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Showing posts with label Sales Lead Outsourcing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sales Lead Outsourcing. Show all posts

Monday, September 21, 2009

How to get Effective B2B Sales

The salespeople that enter a business looking to extend or begin a b2b relationship are good-looking, articulate, well-trained, personable folks who are comfortable in business settings communicating with other professional business people. Yes, there are minor differences in personality types and corporate culture matches, but generally, professional salespeople can make the client comfortable with them on a personal level fairly quickly. The days of a corporate representative's stereotype being overbearing, pushy or crass are largely over.

And that's the rub with professional salespeople. For the most part, the individuals on any sales team can easily move to a competitive sales group and you'd never know the difference. In fact, I was involved in numerous committee style vendor review panels. In these panels, a representative group of our cooperatives' decision-makers would hear presentations from up to six prospective vendor teams in a single day. At the end of the day our committee would have dinner together to 'download' our impressions of the days presenters.

It was common to have someone from the committee remark how similar the presentations were. In fact, one gentleman challenged the group, "If you recorded every presentation that day and bleeped out the company names, who here could tell the difference between the presentations?" Upon momentary contemplation of the question, there was a wave of laughter that swept over the room. After much discussion it was agreed that every presentation was remarkably similar. Same tone, same style, same general information with very similar 'here's why our customers choose to do business with us' commentary.

The reality is that pre-sales interactions with virtually any reputable company are very similar. There is very little chance to separate yourself from your competitors with words alone.

So if most salespeople look the same before the sale is made (in the courtship phase if you will), how do buyers decide with whom to do business? Professional decision-makers use a formula to predict how well the salesperson will support them after the sale. That's right, buyers focus on what happens AFTER the sale.

And that is the disconnect between most sales training and the sellers subsequent performance. The salesperson is taught to focus on one-to-one communication styles, presentations and pre-sale meetings. The buyer is judging them on how well they predict the salesperson will perform after the sale is made. Two completely different scales.

Why do buyer's focus on the seller's post-sales behaviors? That one's easy. Because that is were the good salesperson pulls away from the pack. Pre-sales skills (selling features and making promises of post sale support) are easy to learn and express by most people. But having the power and influence to see their promises through are not so easy.

In fact, that's the real lesson I learned as a professional with buying authority: every salesperson knows how to make promises. It is the exception that can prove they have the internal influence to see them through! Successfully position yourself as a person that can benefit the buyer after the sale is made, and you'll set yourself apart from the competition and improve your sales results.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Effective and successful sales method

In the last five decades, management thinkers have reflected and debated on how to increase the effectiveness of organizations. Different theories have been put forward, argued, and often withdrawn. Even nowadays, only a couple of management precepts enjoy universal acceptance. The bottleneck principle is one of those few.

This rule predicts that the positive short-term benefits of any action will always be the greatest when efforts are focused on removing a bottleneck from a process. For instance, when the production of furniture is being slowed down by assembly difficulties, such bottleneck could be removed by using a simpler fastening procedure.

This formula has been applied successfully thousands of times to speed up manufacturing and service operations. On the other hand, its application has been rare in the field of marketing and sales. In general, entrepreneurs find easier to create new products than finding customers willing to purchase them.

Selling water to thirsty tourists in the desert places you in the ideal marketing position. In that context, you would be able to charge a high price and hardly hear complaints from customers. The reality that most businesses face in our age is precisely the opposite. Large numbers of players compete in each market and customers have become increasingly difficult to reach.

If we try to apply the bottleneck principle to sales, we are going to face, first of all, the question of identifying the critical problem. In the example of furniture manufacturing, we were able to see the assembly difficulties. In contrast, when it comes to marketing, the primary obstacle frequently remains invisible and might consist of any of these cases:

1. Lack of credibility in the marketplace.
2. Potential customers are unaware that a solution exists to their problem.
3. High perceived risk of purchasing an unknown product.
4. The advantages of the product are difficult to explain.
5. General skepticism of potential buyers about anything new.
6. Established suppliers dominate the market although they make inferior products.

