There are plenty of new technologies to employ within your current marketing infrastructure. What good are they without a great sales team? This is especially true of the B2B marketplace – no one cares about your beautiful networks if you can’t tell people what your company is about.
You need a better sales team than ever before. Here are the latest ways to ensure that you have the most efficient, powerful team.
Customers Over Solutions
Your scripts and overall theme speak to these solutions, but for some reason, they are not hitting with the force you thought they would. Here’s why – no one cares what you know until they know that you care.
Customers over solutions mean that you put yourself in the customer’s mindset. Communications need to be personalized in order to speak directly to each customer. This is the only way to understand what drives their behavior patterns so that you can know what will deliver optimized value.
Observation
Your SEO and SMM are great for customer acquisition, but they may have an even more important function – information gathering. The more data you have on your prospects, the more effective you can make your future promotions, reducing your costs, and improving sales ROI.
Your sales team also needs access to social media conversations. As a matter of fact, they should be actively creating and promoting them. Who said that your sales had to be strictly from phone communications? Expand the way that you grab and analyze data, and you improve your sales team. Allow them to observe customers, and they will have detailed information that can be used to personalize phone and email outreach.
Asking Questions
If you are encouraging your sales team to sell, then you are likely not getting the results that you deserve. You can’t blame this on your sales team – the blame really lies with your sales executive team. The sales funnel is longer than ever, because prospects have more choices than ever. They are feeling you out during the early stages to see who can be trusted, all else being equal.
Your sales team should also ask questions to see if prospects are qualified. Imagine that – the sales funnel is actually a two-way street! All sales communication is not good sales communication. Your sales team may be wasting time with unqualified window shoppers that do not have the leverage or the scale to actually do business with you. This, among other things, is what an emphasis on questions will allow your sales team to work out.
Watching Trends
Your customers are always making use of disruptive tech and new data that is changing their needs. This newly empowered customer is looking for a supply chain provider that can keep up. You cannot rely on traditional sales channels in this environment – learning the new trends in communication is the new normal.
Face it – you have at least one competitor that is actually competitive with you in every aspect of your business. The way that you earn business from prospects over this competition is through sales. Follow the tips above to get a leg up in your marketplace, and make sure that your marketing keeps up with your infrastructure to optimize your revenues.
