.

Salespeople need to be nimble and ready to pivot. In conversations, they must be able to quickly spot and capitalise on emerging opportunities. It’s even better if they can create these moments on their own.

That’s exactly what savvy sellers do with online meetings. During a phone call, when they spot a need or when inspiration strikes, they immediately suggest:

“Do you have a few minutes? How about we jump onto a quick online meeting?”

That’s sales agility at its best. The key to success with these impromptu online meetings is strategic spontaneity. Savvy sellers are prepared. They know the best times to suggest this option and they know how to do it, seamlessly. They know what they’ll ask, point out, suggest or clarify.

In short, they nail it! These savvy sellers create an “aha” moment that crystallises value and drives differentiation. When the conversation is over, they’ve established credibility, deepened the relationship and moved closer to a signed contract.

1. FOCUS ON PURPOSE

What outcome do you want to achieve from jumping online with your prospect? Always start with this question, then craft a meeting plan that supports it. The best “purposes” are typically aligned with the various stages of a prospect’s buying cycle. These are the three main ones.

Pique Curiosity. If you’re prospecting, know that more than 90% of the people you contact are reasonably satisfied with their status quo— whatever that might be. When you connect, your objective is to get the prospect so interested that they want to learn more—either now or in very short order.

Drive a Commitment to Change. Once you’ve piqued your prospect’s curiosity, their next step is to determine if it makes sense to change. This is your opportunity to help them determine their business case. It’s also a chance to explore the factors they need to consider if they do go ahead.

Close the Deal. When your prospect has decided that changing is worth it, your purpose shifts to that of showcasing why working with your company makes the most sense, provides the best value and is the least risky.

For lead follow-up, try to gauge where the prospect might be in their buying process by reviewing what they’ve downloaded from your website and the pages they’ve visited.

When you know your purpose, it’s time to identify when a “quick” online meeting can help you achieve it.

2. PINPOINT THE OPPORTUNITIES

When does it make sense to have an impromptu online meeting? Start by mentally identifying when it could be beneficial to jump online. Often visual elements are involved and referencing them while you’re talking enriches the conversation.

You might want to consider an impromptu online meeting to:

Spark a new idea. If your offering enables prospects to do something they hadn’t conceived of, pull up a graphic to trigger their thinking. You could also highlight relevant research or data that supports a change from the status quo.

Expand on concepts. Once prospects are ready to change, they want to discuss factors such as configuring the right solution and implementation issues.

Do a demo. Give your prospect a quick tour of your solution. Whether it’s an actual demo, screen shots, or animated, you can gauge their reactions.

Review in real-time. Any time there are questions or concerns re: proposals, pricing, layouts, design and more, the quickest way to resolve them is to jump online. When people post a need or comment regarding an issue you can solve, invite them to a virtual meeting. Again, they’re already online. They just need to be online talking to you!

Research shows that people remember 80% of what they see and do. Online meetings, much more than phone conversations, make you and your message more memorable and engaging.

3. ZERO IN ON VALUE

How can you get prospects to invest the time and energy needed to change from the status quo? It’s your toughest sales challenge. According to SBI, over 60% of forecast deals do nothing. That means you lose to “no decision” more than all other competitors combined.

If this happens to you, it’s likely you’ve been doing too much pitching, trying to differentiate your product/service from competitors. Forrester Research reports that only 13% of executive buyers believe that a salesperson can clearly show they understand customer business issues and articulate a way to solve them.

During your online meetings, focus in on what matters most to your prospects. Be very specific. Increasing sales and decreasing costs is far too generic. Pepper your conversations with value propositions like these:

• Increased sales productivity, enabling 30% more calls/day.
• Reduced customer churn by 2.9% in just six months.
• Stabilised workflow, eliminating 47% of overtime pay.

This is what prospects care about. This is why they’d change from the status quo. Use your online meeting to tailor the value to your buyer’s position.

Don’t get sucked into a “tell me about your [product/service]” conversation. Knowing about your leading-edge capabilities, unique methodologies and unbeatable service will not make people change from the status quo.

Instead, cut to the chase; make it abundantly clear about the value you can deliver to their organisation. That’s what gets people to buy.

4. LEAD CONVERSATIONS

How can you create a meaningful dialogue in a quick online meeting? Huthwaite’s research on 10,000+ reps in 30,000 sales calls revealed that the kind and quality of questions asked during a meeting had more impact on sales success than any other behaviour.

Asking questions allows you to showcase expertise, demonstrate concern, establish trust and build stronger relationships. Additionally, questions enable you to gauge a prospect’s level of interest, expand the possibilities, determine your strategy and find the right solution.

To take advantage of your limited time together during an online sales meeting, consider these suggestions:

Plan questions ahead of time. Brain research shows that it’s impossible to do two things at once. That’s why it’s imperative to figure out the best questions to ask and the right sequence before you initiate contact. Keep them in front of you, but feel free to go with the flow too—if it makes sense.

After asking a question, be quiet – especially if your intention is to make people think. The average salesperson feels compelled to jump in after 2-3 seconds, totally high-jacking the opportunity to learn critical information.

Wrap your questions in your expertise. Lead into them with phrases such as, “In working with other VPs of Sales, we find that …. Is this something you’re struggling with too? Or “In talking to other manufacturers, their three biggest priorities are … How do those priorities compare to yours?”

It’s your responsibility to lead the conversation—and the best way to do it is with thoughtful, provocative questions.

5. CREATE ENGAGEMENT

How can you be more collaborative? Online meetings give you a chance to interact in real time. They can be just as effective as actually sitting in your client’s office, getting a deeper understanding of their needs, and discussing their business challenges.

Here are some ideas to make impromptu online meeting more engaging:

Rather than you doing a demo, try highlighting how easy it is and pass control to your prospects. Let them do it themselves. Sampling simplicity makes them more likely to change.

Use different content. Don’t just show a presentation; change the info you share. Jump from a presentation, to a report, to a website. This on-thefly access to a variety of resources increases interest and involvement.

Bring your recommendations up on the screen and get your prospects’ input. Find out what they like/don’t like. Ask if the solution meets their needs or not— then make appropriate changes. This increases buy-in and the commitment to move forward.

Revise critical documents together. Invariably prospects want to make changes to your proposals, SOWs or contracts. It’s much simpler to actually work on the “same page” as your prospects instead of trying to talk about it. With today’s online contracts, it’s pretty easy to move from conversation to proposal to contracting.

This real-time collaboration capability is also highly useful for internal usage—especially when multiple people from your company are involved in the sales process. It’ll help you get things right before you suggest your prospect jump online for that quick meeting.

6. PICK THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY

What’s the right tool for you to use? Today, 30.3% of sales professionals believe that the online meeting tools they’re using get in the way of sales, rather than helping. That’s not good because it reflects on your competence. The solution you choose can be critical to moving the conversation forward or closing the sale.

