Rachel Clapp Miller — March 29, 2017 Follow @ContentRachel
Are long sales cycles crushing your sales team? Is the cost of every sale going up while your team takes longer and longer to close deals? Are you failing to grow the number of prospects you’re working with?
Dominating the sales cycle isn’t impossible. It just takes the right strategies to get your sales reps focused on delivering on consistent, sustainable revenue growth. With the right examples, tools and processes, you can lead your team to bigger deals that are closed faster. Elevate your sales team from mediocre to masterful with five key sales strategies.
Five Key Sales Strategies and How They Help Your Team Dominate the Sales Cycle
1. Develop a Consistent Sales Message
The first step to delivering results starts with defining a clear and consistent message that every member of your sales team uses. If you don’t already have messaging or it isn’t working, here are two key questions to ask:
- What’s the value your solution creates for its target buyers?
- What differentiates you from your competition?
Your sales message must be focused on the value of the solution you’re selling and how it addresses your buyer’s most critical business needs. Every member of your sales team must be able to show and articulate the value and differentiation of your products and services in a way that’s aligned directly to a prospect’s business objectives and outcomes.
Differentiation can be a key way to move a sales opportunity forward. However, the lynchpin to its success is enabling your salespeople to outline how your solution is different in a way that has meaning to the buyer. You may have features that your competitors don’t, but if those features aren’t important to the buyer they mean nothing. In addition, touting parts of your solution that your buyer doesn’t need will likely make your product seem like its more than the buyer needs.
2. Target The Right Buyer
Your salespeople need to have a clear understanding of the type of buyer who “owns the pain” that your solution alleviates. Who owns the problem? What factors should be evident that would give clear indication that they would allocate money to purchase your solution? Reps need specifics on the type of buyer they should be targeting.
You can’t tell your reps, “Anyone and everyone can buy our solution.” That generality creates ambiguity and a lack of focus. Ensure your reps know who they should be targeting. We have worked with hundreds of sales organizations – I’ve seen it time and time again. You folks on the phone have likely seen the same thing. Companies fail to equip their salespeople with how to be successful at the buyer level. As you identify market changes, you can adapt your approach and understanding of your ideal buyers. This insight can also help you understand the value of your products and services.
3. Implement Clear, Repeatable Processes
Every sales leader wants his/her reps selling as much as possible. You can’t make that happen if they’re burdened with cumbersome processes and tools. Refine your processes so that there is consistency across your sales team and you’re inspecting the same best practices with every rep.
With everyone on your team following the same process, you can more easily measure results, track the progress of potential deals and make faster decisions. This allows you to quickly identify any issues before they become major problems. You can see where additional training is needed and where you may need to replace low-performing members of your sales team.
4. Ensure Your Reps are Communicating Digitally and Leveraging Technology
Technology can be a clear way to automate low-value administrative tasks, freeing up time for reps and managers to move sales opportunities forward. Social media platforms like LinkedIn can help your sales team stay in front of prospects and customers every day, allowing your team to communicate across a wide network, making connections and increasing your visibility with your prospects. If your competition is doing it, you want to ensure your reps are as well. If they’re not, what a great way to differentiate how you communicate.
Technology can help your sales reps increase their reach. Social media platforms can be a good way to connect with and educate your prospects.
5. Equip Your Front-Line Managers To Coach
Once you’ve empowered your team with these strategies, make sure your front-line managers are monitoring your sales reps’ efforts. They should be evaluating each member of the team with regular reviews and coaching sessions.
Using a skill/will model is a great way to target coaching efforts. It looks at a sales reps’ motivation compared to their abilities. This model helps you identify the reps you should spend time with, the ones you should move out of role and the ones you should look to promote.
Make this year your most successful ever by implementing these five key sales strategies. Investing time now will create a successful, dynamic sales team that is leading the market and crushing your quarterly and annual goals.
Ready to learn more about creating a sales team that dominates the sales cycle? Download our Land and Expand Activation Kit now!
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