3 Key Aspects of An All-Stars Daily Sales Schedule

The path to productivity and success is paved by creating a solid daily sales schedule. Creating a productive daily sales schedule is one of the most common challenges that sales professionals face. A solid daily sales schedule can streamline productivity and improve the overall flow of your day. Keep these 3 key aspects of an all-star daily sales schedule in mind when you are organizing your priorities for the day.

1) Make Time For Non-Sales Related Activities In Your Daily Sales Schedule

All-Star sales reps perform all non-related sales activities between 6-8 am in the morning and/or 6-8 pm in the evening. These activities include planning, territory management, and improving product or service knowledge. Set some time in your daily sales schedule to take care of other tasks earlier or later in the day. Make sales your one and only focus during business hours.

2) Connect With Your Prospects at an Appropriate Time

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Elite sales professionals manage their daily sales schedule by prioritizing sales touchpoints by the Probability of Making the Sale. Pay attention to how your prospect prefers to be contacted. Younger prospects may prefer email or social media, while older prospects prefer a phone call. Sales touch points also include knowing your prospect’s availability and schedule.

3) Reach Out to Other Sales Leads That Are Under The Radar

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Seasoned sales professionals follow up with at least 3 older sales leads every single day. Ensure that your daily sales schedule involves reaching out to your leads in a timely and professional manner. Have your notes ready and be prepared to talk about any relevant issues or concerns. Show your prospects value through professional consulting and offer specific advice to improve their business.

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June 8, 2018February 7, 2019

The Art of Asking Open-Ended Questions

Why Are Open-Ended Questions So Important?

What kinds of questions are you asking your clients? How do you know which questions to ask and when to ask them? Some of the most successful salespeople are those who have learned the art of asking open-ended sales questions. Selling is game of questions. Successful sales professionals have developed a knack for tuning into nuances and details of their client’s responses. They listen with intensity and make adjustments to their questioning based on what the client is saying.

The majority of salespeople will listen to a story politely and then go into their sales pitch, but are they really listening to what the client is saying? Some people don’t listen and are really just waiting for their turn to deliver the sales pitch. The art of asking open-ended sales questions involves tuning into keywords, themes, and patterns within the customer’s story and developing a sense of curiosity around these factors of communication.

Related Reading: Successful Telephone Selling Techniques

Open-ended sales questions are questions that allow more information to come forward. Since open-ended questions don’t limit the scope of the client’s answers to “yes” or “no”, they are effective in that they allow clients to convey more detail with their specific needs and objectives.

Being Curious and Listen

Open-ended sales questions reveal additional information and insights regarding the product or service. Asking the right questions and probing client responses will allow you to address the specific needs of the customer. Understanding the potential buyers’ interests will help you to offer a product or service that is the most suitable for them.

For example, if a customer is concerned about being able to track production through a plant with better software than currently in use, some great open-ended questions to get more information would include:

What areas of tracking do you feel your current software is missing?

How would you see the ideal tracking software working in your facility?

What specific requirements do you have for tracking software?

Be Patient

Give your customer enough time to convey information and listen carefully to what they have to say. You will have a more complete picture of the problem, which allows you then to provide a more specific description of how your software or product can solve those gaps and issues. Patience is your friend. Take time to mentally think about the right questions.

Invest some of your time in crafting your own open-ended sales questions. It is an indispensable sales tool that allows sales professionals to effectively qualify sales opportunities, establish trust, build rapport, and gain credibility with customers. Mastering the art of asking open-ended sales questions will allow you to build more meaningful relationships with clients. They allow you to connect with your clients on a more personal level so that you can better understand their problems and develop real solutions.

May 24, 2018April 13, 2021

How To Be an Authentic Sales Professional

Authenticity is about Active Listening

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Approaching a customer or a client with the mindset of meeting a sales quota or bettering a previous sale is already putting a sales professional at a disadvantage. This creates a focus or a sales agenda which will block out the information the customer is providing.