To select the right technology, ask yourself these questions:

How easy is it to initiate an online meeting? This is crucial. You need it to be seamless. There’s nothing worse than having to stop the conversation, figure out how to launch a meeting, send an invite, wait while your prospect downloads some software—and then runs into problems. You lose momentum, and your prospect loses interest. Plus, you get frazzled and all your best thinking evaporates into thin air.

Does it have the capabilities you need? When you start out, screen sharing might be all you need. But as you get more proficient you’ll want video capabilities. This makes you more real” to prospects, increases engagement, deepens relationships and drives more sales.

Be sure to check how easy it is to switch between the key documents, demos, or presentations that you want prospects to remember. Also, advanced users may want to highlight certain areas, swap presenters, record meetings and create presentations “on the fly” via new online whiteboarding.

What’s most important is that you select the right online meeting tool for your needs—and that it’s a no-brainer for both you and your prospect.

7. GET REALLY GOOD AT IT

Whether scheduled or impromptu, running a flawless meeting is a skill that needs to be learned. While it may be simple to do, when you’re talking to an interested prospect on the phone it’s easy to flub things up. That’s the last thing you want to happen.

Instead, you want to come across as the true professional you are.

Here’s how you can prep for the maximum impact:

Set the stage. Sloppy desktops make you look disorganized, so get yours cleaned up. Shut down any pop-up messaging too. Or, if your tool allows, select the window-sharing option in addition to full screen sharing.

Know what’s in your virtual briefcase. Being able to quickly locate the exact document, image, PowerPoint slide or resource reflects on your professionalism.

For video meetings, it’s crucial to have appropriate surroundings, de-cluttered workspaces and good lighting. Make sure your webcam mic is clear enough; otherwise, get a headset. Put your computer at eye level so you’re looking directly at the camera. Maintaining eye contact is essential for relationship building.

Do mock meetings with your colleagues. Practice logging on, sending an invite, doing a demo, passing the presenter role and re-taking control. Once you’re proficient, have a colleague role-play someone who’s new to online meetings—like a potential customer. That way you’ll be prepared for that scenario too.

Remember, your prospects judge your competence in every interaction. This is one more opportunity to prove you’re an invaluable resource.

8. FINALISE NEXT STEPS

So now you have zeroed in on business value. You’ve asked great questions. Your prospect is highly engaged. In fact, they’re oohing and aahing about what you’ve covered. It feels like you’ve nailed it.

But have you? It’s easy to get seduced at this point—especially if prospects start asking you all sorts of detailed questions. Sometimes it’s good to put the brakes on to find out what’s really happening.

Try asking, “It sounds like you’re really interested in changing. Help me understand the business case from your perspective.”

If they can clearly articulate it, find out what the next steps are to move the decision forward. Who else needs to be involved? What criteria needs to be considered? How will it be implemented? Or, suggest what you see typically happening: “Based on my experience

working with other companies, the next step is …”

If your prospect can’t articulate the business value, you’ll need to spend more time here. Again, suggest a logical next step: “Usually, at this point, we need to (engage other individuals, do more research, etc.) to determine if it makes sense to move ahead. Let’s get that on the calendar.”

Don’t leave an online meeting without a clear action step. Know what you’re doing next and get commitment from your prospect regarding their responsibilities.

9. TAKE IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL

How can you get even better leveraging impromptu online meetings? It’s great to be able to quickly jump online with a prospect, but it’s even better when you move from proficiency into mastery. Many service providers today offer the ability to record your meetings—and it’s definitely something you’ll want to take advantage of.

Initially, when you replay your meeting, you’ll find all sorts of personal flaws that will drive you nuts. You’ll hate your voice. You’ll notice every mistake. You’ll realize you weren’t looking at the camera. Note all these and work on getting better.

But then, go deeper. Ask yourself questions like:

• If you were a prospect, how would you feel?
• How was the overall flow? Did it make sense?
• Did you focus on value or get lost in the details?
• Were you able to advance the sales process? If not, what happened?
• Did you miss any important points?
• How else could you have created a better experience?

It’s a good idea to review the recording by yourself first. But that’s not sufficient if you want to really master this tool. If possible, get feedback from your colleagues or boss. Peer coaching is one of the best ways to make giant leaps in performance. Mastery is possible, especially when you get input from others.

THE KNACK OF NAILING IT

There’s great triumph in nailing an online meeting. Striking while the iron is hot enables you to quickly capitalise on an opportunity and moves you one step closer to closing the deal. It sets you apart from competitors, deepens credibility, crystallises value and builds relationships. It can even create new opportunities that didn’t exist before you said:

“Do you have a few minutes? How about we jump onto a quick online meeting?”

As we’ve shown, the key to successful impromptu online meetings is being planful and prepared— strategic spontaneity. That’s what sales agility is all about.

Start by picking just one scenario where an online meeting could add value to your sales process. Then, review the suggestions in this article, and get going. You’ll get better as you experiment with this tool. You’ll have richer interactions, greater connections and even more opportunities. Before long, you’ll be nailing it all the time too.

The post 9 Strategies To Improve Online Sales Meetings And Close More Deals appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Without meaning to, my friend Jeb Blount created quite a clamour on LinkedIn. The poll he posted asked which medium to use first in a prospecting sequence: phone, email, social media, or an in-person visit. He argued (and I agree) that the phone should start your sequence. The reason is simple and straightforward: if the person who answers your call agrees to a meeting, you no longer need a sequence.

The comments on Jeb’s poll were both revealing and incredibly disappointing. Cold calling has consistently been a lightning rod on social media, with a few salespeople advocating for an “all of the above” approach, including the telephone. But I want to set aside that debate for a few minutes, because the comments highlighted a much larger potential threat: fear of sales.

The Mass Infection of Fear

One vocal opponent of cold calling, an entrepreneur, commented on Jeb’s thread that his approach was to buy ads on Facebook, providing a link that a prospective client might click on. Only after the prospect clicked the link did this person believe he could reach out them. The problems with this approach would overflow a week’s worth of posts, so in the interests of time I’ll just note a couple. First, one-to-many messaging is marketing, not sales. Second, no individual salesperson has a Facebook pixel and a budget to run ads. Relying on Facebook ads may be the right choice for entrepreneurs but its awful advice for a salesperson. What’s underneath that advice, however, is worse: the entrepreneur was too afraid to call his prospective clients.

Other comments suggested that one must warm up the prospective client by sending them an email, claiming that it is important for the client to see your name on an email before they get your call. To be honest, I’m having trouble following that logic. How exactly does getting a cold email create the desire to speak to the person who sent it? Unless you spend your day starting at your phone, hoping against hope that the people who just spammed you will call you to spam you again, then you cannot possibly believe that an email makes it safer to dial a prospect’s number. And there’s the rub: when email-first salespeople talk about safety, they broadcast the same fear of calling a stranger. An odd thing, that, given that every good thing that ever happens to you in sales is the result of meeting a stranger.

