The nature of the word disruptive seems negative at first glance. However, you are certainly aware that sometimes you have to shake things up a bit to be more effective. One of the biggest challenges a sales team faces is finding a way to stand out in the crowd. Many advertisers have discovered that the best way to shake things up a bit is to rattle a few cages. Disruptive strategies are helping to do just that.

Rattling Cages

Let’s take a look at disruptive advertisements to best help you visualize what disruptive means. Most people have always viewed commercials on television as interruptive. They interfere and break away from their entertainment. Disruptive advertising tries to continue the entertainment to avoid interrupting and instead disrupting to create interest as opposed to resentment. This has lead advertisements for products/brands like Skittles, Old Spice and Geico commercials to be downright odd, but amusing. A myriad of choices seem counterintuitive to branding consistency but creating branding consistency by being inconsistent consistently is the new norm. A creative and amusing advertisement captures the interest of the audience while also getting your initial message across.

It’s a mouthful but it does make sense.

Going Rogue
Disruptive sales takes on the same premise in that you need to find a way to be less interruptive and more disruptive to stand out from the crowd. It’s going rogue, not like a crazed pirate, but like a Super Hero. You are going against the grain of crime fighting within the law by going outside the law while fighting to improve the lives of your fellow citizens.

Four Basic Disruptive Steps

There are four things needed for successful disruptive sales strategies:

1. Step away from the preconceived sales tactics.
2. Step away from small-scale efforts and set larger goals and with a more focused target.
3. Step away from your own industry and look for inspiration from more exciting industries to find ideas.
4. Step away from the seasonal drivers and carve out a niche time of year to rally your sales team and campaigns when no one else is out there.

Disruptive sales strategies go against the grain in order to draw attention. They draw people away from the noise of the competition. You have to fight the urge to take the path more travelled in order to get their faster. Disruptive sales may not be a short cut because it takes more effort, but in the end it will prove to be one of many paths to success.

Try Using Predetermined and Practiced Steps To Help Prospects Commit. Having a System in Place When It Comes Time To Get a Prospect To Commit Will Increase Your Chance of Closing The Deal!

Provide Simple Ideas That Solve Problems

People and prospects love ideas that are simple, to the point and solve the problem. Provide your solution to your prospects problem in the simplest and most obvious way possible. Sit down strategize and brainstorm on how you can provide your new prospect with a simple and easy view of your product or service that solves their problem.

Communicate Clearly

Once you provide a simple solution to a prospect’s problem, you need to communicate this to them in a simple manner. All questions must be prepared for and ready to be answered. If you do not know the answer to a question, let them know you will make it a point to get the answer and that you will get back to them as soon as possible.

Related Article: Effective Communication Skills for Sales Professionals

Build Trust Through Credibility

A great way to build trust and credibility is to go the extra distance and Do Your Research. You will also develop a better sense of confidence while speaking to your prospect if you know what you are talking about. This will in turn help you build trust and credibility with your new prospect. Make sure you take detailed notes during your initial meetings and remember key points and goals to have accomplished while coming back to your next meeting.

Figure out what steps help your prospects commit the most and use these vigorously to close more sales!

No matter how long your company has been in business, in order to maintain status quo or grow, you should consider investing in a sales team. Every industry is increasingly competitive and your sales force is an important aspect of keeping a competitive advantage. These are a few things to keep in mind when hiring and retaining a sales group for your company.

Job Description
Before you engage in any hiring, take the time to make a list of all the qualities you are looking for in a salesperson. What kind of background information should they have? How long have they been in sales? What are the types of responsibilities they will have and what are your expectations in how they fulfill them? Fleshing out all of the details will help guide the type of salespeople that you want to apply for the job. Furthermore, it will help flush out the sales people that you do not want on your sales force.

Be Selective
There might be a slew of people who appear qualified on paper, but will not fit in with your company’s culture. They could have a personality that does not mesh well with their co-workers. Conducting phone interviews before having them come in for a face to face will narrow down the field. A good salesperson should have a professional phone demeanor. When you have them come in, introduce them to the rest of the sales team to see how they interact.

Incentivize
Once you have created your sales force, it is never a good lose them to a competitor. Promote a welcoming atmosphere, one that lets them know they are a valuable member of the company. Let them know they have the ability to advance within the business. Create attainable goals for them to achieve. If they feel the environment is overbearing and has no direction, they will jump ship very quickly.

Motivate
Not only do the salespeople want to feel needed, they want to know they have been doing a good job along the way. Reward the small actions that lead up to the sale. Closing the sale is not always the end game. If they have improved in some aspect of their prospecting, recognize the advancements, too. You must be prepared to motivate your sales team with rewards, further education through seminars or workshops and constant positive thinking. If you are not prepared to provide motivation, do not expect as much from your sales force. Consider unique ways to motivate your team like hiring a motivational speaker or providing motivational materials to them on a regular basis.

Training
Every company has a different method to fostering referrals and converting leads into a sale. Even though they might have been a fantastic salesperson at their previous positions, their technique might not work in your environment. Keeping the sales team up to date on the latest methods and evaluating their usefulness will ensure a successful working climate. A sales coach or sales trainer can do wonders for your sales force.
It is scary to essentially put your company into someone else’s hands to increase business. Having a good backbone in place for hiring, retaining, motivating and training a sales team will make customer acquisition a smoother process and allow you to reap the benefits. Investing in a sales team should be an educated and thorough process that ensures you are hiring and retaining the correct force for YOUR organization.

If you own a business, you need the best, so that you can sell the most. If you are interested in building a sales dream team, where everyone works well with each other and bounces ideas off each other, you need to consider unique recruitment strategies. You want the right fit, and there are five ways to find that fit if you’re willing to put in the time and effort. Here are some great sales talent recruitment strategies.

Interview Process

While it may not be a strategy, per se, it is a necessary part of finding a new hire. You can’t just ask for resumes and pick one randomly from the lot. You have to go through each one, find a handful of individuals who seem to fit the part and ask each one a set of uniquely designed and crafted questions.

Smart people know how to breeze through the interview process, but you have to look past what they tell you and see what they’re saying. Asking questions about the company is one way to do that. Most people don’t research beforehand. However, a smart and prepared candidate will research you and find out as much as possible. Come up with a list of questions for your interview process that only a truly qualified candidate would know the answers to.

Networking

It is up to you to keep in contact with those in your network. They can help you find more recruits that could be the answer to one of your problems.

Consider Alumni and college networking is just one of the many ways of finding new talent. These people have just got out of college or are just finishing up and want to land that dream job. You should be there to scoop them up before they get grabbed by someone else. More often than not they will have all of the necessary skill sets that you would require of them. You just need to determine if they are a good fit for your company, the specific job and your companies culture.

Previous Applicants

No one ever thinks of going back through their previous candidates to see what’s available. While they may not have been your first choice initially, people change and mature. They may have gotten another job and received some hands-on experience or are just a little more desperate and may do almost anything for the opportunity. Mine your applicant-tracking system (ATS)!

Private Events

Public recruiting events can be hard because you’re competing with others. Instead, host your own event. You’ll get a lot of people who are all interested in working for you.

Social Media

Social media sites, like LinkedIn, can be a goldmine of talent, so don’t forget to join and check these sites frequently. Once you find a candidate you can reach out immediately. If they are too far for an in-person interview try doing an interview over video chat.

If you want a sales dream team, you’re going to have to have excellent sales talent recruitment strategies. Visit The Sales Coaching Institutes and reach out to their executive sales recruiting experts to learn more.