Sales professionals must be authentic in sales meetings. Learning how to be an authentic sales professional means learning to be open-minded and listen to customers. This creates an opportunity to see the problem or the challenge and create an innovative solution.

Utilize Storytelling to Persuade

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Customers, particularly C-suite customers, need to see how a product or service addresses their unique needs in their business. Authenticity is about hearing their story and not trying to drive the bottom line sales numbers. Active listening provides undivided attention and boosts creativity. This allows the sales rep to provide a story about the benefits of the product or the service as it relates directly to the challenge for the customer.

To be able to match the product or service with the needs of the client, sales professionals need to stop memorizing the specifications and details of the products or services and focus on the value to the customer. The value and the benefits of the products and services will create the sale – not the specs and details. Storytelling captures the attention of the client by relating an interesting story or useful information on a product or service. Utilize storytelling to spark personal interest and to persuade cutomers.

Related Article: The One Percent Principle in Selling

Avoid Manipulation

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A lot of sales techniques and tools are, at best, ways to manipulate people into making a purchase. This may include playing on fears or concerns, creating a type of pressure around the sale, and driving for a close. Authentic sales professionals never pressure the prospect, they provide meaningful advice and creative, customized solutions.

Manipulate the potential buyer during sales meetings creates a palpable atmosphere of distrust and distance. While these tools may work for some buyers, they usually only work once. At the same time, manipulation may provide a one-time sale, but may also prevent even a second meeting if the buyer walks away feeling manipulated.

Persuasion is about Authenticity and Trust

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Additionally, when playing mental games with the client, the sales professional is not being authentic, genuine, and effective as a co-creator of a solution to a problem. Effective persuasion is about providing information on value, benefits, and advantages of a product or service. However, it must be provided naturally in the conversation with the customer.

Being persuasive starts with understanding the specifics of how the product or service can help the customer. This knowledge is invaluable to a sales rep and provides a natural stepping stone in the dialog. Sales professionals must learn to effectively transition from hearing the customer’s story and challenge to providing a working solution for the products and services. t

May 14, 2018April 13, 2021

Agility Selling: How to Achieve It

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Companies everywhere are evolving and changing so they can better meet customer needs. Agility selling has become a hot topic and crucial learning objective for elite sales organizations. Selling has changed significantly in recent years and continues to evolve rapidly. Speed has become the new currency in almost every business aspect, including sales.

Customers want things done faster, want products shipped immediately, and want it in their hands within a few days. Therefore, it’s up to your sales team to know what to do, which means quicker delivery and service. A large majority of customers prefer to handle business digitally. Sales teams must keep up with the pace and demands of their clients. To be more efficient, successful sales teams must focus all of their resources on selling, closing deals faster, and improved productivity. You can’t sell efficiently if you are disorganized.

Agility selling translates to improved management of customer data and management skills. In our digital age, sales teams must learn to adapt and learn new technologies that will allow them to provide added value to their prospects and customers.

What is Agility Selling?

how-to-achieve-sales-agility-infographic — **HOW TO ACHIEVE SALES AGILITY**

Agility in selling refers to an organization’s ability to optimize the workflow of their sales force. An agile salesforce is comprised of sales reps who can wear many hats. They conduct operations and negotiations with clients on all levels of the sales cycle. Agile sales reps are extremely knowledgeable regarding all aspects of their products and services. Having a knowledge understanding of your product will allow you to consult your prospects in a professional and superior manner. Agility selling allows you to answer specific questions or concerns from customers in a timely manner. Due to advancements in digital technology, sales reps can sell with more precision and efficiency. They can respond faster, through a much larger network of communication tough points and keep a close relationship with the client in multiple dimensions.

Selling in the Information Age

Customers and sales professionals alike are more informed more than ever. Intelligent digital technology gives us the advantage of making highly informed decisions. Sales professionals can interpret valuable customer data with in-depth analytics to measure customer feedback accurately and timely. Furthermore, sales reps can use technology to adjust marketing strategies and improve customer satisfaction.

bruce-lee-agility-quote — If Bruce Lee was a sales rep, he would be the master of agility selling.