Finally, one person suggested that the best way to start a prospecting sequence is with a warm referral. His response gave a very long explanation of how to respond to an introduction over email or on LinkedIn, again emphasizing the asynchronous communication tools that so many salespeople hide behind. The same people who are afraid of calling a stranger are also reluctant to call up their clients and ask for a referral. They worry about imposing on their client, so they avoid asking for the referral in a real conversation and instead defer it to email.

With all this fear floating around, here’s a reminder: no salesperson has ever been scarred for life by making a cold call, although many have experienced incredibly negative consequences because they didn’t create enough opportunities.

The Long-term Harm of Fearing Your Clients

There are deleterious effects of teaching salespeople to fear their prospective clients. If a ten-minute phone conversation is so dangerous, then I can only imagine how much the salesperson should fear advising the client on what they need to do to improve their results. And just imagine those poor salespeople working on big deals, with multi-year, multi-million dollar payoffs, the kind that require the salesperson to negotiate with the client, or worse, their purchasing department. Terrifying, I tell you. Just terrifying.

This fear-based approach goes hand in hand with the idea that marketing is responsible for creating sales opportunities and that sales appointments should be handled by crude robots. Conflict aversion is harmful to the development of a salesperson, simply because embracing conflict is the only way to make a positive difference for your clients. No one is ever going to find a compliant, conflict-averse, namby-pamby, order-taker to be consultative, nor will they ever find them to be a trusted advisor.

What makes one a trusted advisor is their willingness to tell the truth at any price, even the price of the deal. The need to be liked is not the same as being likable. The first is detrimental, the other is an advantage. But the advantage of being likable is not available to one who fears their client, especially when it prevents them from having the necessary conversations around change.

A New Hope

In my view, the new hope is the SDR. While salespeople in this category are rarely deployed as effectively as they should be, at least they aren’t being infected with the result-crushing belief that they should fear making a phone call: cold, hot, or indifferent. Their willingness to keep making cold calls will help them develop crucial character traits for sales effectiveness: comfort with conflict, understanding how to trade value for time, unafraid of proposing next steps, able to handle objections, and unaffected by what others would call rejection.

For a long time now, I have been telling sales leaders to prioritize the development of their sales force. Those who take this advice are doing well. Those who don’t often arrest their salespeople’s development, whether it’s by giving into fear or falling for other get-out-of-work-free promises by faux-experts—few of which even consider the long-term effects of their decisions or recommendations.

Do Good Work:

• Look for advice that serves your results.
• Avoid people who would infect you with their fears.
• Never be afraid of calling anyone when you believe you may be able to help them—even if they reject or ignore you.

The post The Fear And Generational Shift Against Cold Calling appeared first on Head Of Sales.

In the words of writer and thought leader Dave Frankland, today’s customers are entitled. And since we are all consumers, we are all entitled – which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Frankland’s book The Entitled Customer tells the story of the modern-day consumer. With technology at our fingertips, we are more informed than ever before. And we crave information – hard data, genuine reviews, and so on.

What’s more, our exposure to information is, for the most part, curated. We use ad blockers and spam filters to tune out the noise from the never-ending stream of ads. We choose who we follow – and unfollow.

The Entitled Customer got me thinking: how can we, as business owners, marketers, executives, and employees, meet today’s consumers’ expectations without assaulting their senses? And how can we leverage the social listening power of LinkedIn to achieve just that?

Is less really more?

A few months ago, LinkedIn launched a feature that let you see how often your connections publish posts. It was likely designed to use the time-tested power of peer-to-peer competition to get us to post more often. And besides, who doesn’t love a good snooping tool?

Out of curiosity, I had a look (you can too, here). To my surprise, I discovered that some people were creating 80 pieces of content a week!

While it must be noted that this calculation includes Stories as well as other forms of content, to me, this seems excessive. Publishing content on LinkedIn is about providing value to your network in a way that positions you as an industry authority. Surely, no person has 80-plus interesting, informative, original thoughts to share each week. Certainly, no person has the time to carefully consider and compose high-quality copy that speaks to their target audience’s pain points.

Less is more – and that’s not just a hunch. According to Frankland’s book, during GDPR in the UK, many companies put their marketing on hold and slimmed their mailing lists to comply with the new privacy act. As a result, sales went up.

Here’s how you can put this mantra into practice on LinkedIn:

Quality over quantity – always

Posting content on LinkedIn is key to unlocking the platform’s full potential, but like most things in life, quality trumps quantity every time. As a general rule, aim for three posts per week. If you can only manage one or two, that’s fine, too.

Add value

Your posts should contribute something of value – your take on an industry trend, your top three tips, or a how-to, as examples. Don’t just post for the sake of posting; instead, be generous with your expertise. No one ever loses out by being helpful.

Don’t spam people’s inboxes

Think of LinkedIn as a town square. If you’re going to wave billboards in people’s faces, they will not respond positively. But if you build relationships and engage in meaningful conversation, your time, effort, and kindness will repay dividends. Only message people privately with a podcast link, article or insight you genuinely believe they will find interesting. Unless solicited, don’t go in for the hard sell.

Creating bespoke experiences

If less is more, how can we make what remains impactful enough to nurture relationships, drive new sales, and hold onto loyal customers? The answer could lie in creating bespoke experiences.

Here are three stats to get you thinking:

• Eight in 10 consumers are more likely to purchase from brands that create personalised experiences.
• Seven in 10 consumers say they exclusively engage with personalised messaging.
• Brands that create personalised experiences see revenue increase by 6 to 10%.

How can you create bespoke experiences for your customers here on LinkedIn? How can you win them back day in and day out?

Here’s my advice:

Write for your target audience

In case you weren’t already aware, you are not your customer. What you might find interesting or helpful may not align with what your customers want to read. Imagine you’re face-to-face with a client. What questions do they have? What are they worried about? How do you make them feel heard and understood? Mirror this in your posts, and the authenticity will shine through. Guaranteed.

Reply to comments on your own posts

I recently saw someone on LinkedIn draw a parallel between not responding to comments on your own posts and not working the room at your own party. Engage with the people who take time out of their day to add their two cents – remember, relationships are built one sentence at a time.

Flatten the path to purchase

Bespoke experiences answer customer questions before they can even ask. Consider what you can do to flatten the path to purchase. A big one: include your contact information in the (tricky to find) Contact Info section and your About section. Don’t make it difficult for a profile visitor to reach out – make it so easy it’s almost irresistible.

Relationships matter – a lot

Ever met someone for the second or third time only to be greeted with a blank look? They don’t remember who you are, because the two, three, four conversations you’ve had failed to add value to them.

That’s one extreme. The other is catching up with an old friend. I live in Sydney, but my childhood friends are scattered across the country and world. When we talk, it’s like no time has passed. They know me, and they understand the context of what I’m saying. They can fill in the blanks with ease.

You don’t want to be the me, me, me person on LinkedIn. Greed isn’t good, and you should not be looking to spam or one-up every person you interact with. You want to listen actively and grasp the bigger picture of your target audience’s wants, needs, and challenges. It takes time and effort to truly listen, and shortcuts don’t work.