Luckily, there is one sales method that addresses all those bottlenecks simultaneously. Giving free product samples and service demonstrations has become the marketing system of choice for new products in the 20th century and promises to maintain its prime status in the foreseeable future.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

How to get sales In Reason

The reason why this is so important is for two reasons, the first being how you feel about yourself. See if you get ready in the morning (shower, style hair, perfume, apply make-up, etc.) this will automatically improve your ability to present yourself and come across as a confident professional. This includes people who are working from home or not meeting face-to-face with a client. Another reason this is important is that you only get one first impression. The fact is that we are judged on our abilities to perform based on our appearance in 30 seconds or less. For example, if I wanted to join a gym and my personal trainer was overweight, I would have no confidence in his ability to help me.

What really hinders your ability to confidently sell are your thoughts of self-doubt. I know this is easier said than done, but when you are thinking the words "maybe, try, hope, guess" try turning that around and thinking "can, will, do, know." Automatically, this will give you more positive and confident thoughts and you will come across as a knowledgeable professional to your client or prospect.

If you don't make a sale or it falls through, there is always a lesson to learn from that experience. Take that lesson and apply it to the next situation that is similar and you will be 100% ready to tackle that challenge and come out a winner. The only way you are a failure is if you choose to ignore the lesson in each challenge.

Friday, June 12, 2009

How to use Effective Sales Force

One of the biggest complaints among sales people is that they're not given enough time to do what they do best - sell! After spending time on sourcing leads and then hours of administration, many sales people feel drained and unhappy. After all, they were hired to sell and that's what they want to do.

Imagine if you could access software that allowed your sales people to spend more time selling and less time on the boring administrative side of things. Your sales figures are your key indicator for profitability, so why not increase them?

CRM, or customer relationship management, can be set to generate a level of sales force automation to allow your sales people the freedom and the extra time to get out where they enjoy being the most - selling.

You can also set your CRM software to allow your sales people to see which leads have been pre-qualified and are ready to buy right now and which leads are still just shopping and might need a little more persuasion.

You can also include various other factors that are designed to give your sales team the best possible chance of increasing sales. This means adding value-added products or cross-selling opportunities that are directly in line with what customers are likely to be most receptive to.

Effective use of sales force automation and CRM software can allow your sales team to spend more time with potential buyers, which means winning more deals. All this adds up to a potential for massive extra profits for your business.

While sales force automation sounds great from the sales person's perspective, the benefits are increased enormously for management.

CRM software can allow management to create reports instantly that can show accurate pipeline figures flowing into the business. You can also forecast cash flow and sales figures with a higher degree of accuracy based on the information accumulated.

It's also possible to pinpoint your staff's current level of productivity so you can more accurately monitor and track the progress of your teams at all times.

This kind of information can allow managers to route leads correctly and help all your sales people to learn to convert leads the same way as your top performers.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Why we need to use a call centers

Do you want to having someone in your office answering the phone or making sales calls for you is inefficient and can end up costing you sales and money. If you looking for a way that is interesting and very effective to increase sales and lower business cost, you need to use call centers. These contact centers can offer order taking as well as lead generation for a fraction of what you pay someone who sits in your office.

Today, this is most important factor for any business to lower their costs. Whether your business depends on lead generation or offers customer service such as technical support, you can make call centers work for you.

Sales calls are only one way to make use of this outsourcing service. If you provide customer service for your clients such as technical support for your products or services, you cannot afford to rely on a staff working nine to five in your office to handle incoming calls. You need a center that will not only offer full customer support, but will also act as an answering service. This way, you will never miss another call and your customers will not be frustrated when they are unable to get in touch with your company. People today expect to have service support around the clock, but this is not feasible with an on site staff.

In addition to offering around the clock service and support, you can also use contact centers as way to take orders as well as offer email support for your business. Many of these centers also offer live chat options for those who would prefer to get answers right away by using their computer.

Every time you shut off your business phone, you run the risk of business. People will not want to talk to an answering machine and wait for a return message. In the world of today, people expect to receive answers as well as place orders for products and services around the clock. When you use outsource lead generation and customer service to call centers, you not only save money when it comes to costs, but you also end up giving customers the full time support and service that they have come to expect from other providers.