Attributes of An Agile Seller

If you can’t communicate effectively with your customers to understand their needs and pain points then you can’t respond efficiently. Agile sellers are active listeners. They are able to digest messages from customers to find out their exact needs and wants. Agile sellers choose their language carefully and are flexible with verbal interactions, a crucial attribute when negotiating with customers. Agile sellers are self-aware, humble, and curious. They inspect everything to ensure operations are running like clockwork.

Related Reading: 5 Key Sales Lessons From Glengarry Glen Ross

Sales Agility Is Not An Option Today

In our competitive business landscape, sales teams can not afford to fall behind. If speed is the new currency in sales then sales professionals must learn to adapt to the new environment. Agility requires being responsive and constantly restructuring sales strategies in order to stay up to date with the persistent changes in the clients’ culture. Elite sales professionals constantly hone their sales skills and integrate them into the latest technology. Sales agility requires flexibility from sales professionals in all matters of selling. Sales professionals who lack fundamental sales skills, product knowledge, a curious mindset, critical thinking skills, and technological competence are limited by their inability to engage customers in meaningful ways. They will fall behind in their race to sales success.

May 9, 2018February 8, 2019

Digital Selling Skills Elite Sales Professionals Use Daily

Digital Selling Skills For Modern Sales Professionals

The modern business world has modern sellers. For every modern seller is a digitally savvy sales professional. Digital skills are non-negotiable in the modern business environment; digital selling skills are a necessity to maintain a competitive edge in our digitally driven sales environment.

Great sales reps are turning to digital media and technology to help them sell their products and services. Investing in digital skills as a sales professional matters more now than ever. They are taking advantage of what is available to them in order to provide a better customer buying experience.

Customers are significantly more informed which has leveled the playing field in terms of how they decide to buy. Luckily, the age of digital technology has allotted the modern sales professional to leverage new tactics and strategies for better negotiations and customer engagement.

It’s not enough to have a friendly disposition and winning smile in sales. If you want to be successful, you need to learn how to sell in a digital world. To sell in an ever-changing, competitive and fast-paced digital world, you need to fully understand some key concepts. How to be a salesperson and how to sell digitally are two of the concepts that must be understood.

Be a Lifetime Student And Strive To Learn New Skills

It’s not enough to learn the basics and never have any other education or formal training. You must evolve and learn as quickly as technology does, which can be tough for some. You must be ambitious and want to learn, but you also have to know how to sell and generate leads. Qualities that successful salespeople have include problem-solving skills, tenacity, technical understanding, and more. Plus, they must be prepared.

Related Reading: How Successful Salespeople Grow

Utilize Social Media For Improved Branding and Customer Engagement

Nurture relationships with customers and potential prospects by making use of relevant social media platforms. Social media can be used to promote products or services, remind customers of special events, or provide compelling multimedia content that followers and potential customers can view to stay updated with your organization’s brand. Social media platforms are a great way to create these long-lasting connections with clients.

Be, Do, and Have

You’ve heard the age-old saying that some people are natural-born salespeople or can sell water to a drowning person. These jokes have been around for decades because some people just have a knack. While it’s helpful to already have the persuasive skills intact, it’s not enough for digital selling. You have to be a salesperson and do what they do, but you need the skills to do it, as well. The best advice is to know yourself thoroughly to determine if selling is the right career choice for you.

Discover Valuable Consumer Insights With Data and Analytic Software

Sales professionals keep track of a large amount of data. From organizing leads, making use of notes, phone numbers, and other valuable bits of data, sales professionals must juggle huge quantities of valuable customer insights that could get lost in the clutter of information.

Becoming proficient with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is an indispensable digital selling skill that the modern sales professional can utilize to track important customer data such as phone call interaction, organize emails, presentations, and dashboard-based analytics.

Author: salescoach