You can’t and shouldn’t automate relationships on LinkedIn. Not only is it against their user terms, but it’s also a sure-fire way to be ignored. Instead, create meaningful touchpoints that feel personal:

• Comment on people’s posts
• Personalise your invitations to connect
• Share podcast episodes, relevant posts and articles with your contacts
• Use voice messages

Little actions build big reactions. In an era of hybrid events and less face-to-face interaction, authentic digital connection has never mattered more.

Let’s get personal for a minute

My dad died in late 2019. It put things in perspective. People are everything, and relationships are not to be undervalued. In 2020, I vowed to do better, be better for my clients, to keep in touch and personalise my service. But I was in the lucky group that benefited from the shift to online in the wake of the pandemic. Busier than ever, I couldn’t fit one more thing into my schedule.

As we pass the mid-point of 2021, I’m reviewing my new years resolutions and realising that my resolution has slipped a bit. I am back to actively split-testing what I do, managing my time so that I can focus on quality, not quantity.

Because for me, less is more.

The post Why Less On LinkedIn Is So Much More appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Sales Directors, are you often at loggerheads with your marketing counterparts, being questioned about leads, MQLs, SQLs? Do you wish the conversation would shift to marketing helping you generate pipeline and revenue? If so, Account Based Marketing (ABM) could change your life – but a word of warning – it is not suitable for every organisation.

We are seeing ABM playing a strategic role in delivering growth and innovation here in Australia, but it requires close cooperation of business, sales and marketing leadership. Why? The overall business strategy forms the North Star for any future ABM programs.

This article aims to help you gain a basic understanding of “if” and “how” you and your Sales teams can benefit from ABM.

Sales Directors – how to help your marketers help YOU?

Account Based Marketing is a slightly outdated name for what we now see more accurately described as ABE “Account Based Engagement”.  What’s the difference between ABM/ABE and the traditional B2B marketing approach?

• Traditional B2B is about reaching your total addressable market and generating individual “leads”.
  
• ABM focuses time and resources on a handful accounts with high revenue potential – consistently developing and nurturing relationships with multiple stakeholders across the account – over time. ABM/ABE is about achieving the “Collective yes”.
  

Another major difference lies in the approach: ABM is NOT something marketing “does to sales”. ABM is all about close Sales and Marketing collaboration throughout the process. This is often the biggest hurdle to remove when starting with ABM, as the two organisations sometimes tend to operate in siloes.

ABM enables modern B2B marketers to play a strategic role in delivering revenue growth and innovation but demands a lot more of them – to be successful, marketers need to understand not just the value proposition, but also your sales cycles, processes, points of entry, barriers, and more. This is a great opportunity for Sales to open channels of communications, mentor your marketers and bring them into the fold – believe me, they will enjoy being part of the Pipeline and Revenue generating gang! What can you do to help?  Firstly, start including your marketers in your Account planning, QBRs, some forecast calls, and wherever possible – have them present during conversations with customers and prospects.

Understanding each other’s challenges will make it much easier to align your KPIs and to collaborate. 

ABM – what it is, what it is not

While there are a few interpretations of ABM, the main objective is very clear: Generate revenue & increase footprint in Target Enterprise Accounts, by growing relationships, reputation & trust. After practicing ABM for 7 years here in Australia and New Zealand, my short definition of ABM is as follows:

“Account Based Marketing helps companies that sell complex solutions into Large Enterprise space focus their time & resources on developing relationships & trust in accounts that matter most.”

ABM harnesses deep account and contact insights to design tailored value proposition, treating each account (or an Account cluster) as market of one.

It is a LONG term, coordinated account centric approach to marketing and sales.

As ABM-ers, we are:
1. Focusing on few significant accounts that best resemble our “Ideal Customer Profile”.

2. Enabling Sales to engage, develop relationships and influence the entire decision-making committee.
“Lead” is a dirty word.  In ABM – we are focusing on ALL decisionmakers and influencers in the decision-making committee. Why? The inability to build consensus within the buying committee is likely to be a major obstacle to closing complex deals.

3. Tailoring marketing initiatives around client insights and their strategic objectives.This requires a deep research at an Account and Contact level – what are the strategic goals our solution can help solve at an account and individual level? What are the contacts’ KPIs, drivers and personal preferences? How can we incorporate those in our sales reach out, so that they resonate with the recipient well enough for them to let us build a strong relationship?

4. Marketing & Sales collaborate closely throughout the sales cycle to increase deal velocity and size and the Life-time value of the account. ABM is a team sport, and success is largely dependent on the quality of intel exchange and collaboration and ability to orchestrate initiatives based on the Target Account current needs.

Is ABM a good fit for your organisation?

It is proven that ABM can deliver substantial ROI by building trust, relationships, and reputation in high value accounts. But is it the silver bullet that will work for everyone?

The answer is no – ABM is certainly not a good fit for every organisation. Why? For ABM to deliver ROI, certain criteria must be met:

1.  You are selling complex solutions to Enterprise accounts (high value accounts)
2. Your sales cycles tend to be long and you are engaging and influencing multiple stakeholders (decision making committee).
3. Your deal size (or potential revenue) is large (in ANZ, typically 500k+) to justify the investment.

If your sales approach is largely transactional and you do not see a need to develop strong, long-term relationships in the organisations you are selling into, ABM is most likely not the right fit for you. In fact, using ABM in a transactional sales environment is a waste of time, effort, and resources.

Measuring success – how do we know it is working?

Since Marketing and Sales KPIs are aligned at the start of the ABM process, it is incredibly easy to measure success. As the picture below illustrates, we track the number of total opportunities, pipeline and revenue generated from ABM target accounts.

As you know, working with large Enterprise accounts with long term sales cycles (for example: a software platform solution for FSI vertical, with deal value between $3 and 15 million, with average sales cycle of 20 months), results will not appear overnight. We recommend setting up also interim KPIs related to improving relationships with key decision makers. You can measure increase in engagement, quality of relationships, penetration into new BUs etc.  

3 key takeaways:

1. Your overall business strategy is the North star of your ABM – if ABM is the right fit for your organisation, it provides a substantial opportunity to deliver revenue from high value accounts.
2. Marketing and Sales collaboration is crucial to the success of ABM.
3. Forget “leads”, revenue is the result of strong relationships and trust. ABM enables Sales to effectively engage and develop relationships with key stakeholders across the entire decision-making committee.

Hopefully this article has brought some clarity and basic understanding of ABM and whether you and your teams can benefit from it. ABM is a long term, coordinated account centric approach to marketing and sales, not a tactic, campaign or a sales method.

The post ABM – The Zero Waste Strategy For Revenue Growth appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Here are 7 of the best formulas that boost email reply rates. Each example highlights the language that shows each formula.

