Its Q2 – do you have enough in your Pipeline to Achieve 2016 Sales Goal?

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As we move into Q2 – its’ critically important to ensure we have added enough opportunities in the Sales Pipeline in Q2 to ensure you will hit your 2016 Sales Goal.  With longer sales cycles and more people involved in the decision making process – the spring/Q2 is an ideal time to be prospecting.

Here are 5 Great Prospecting Strategies to get you started with your Spring Prospecting Blitz

When prospecting you need to realize that you are competing with at least 50 other salespeople to get a meeting with a buyer who will see 1-4 new salespeople on average per year. Sales people need to become creative and productive when prospecting, instead of relying on conventional methods.  Here are some key fundamentals to prospecting that every sales rock star does.

1. Create your Target list of prospects

Ideally, you want to be prospecting for customers who are already likely to buy. Possible sources for prospecting lists:

Referrals. People whom your existing customers have contacted and suggested that they get in touch with you.

Networks. People whom you’ve connected with personally at industry events or tradeshow, leads during the past year.

Website Visitors. People who’ve shown an interest in your offerings by accessing your website and leaving contact data.

Purchased Lists. People who have bought your offerings inside industries into which you typically sell.

Questions to consider when creating a list of prospects:

• Why is that an ideal lead?
• How do we help them?
• What do we help them with?
• Why would they need our help?
• Would they maybe want our help right now?
• Would our services or products actually be something that is timely to their business goals and needs?

Your prospects can be in different sections of your Prospecting Funnel – categorize them as suspect, prospects and hot ones to help you prioritize your prospects.  Remember, even existing customers can go back into your prospecting funnel to get more business from them this year.

2. Create your UNIQUE Competitive Value Message for each client

In most cases, your competitive value message will be  built around open-ended questions that you ask during the conversation.

A few of the key criteria in obtaining your leads are: identifying the decision makers, current supplier situation, their financial situation, decision timeframe, and price as a buying criterion.

Questions to ask leads:

• How would the decision process work with an offering like this? What would be your role in the process, and the roles of others on the decision team?
• “What are the most important issues for you?”
• “How many (products/services) do you sell in an average week/month?”
• “Who is your primary customer?”
• “Where do you see your greatest challenge?”
• “I notice you currently use XYZ Company. How long have they been your supplier?”
• “What do you like most about XYZ Company?”
• Do you have a portion of your budget already allocated to this?

3. Set reasonable prospecting goals

Set a target for how many prospects you will need in your pipeline in order to generate the number of sales that you need.  When setting prospecting goals, focus on three core areas: the number of contacts you should make each day and week, the number of leads you should develop and the number of personal appointments you should set.

Some examples of SMART goals for prospecting are:

• Send 10 packages to prospects per week for the next 4 weeks
• Set 1 face to face appointment with a new prospect each week.
• Make 2 follow-up presentations this month.
• Schedule time to make 5 new calls every day between the times of 8am – 9am

4. Get into a positive mental state

Find a place where you won’t be interrupted or distracted. Take a few minutes to focus yourself and your thoughts:

• Be positive. Believe you will succeed. If you fail try again.
• Be optimistic. Look for the best in people and expect good things to happen.
• Visualize success. Imagine ALL the emotions you’ll feel when you achieve your goal.

5. Practice Self-Talk

Enhance your performance by structuring your self-talk in a way that will help you enter the situation feeling more positive.  It’s important to be in a confident, positive and have a resourceful state of mind. The interactions you have with your clients and prospects are too valuable to take lightly. You want to be prepared to create value and you want to be in the best state possible to do so.

6. Make the calls

Wednesdays and Thursdays are the best days of the week to make sales calls.

The absolute best times to call leads are between the hours of 8-9am and 4-6pm, with the lunchtime period of 1-2pm being the absolute worst. An early-morning call was proven to be 164% more likely to qualify a lead than one made between 1 and 2 p.m. The best day and time to send sales emails are Thursdays 8-9am. And the worst day and time to send emails are Tuesday and Wednesday between 8-10am.  Make sure you know your audience, where your contacts are and organize your hot list by time zone or a time to best reach your decision makers.  I find the time best to make my calls to VPs of Sales is 7:30am – 8:55am –as they usually get in the office early, I avoid gatekeepers, and its before they get caught up in meetings for the day.

7. Multiple Touches – Make the Calls and be Disciplined – Don’t give up too soon!

48% of sales people never follow up with a prospect

25% of sales people make a 2^nd contact and stop

12% of sales people only make 3 contracts and stop

Only 10% of sales people make more than 3 contacts

2% of sales are made on the 1^st contact

3% of sales are made on the 2^nd contact

5% of sales are made on the 3^rd contact

10% of sales are made on the 4^th contact

80% of sales are made on the 5^th to 12^th contact

Share your prospecting best practices with us!