(1) Before-After-Bridge (BAB)

Before! Here’s your world now
After! Imagine what the world would be like if you solved this problem
Bridge! Here’s how to get there

Copy template below to email

(2) Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS)

Problem! Identify a pain point
Agitate! Agitate that pain point
Solve! Offer a solution

Copy template below to email

(3) Star-Chain-Hook

Star! The big idea
Chain! A series of facts, sources, reasons, and benefits
Hook! The call to action

Copy template below to email

(4) Attention–Interest–Desire– Action (AIDA)

Attention! Grab the reader’s attention
Interest! Make it personal to engage their interest
Desire! Build desire for what you’re offering
Action! Ask for a response

Copy template below to email

(5) The 3-B Plan

Brevity! Keep it short
Blunt! Get to the point
Basic! Keep it simple
Give the reader a clear sense of who you are and what you want from them.

And get to the point quickly

Copy template below to email

(6) Praise-Picture-Push (3P’s)

Praise! Open with a sincere, respectful compliment
Picture! Use cause-and-effect reasoning to paint a picture describing how your product/service/idea will deliver
Push! Ask them to commit

Copy template below to email

(7) Awareness-Comprehension- Conviction-Action (ACCA)

Awareness! Present the situation or problem
Comprehension! Describe how it will impact them
Conviction! Create desire by explaining how your solution fixes the problem
Action! Ask for a response

Copy template below to email

Sourced from the e-book “10 Cold Email Formulas That Just Plain Work” produced by Yesware.

The post Email Templates To Engage New Customers appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Most salespeople would be engaging with Josh and concentrating on how to get to Sarah.

They may just call around Josh or even ask Josh to include Sarah in the meeting. Basically, their emphasis and focus is on connecting with Sarah.

This way of thinking will lose sales.

Essentially, the person your salespeople are actively engaging with is the first decision maker. This is the juncture where most salespeople fall short. They don’t accept this first contact person as a decision maker at all. In fact, ‘ole school’ will tell you to get around this person, go above this person – do all to get to the ‘real’ decision maker.

Josh is aware of their intent by their body language and tone, and probably earlier in the relationship they may even have asked ‘who is the decision maker’ (implying ‘it doesn’t sound like it’s you’). And therein lies their error. The salesperson doesn’t get the business. Even their boss says ‘it’s because you didn’t get to the decision maker’ reinforcing that was the sole person to focus on.

By accepting that Josh has been assigned to find a supplier, we need to recognise Josh as the decision maker, because, he actually is. We refer to him as a KPI – Key Person of Influence – and at this point we respect that he is making the decision, realising that it is his judgement that will determine what final proposals will be put forward.

Sales Proficiency: All done in conjunction with being the absolute professional which means doing the following:

Due Diligence

Combing the client website and Li for all that the company is posting about: what’s their philosophy and mission, what interests Sarah (noting her profile, her posts).  We might see she values ‘integrity’, as it’s scattered across much of her posts and profile. As our company holds and is renowned for the same values – it’s a core mission statement –  you may decide to run a campaign to demonstrate that point. It needs to be genuine, honest and authentic. Not forced or fake.  That means you will post about it and repost your company’s related articles. If you post about something that’s of relevance, you may decide to message and highlight this to Sarah– assuming you are at a relationship point where that’s acceptable.  ‘Hi Sarah, today I posted about the top 3 things to look out for when training your team on xyz, I hope it brings you value (happy to share the link or email you the fuller article)’,

Reach out to shared contacts, is there anyone else respectful that we know who works in the same company. Could we engage with them? They may be able to relay a good word (to both Josh and Sarah).

Authority

Being the authority in your field, the subject matter expert – this is a mindset thing – are you standing tall and confident and have certainty (not feeling ‘lesser’ or subservient)?

Preparation

As part of our meeting prep, research and due diligence, being mindful of:

Intent is there to help (not ‘sell at’).

How you turn up: are you early, looking prepared, using the right language?

Listening: great salespeople do less talking and more listening to truly understand.

Questions

Asking the right questions, questions that no other supplier has asked – thereby understanding the client and their situation better than anyone else. Great questions loop onto further insightful, intelligent questions no one has yet asked which leads to a heightened understanding, such that at one point the energy shifts and Josh will lean in and say ‘yes, good point – can you help with that’.

Trusted Advisor

Having earnt that right you can be in a position to guide and educate them on what they need to consider, what other options there are etc.

Transfer

This is when Josh realises you know your onions and he willingly, and because it feels natural now to do so, will introduce you to Sarah

Behind the scenes

Josh will be deciding who is the right supplier, based on many key factors, of which price is rarely one of them. In fact, it often holds the lowest rating. Typically, it’s about looking for someone who is an expert, who will be reliable, that can be trusted, who does what they say they are going to do. It’s important to realise this, as many reps promise something (say, an email or first draft proposal) then are late – which would be giving Josh the impression that they are already falling short in their commitment, and if unable to follow through at this vital point, a time when they should be all over it, creating doubt that things are hardly going to improve once the business is on board.

Summary

The focus of your efforts is about being the authority, being prepared and being professional the whole way through – not just pushing to meet with the ‘person behind’.

Read more about Business Development in our 6 Steps Business Development check list.

The post Are You Selling To The Decision Maker? appeared first on Head Of Sales.

1. Be a market expert

A successful Business Development person knows the playing field of their industry. They understand the ebbs and flows of the market. They know the key players and their respective unique selling points.

Most salespeople know information on their own business, but not necessarily that of the competitors whom they are up against. These are the alternatives that your prospect may be weighing up and comparing you to. When you know the fuller picture, you know what questions you need to ask, you know the types of problems the client may be encountering. You know how those problems can be fixed and which businesses (including yours) can resolve them.

As you ask better questions (and knowledgeable of the pain points and solutions) your value increases and the client see you as an industry expert.

Be and act as thought leader of your field – be seen as the authority

2. Mindset

Success, your opinion of the world and how you operate, all starts in your own head. It starts with how you decide to view the world.

Empowered are those that have decided to adopt the stance of:

‘I choose how I view my situation’,

‘I’m in charge of my thoughts’

‘I don’t let what is happening outside of me affect my mindset’.

Seeing each interaction as a lesson of how you could have made better choices – being able to rise above and think ‘what can I learn from this, what can I improve next time’.

Planning and practising what you could say next time to hard wiring the circuits of your brain and reprogram your mind to choosing a better future response.

Take time to breathe, to slow the mind down. Ditch what may not be serving you, be it alcohol, caffeine, bad choice of foods, recognising and managing any other negative influences. Reframe yourself positively on what you do have and look at the situation through new eyes. Take care of your number one asset – you.

Adopt a position of gratitude, put things into perspective.

3. Be aware of your value

Often, we get caught up in our own product that we don’t see what the implications are for the buyer. To know this, you need to know innately what pain your prospect is experiencing, for how long, what solutions they have tried, what they liked and didn’t like. Be informed about the different solutions available to them and the uniqueness of each.

What do you personally bring to the table? Are you professional, reliable, consistent, helpful? People ‘buy into’ people. They are buying into you to trust what you are selling them. Ensure you are always operating at your best, so they (and indeed your colleagues) see the best version of you.

4. Work smart

Working smart starts with planning days, weeks and months ahead.

“He who fails to plans is planning to fail”. Winston Churchill

Know who to target, when, how much time it will take. Know which prospects and clients will have the biggest positive impact on your bottom line. Prioritise the most profitable clients and focus on how you can engage with and bring them value.

The best Business Development people remove distractions. They know what approach to take and have practiced and refined what questions to ask and what compelling solution(s) they can put forward.

5. Get more business

Do what others will not do.

The client says ‘no’. So what? Learn, be resilient and move on. The world will not stop spinning. Lessons are everywhere. Opportunities are far and wide.

When you are with a potential client, abandon all assumptions and baggage of what they will or will not buy. Be present and focused on them and their situation. The more you understand them, the more you can help them.

Unfortunately, most salespeople are too preoccupied with getting their own message across, without first fully understanding the client. This mistake means the client doesn’t feel heard, isn’t fully understood and all opportunities to serve them are missed.

If you are regimented in your engagement you will be running the meeting your way, missing signals and not putting the client first. Your job is to run every engagement in a meaningful, relevant way – make it about them.

The person with the most behavioural flexibility gets the sale.

6. Take action consistently

Most salespeople are stuck in a reactive mode and not in a proactive mode.
Knowing that when you engage with more people, you will get more business. This means you have to carve off time to focus on giving the more profitable potentials more of your time and energy.

Conclusions

Sales is a profession. To demonstrate to the client that you are professional, trustworthy and a leader in your field, you need to act likewise.

Sales is an intelligent interaction where you are using sophisticated interpersonal skills and communication methods to help a client solve a problem.

The post 6 Steps For Business Development Success appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Many sales organizations these days are struggling to achieve organic sales revenue and profit growth.

According to the TAS Group, 67 per cent of salespeople do not achieve their sales targets.

Thanks to the internet, buyers now have more information available to them than ever before. This easy access to knowledge is putting sales reps into a weak position, as it empowers buyers to take charge of the sales process. Buyers now carry out extensive online research before feel ready to contact a vendor. Thus, now the Buyers decide WHICH VENDOR they will contact, and WHEN they will do so. If your organization is not among the chosen ones your reps may never know that the buyer even existed. Yes, we are in the era of the buyers journey.

Now the Buyers decide WHICH VENDOR they will contact, and WHEN they will do so. If your organization is not among the chosen ones your reps may never know that the Buyer even existed.

As illustrated below, there are three distinct windows of opportunity in the buyers journey to influence the buyer towards our brand and our goods/services:

1. Opportunity To Create Desire

In the early stage of their buyers journey sellers have the opportunity to create desire in the buyers’ mind to consider our offerings, whether it be a new car, a new pair of shoes, or a complex IT system.

2. Opportunity To Influence The Buyer

Later, we have the opportunity to influence their decision-making and lure them away from competitors and towards our brand and offerings.

3. Too Late To Influence The Buyer

But, unfortunately, once they have made up their mind about what they want to buy and which vendor they want to buy it from, there is little opportunity left for vendors to change the buyers’ mind. They simply have come too far down the track towards making their buying decision to change tack now. Unless, that is, you have a very compelling argument or information that they had not considered (see the section on Challenger / Disruptive / Provocative Selling below).

Obviously, waiting to be contacted by a buyer is not a great sales strategy. We need something more pro-active, and we need to focus on the first two windows of opportunity that I mentioned above.

Obviously, waiting to be contacted by a Buyer is not a great sales strategy.

Over time, several options have become available to restock the sales and marketing arsenal that has been depleted by the buying journey and by the modern buyers. They can be used in any combination to help you reach your sales targets. Here are some of the more commonly used ones:

1. Cold Calling / Warm Calling
2. Content Marketing
3. Social Selling
4. Storytelling
5. Account Based Marketing (ABM)
6. Challenger / Disruptive / Provocative Selling

Let’s now look at the above options in more detail:

1. Cold Calling / Warm Calling

A lot of articles have been written about the pros and cons of cold calling. Tony J. Hughes, has written extensively on the subject, largely promoting cold calling as an effective sales technique. Personally, I am not a huge fan of calling somebody out of the blue, interrupting whatever they are doing and expecting them to drop everything to listen to your sales pitch. The only time this has half a chance of working is if you really have something significant up your sleeve that is of vital importance to them and to their business. If you have something like this then please feel free to go straight on to the section below on Challenger / Disruptive / Provocative Selling.

Otherwise, my recommendation is to stay away from cold calling. Instead, warm up your prospect with Content Marketing or Social Selling (both described below) before making direct contact. In this way, at least they know who you are and that you have something that is worthy of their time, or not.

2. Content Marketing

This strategy requires marketing to issue content that entices and compels buyers to our business. This content is usually published to the website and online generally, and complementary material is issued to the sales team. Content may comprise white papers, thought leadership articles, client success stories and lead generation campaigns. The key to success is that marketing continuously monitors the performance of its content and actively seeks feedback from the sales team about how prospects and customers react to it. Equally, sales reps must actively provide their front line intelligence to marketing so that the performance of marketing content can continuously be improved.

Success depends largely on a highly collaborative feedback loop between sales at the customer-facing front and marketing at the online front.

3. Social Selling

This is a specialist version of content marketing which is practiced by individual sales reps. The idea is that we want to attract buyers not only to our brand but also to individual reps who have built a reputation of being subject matter experts.

The way it works in many organisations is that marketing provides the right content to the sales force for them to promote their personal subject matter expertise on social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter. In other words, individual sales reps attract the buyer through their personal brand, as well as their employer’s brand.

Again, the success of this initiative largely depends on close collaboration between marketing and sales, if the content is to match the individual, and vice versa.

4. Storytelling

Storytelling is very powerful. Ever since humans were living in caves we sat around the campfire and told stories. Before the written word was invented stories were the way that we acquired information and learned new skills, such as how to hunt, gather and grow food. Even today, us humans remember stories much better than mere facts or figures.

When salespeople engage with a prospect or client they will have much deeper impact when they convey their information through a story. Storytelling also has the advantage that it doesn’t feel like selling. Just telling a story or an anecdote feels less intrusive to both the buyer and the rep. So, go ahead and tell the story of how a past client found themselves in a similar situation to your current prospect and how your solution helped them to overcome their challenges and to succeed.

Your marketing team should arm your sales force with stories to regale your prospects and customers.

5. Account Based Marketing (ABM)

ABM is nothing new, but modern sales and marketing technology has elevated it to the latest “must-have”. The reason is that it can be very powerful, if executed well. Imagine you want to win a new key account or retain a major client that is at risk of moving on to a competitor. Wouldn’t you want to give them the attention they need to help secure or retain their business ? So, you create a specialist team, let’s call them a “hit squad”, to identify the key stakeholders in your account, i.e. the decision makers, influencers and gate keepers, and you identify what makes each of them tick, their likes and dislikes, challenges and opportunities. Then you provide each of them individually, through whatever means necessary, with the information that they need to make an informed decision on why they should buy from your organization. This is so that when they all meet to decide which vendor to go with, they will discover that they all miraculously agree that they should go with your business.

This “hit squad” must consist of a multi-disciplinary team, comprised of marketing, sales, product management and communications experts. So, once again, close collaboration between marketing and sales is the key to success here, too.

6. Challenger / Disruptive / Provocative Selling

I have previously written about this type of selling and why it is not suitable for every rep. However, if your sales force has people with the stature to challenge your prospects’ or clients’ thinking then it can be very effective. The idea is that you disrupt their thinking with some new information that they either did not previously possess, or that they had not yet considered. Something that stops them in their tracks. The neat thing is that, because this particular insight was brought to them by you and only you, it gives you instant credibility over and above your competitors and turns you into a trusted adviser. It should be easy from there on to close the deal.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are a myriad of options to engage your prospects and clients, but waiting to be contacted by a Buyer is not a great sales strategy. And, given the myriad of alternatives, there is also no need for cold calling.

Regardless of which of the above sales techniques you choose to go with, much of your sales performance and success will depend on how well your marketing and sales teams work together to engage the Buyer and to differentiate your business from that of your competitors.

Ideally, your teams will collaborate across the entire 360 degrees, as illustrated here.

You are invited to talk to us about your business challenges and we’ll do our best to help, if we can. Go ahead, what have you got to lose ?

The post Six Sales Prospecting Methods, Including Cold Calling. appeared first on Head Of Sales.

What tactics for leveraging LinkedIn Sales Navigator do you need to know?

Blended prospecting techniques are nothing new but codification of these combinations in the context of the Sales Navigator platform is required.

Step 1: Take an account list of no greater than 50 accounts and add them on Sales Navigator.

Step 2: Save 5-7 prospects per account as leads in every account because you are going to monitor the content they share and where they are mentioned + interact with it.

Step 3: Build a robust Sales Navigator feed you’ll utilize in both web and mobile STREAM. It’s a custom feed.

Step 4: Here’s the kicker, sort by Lead Shares and start to comment on what they’re sharing in a thoughtful way. Remember you aren’t connected to these people so it’s wow factor for CXOs to have some total stranger commenting in a relevant way out of the clear blue! Contacts that share based on the 90, 9 and 1 internet theory of prosumption are massively valuable. Basically, only 1% write, 9% share, and the other 90% are really more voyeurs on the web (Wikipedia power law distribution). If someone is sharing, YOU MUST CALL THEM. So use a service like Lusha, Data.com, ZoomInfo, DiscoverOrg or RainKing to directly call them and comment on what they shared in Social to their LinkedIn feed as evidenced by Navigator.

Step 5: You need to set aside time to mine your common connection or “TeamLinks” per account. Your goal is to call common connections or colleagues that are connected into prospect companies. All common connections should be exploited. If you sell software to CMOs, still leverage a Teamlink to the HR department or Legal. All TeamLinks are golden. Navigator “Teamlinks,” for those just tuning in is the most powerful feature of advanced LinkedIn. In essence, it lets you see who in your own company is connected to anyone in the prospect organization.

Step 6: Set aside time to explore all your 1st and 2nd-degree referral sources into prospect bases. These are represented in the middle column on Navigator. I would click underneath the pane to expand and start to look for patterns that emerge in the common connections. Here it will reveal competitive salespeople in other vendor companies or nodes on the network. Nodes are thought leaders in your industry so omnipresent, that their mere connection to your prospects, is heat seeking to indicate they’re the right decision maker. Call up sellers in affiliated vendors that are harmonious to what you sell and co-host networking events with them to overlap your networks. The cardinal rule of referral selling on LinkedIn is NOT to do it digitally. When you identify the connection in common, call that connection point and offer to ghostwrite a message they can pass along to make the warm introduction. MAKE IT FRICTIONLESS.

B2B buyers are 5x more likely to engage when the outreach is through a mutual connection. – LinkedIn Research

Step 7: Watch the daily email digest from Navigator that hits your smartphone email inbox for job changes. When you are going after a calling list, start to call down the Navigator Newsfeed referencing the lead news mentions, job changes, lead recommendations and other triggers like funding, or innovation projects. Use the live Navigator real-time feed as the bedrock for your TRIPLES. You’ll remember the basis of COMBO selling is a call, email and vmail (video or voicemail) back to back to back, preferably under 2 minutes. Jab jab, hook!

Step 8: Don’t exceed 50 target accounts and up to 7 contacts per. This means you should only ever be monitoring 300 objects which is double the Dunbar number of 150. The neocortex can only hold 150 connections. LinkedIn Sales Navigator actually gets unwieldy and you start to miss information if you follow too many people or accounts. Even if you change your STREAM sorting to “recent” versus “most important,” it’s cumbersome. 50 Key Target Accounts per quarter max, 5-7 leads per prospect, at least 1 C-Level per account. Remember you can easily purge out accounts and leads if you track too many. Work clean, keep it organized and tight.

A hodgepodge of Tricks and Tips:

• Nobody ever calls Presidents, CEOs or Board Members. You should call VCs who back the companies if going after earlier stage ventures. Where do you get the phone number? Many times, by just linking in (try to write a customized LinkedIn request), they’re phone number will already be freely shared on profile in the Contact area.
• Exhaust all of your InMails every month no matter what, even a disinterested response gives you a credit back which yields over 30 in total. Huge secret: You can hit reply to any InMail an unlimited amount of times. So that 30 becomes 60 and 90 very fast. Quality InMail follow-up is key.
• I talk to CXOs, they get 1 InMail in every 100 emails. They get 1 phone call / VM in 500-1,000 emails. STOP, REREAD THAT! What does this tell you? It’s not even the quality of a cold call, voicemail or InMail: IT’S DOING IT AT ALL that makes the lion share difference. This 10X action alone completely stands out in the all digital social selling cacophony. Pretty much everyone I add now (and I’ve tested this) immediately spams me back selling products or services. Social selling fail! No value is being added. The vast majority of all sellers are lazily ONLY emailing and adding without a custom invite, only to immediately spam back (once.) No follow up. The golden secret of all sales Cardone will tell you is: F/UP, F/UP, F/UP!

The relevancy paradox is the idea that adding value and changing up the message every time will yield a better result than never varying. It looks needy. Over-researching can cripple an outreach campaign. Don’t overthink it with analysis paralysis, set the appointment.

But for this to work, you’ve gotta have a relevant target that’s as similar as possible to existing prospects or leverages a direct competitor’s solution. They’ve bought before, they get it. Some percentage will be dissatisfied and buy again. Be there when the buying phase begins. Educate in the education phase but move fast and identify prospects who have entered ‘buying phase.’

• Work anniversaries and birthdays are pretty spammy. Congratulating people incessantly on a new role, funding or a school in common is wildly overplayed. The best messaging is that you provide X value (quantified is best aka hard dollars) for Y similar company. It’s really that simple, cut and dried. The Cialdini concept of social proof is the most powerful. If you talk to the CMO of Pepsi about something you’re doing for Coke, you’re getting a callback. It’s fiercely competitive to innovate at the top.
• I’ve tested every type of messaging under the sun. Repetition is the key. Sending a very similar message from the top of the food chain down the ranks and then only slightly varying it, even not at all as you TRIPLE every 72 hours will get your emails circulated. Some call this the art of confusion. You are shaking the trees and low hanging fruit will fall off. Mike Scher had some wild research results looking at 1.4 million calls that I’m paraphrasing here. Check out his work at FrontLine Selling!

Jeb Blount is one of my personal heroes and his book completely changed my life and career. And that’s even after 30 years selling in the field and running entire technology companies for Australia New Zealand. He also stirred the pot tremendously with the below quote which spawned 1,300 likes and 180,000 views on a LinkedIn update I published as at this writing!

“I closed a $2.5 Million deal after leaving the exact same voice mail for a C-Level Exec every morning for 52 consecutive days. He finally called me back and said, ‘You’re not going to stop are you?’ I responded, ‘not until you meet with me.’ The meeting opened a dialogue that, six months later, resulted in my company replacing his incumbent vendor. Persistence is the fuel of winners.” – Jeb Blount

Do you agree? Litigious roaches scurried out of the woodwork and hissed. Bottom line: Drop everything and buy this book: Fanatical Prospecting.

• There’s a higher propensity for folks active in Social to be open to a TRIPLE and convert because of one. Navigator is a great way to help you prioritize your book of business based on Trigger Events – who’s alive and kicking. What’s the number 1 trigger event? Job changes. Thank you Craig Elias and Tibor Shanto (authors of Shift!). In the first 90 days, the average CXO will deploy 1M dollars in OpEx capital for new business expenditures to shake up the status quo and make their mark. There’s a new Sherrif in town!
• I’d be remiss not to mention the mid-funnel practice of MULTI-Threading. Remember there are 6.8 stakeholders in every buying committee now in a complex sale according to CEB, so if you’re single-threaded you’re “deaded!” Ok, it rhymes. But take the time mid-stream, once you’ve opened the oppt, to get connectivity with your contact’s boss, lateral VPs and Operational folks (the victims of the problem), aka the Users of the solution – is priceless to mobilize consensus. This is going to increase close rates and accelerate deals. You should be adding everyone you ever meet, shake hands with at a networking event, etc. Start to harvest as many accurate email addresses, cell phone numbers and build your LinkedIn profile to 5,000 ASAP (much higher likelihood of hitting quota!)

What strategies for advanced Sales Navigator did I miss? How do you utilize LinkedIn Sales Navigator in combinatorial ways with other prospecting channels to land meetings with impossible to reach prospects, accelerate your deals, and exceed quota? Very curious…

The post Sales Navigator Techniques To Know appeared first on Head Of Sales.

A lot of prospecting advice given out to sellers is around building out a strong pipeline to make sure that when a deal fails, regardless of how far through you pipeline it is, there will be others to replace it. I agree multiple high-quality deals in your pipeline can be the answer. However, what I often also see is too many deals in pipelines which are overloaded and risk becoming stale. The common focus on having 3 – 5 times pipeline volume as a metric often drives the wrong activity. (As managers, we need to be careful what we inspect/ expect).

If we compare a reps available prospecting time versus the activity levels required to advance those deals, most sellers in this situation have too many deals in their pipeline versus the amount of time they have to develop those deals. This means that many deals are never developed and become wasted opportunities.

Prospecting versus Nurturing.

If you’re operating at the front of your pipeline and you’re trying to generate interest from prospects? Then we know it’s going to take about 7-10 touches across a specific time frame (say a 60day block). I calculate it takes nearly 6mins per single opportunity per week to prospect across multi-channels. PROSPECTING!

If the prospect (deal) is engaged and it’s a matter of waiting for the prospect’s ‘buying window’ to open. For example, a contract renewal, a new need to develop, the existing supplier needs to stumble, or even the sales process is long and tedious, think enterprise sales. Then we could be said to be in the NURTURING stage, and this takes around 4mins per week, per opportunity. These times exclude attending sales meetings.

If you’re one of the many salespeople who need to manage their time across both creating new business and servicing your existing clients, you need to calculate the time you have available for both prospecting and nurturing. Then take that available time and allocate that time per opportunity. I believe, if you don’t have the time to work a prospect into a lead, you shouldn’t even start. Instead, leave it sitting ‘on the shelf’ until you have the capacity. Leave it for another day.

Consistently good, beats occasionally great, in sales.

Consistency is also important for deal progression. Reaching out once or twice and giving up on a prospect is a sure way to be unsuccessful, regardless of how good your outreach is. (Occasionally great) We now know that we need to map-out a valid multi-touch strategy to get a robust conversation started with our prospects. (Consistently good)

Having 100 leads who are pursued through just two touches is likely to be much less successful than having 25 leads who have a deliberate allocation of 6-8 careful touches. Those 25 leads are more likely to develop into conversations and move through to a conversion than those 100 leads. In this scenario, at the completion of this prospecting block, we will still have 75 lovely leads left to pursue.

As a more in-depth example, if you have 13 prospects at the front of the pipe and 12 further along, this can take around 4hrs and 8mins, per week, to stay on top of. Most Sales Leaders/ Account Managers/ Executives I talk to are surprised that it can take this long to work so few deals. If you were to multiply this by 4 to cater for 100 leads, this means you’d be spending more than 45% of your total work time working these leads (Plus you still have to add in sales meetings).

When we need to measure pipeline volume, I suggest we deliberately allocate sub-sectors inside your pipeline by size. Taking the 25 leads as an example, where appropriate, this pipeline could have five deals with a very large deal size, 5 with a large deal size, 5 with an average deal size, 5 with a lower value and finally 5 with the minimum value. The total of these leads volume hits the 3 – 5 x quota ratio. The exact ratio is dependent on your selling situation, but I think you get the idea.

The other reason smaller deals are essential to include (Small fish are the sweetest fish) is that it helps us to maintain sales momentum and sales practice. We get to stay in ‘practice’ the process of moving sales to completion with deals of all sizes. This way, we are less likely to ‘mess up’ when we get to those more important deals. (Again, being consistently good, rather than occasionally great).

Only managing the volume of a salesperson’s pipeline is not always the best approach. If we have too strong a focus on driving these volume numbers, we risk sellers, either consciously or unconsciously, loading the number of deals to meet those metrics whether they be real deals or not, or whether they have the time to develop those deals or not.

Both scenarios are less than ideal. How does your pipeline stack up?

The post When You Have Too Many Deals In Your Sales Pipeline appeared first on Head Of Sales.