Lisa Leitch, CSP2

Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.

What Every Sales Leader Needs to Do Now To Survive in 2020

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The business landscape will dramatically change over the next 5 years with how customers and companies buy and sell.  Creating the optimal sales team and culture that evolves into 2020 is quickly becoming priority for industry leaders and companies.  The challenge that most companies are facing is the new complex social and organizational dynamic of the mix with four separate generations in the workplace.

Currently, the workplace demographics are divided as follows;

Traditionalists only hold 5% of the workplace and are known as the veterans of the workforce.  They are known for their patriotism, “doing more with less” and are very task-orientated.  They are your organization’s historians.

Baby Boomers make up 40% of today’s workplace demographics.  They hold many upper management and executive positions and have had a strong influence over the cultural characteristics of the workplace.  This generation places high value on long work hours, education and lots of face to face meetings.

Generation X holds 25% of the workplace demographics. This generation is not a fan of status or title and seeks a work-life balance in an informal fun work environment.

Generation Y or Millennials represent 30% of the workforce and are the newest generation to enter into the workplace market with pre-set expectations of what they want from their jobs. Millennials are innovative, self-sufficient, tech savvy, entrepreneurial and collaborators who need a high purpose in life.

Love them or hate them Millennials are here to stay and come 2020 they will represent 50% of the workforce.  Baby Boomers will be looking to retire, semi-retire or will not want to retire at all!

How will this shift in demographics impact your sales teams?  How will this affect your customers preferred buying preferences? And finally how will you attract and engage Millennials to your sales team?

Here are 5 key action plan strategies that will help you and your team evolve into 2020:

1. Create a Succession Plan for Retiring Baby Boomers

Baby Boomers have a wealth of product and market knowledge and know how to build great customer relationship.  Few companies have a plan for capturing employee knowledge and storing it in a way that is easily accessible.  In order to be ready for 2020, companies need to consider a process for capturing, storing and communicating the vital knowledge Baby Boomers have accumulated through Mentorship initiatives.

2. Attract, Hire & On-Board Millennials into Sales Positions

Sales is depicted as vicious and ruthless and this doesn’t align with the values of Millennials.  Address any stereotypes and apprehensions that a sales career professional persona may have and demonstrate how the modern sales professional has evolved. Remember Millennials need a higher purpose and demonstrating this to them promotes just how rewarding a sales environment can be.

3. Adapt to sell to Millennial Buyers

Millennials want authenticity and an emotional story, so don’t lie and make them laugh.  They will do their research online and fact-check everything using multiple sources. They are busy by nature so don’t waste their time, be quick, brief and use descriptive pieces that can be absorbed in seconds.  Create a consultative selling approach over an “order taker” approach with Millennials to make them feel valued.

4. Create a COLLABORATIVE vs. COMPETITIVE Growth Culture with your team

A collaborative sales team works together toward a common goal and focuses on:

• High quality business connections
• Product and company evangelism
• Relationship building vs selling
• Knowledge sharing
• Data-driven selling and team self-awareness

5. Create Awareness

This is the perfect opportunity for Sales Leaders to STEP UP, share these stats with your sales teams & senior management teams to create awareness and begin the planning NOW!

To learn more about how to prepare for 2020, listen to our webinar ,   “Your Buyers and Sales Team are Changing – How will you be ready by 2020?”  Simply register to access the download instantly!

Lisa Leitch, CSP2

Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.

Webinar Recording – “Your Buyers and Sales Team are Changing – How will you be ready by 2020?”

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Your Buyers and Sales Team are Changing – How will you be ready by 2020?

Did you know…

• By the year 2020, 50% of the work force will be represented by millennials (those currently under the age of 34)
• Millennials buy from salespeople differently than other generations.
Register , download and listen to our informative webinar, brought to you by the CPSA.

During the webinar, we discuss the changing workforce demographics and learn how to prepare for 2020:

• How will the shift in demographics impact your sales team?
• How will you create a succession plan with your aging salesforce?
• How will you attract and engage Millennials to your sales team?
• How will this affect your customers’ preferred buying preferences?
• Will your sales team be able to effectively sell to Millennials?

Create the optimal sales team for 2020!

Click here register and download the recording today!

Lisa Leitch, CSP2

Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.

The Top 5 Things Employers MUST know about Millennials

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Millennials are the largest, most diverse, most educated and most connected generation of all time and that’s why companies have to pay attention to them in a big way.

Here are the TOP 5 THINGS EMPLOYERS MUST KNOW ABOUT MILLENNIALS in order to attract, retain and engage this generation.

1. Flexible Work Arrangements

Millennials want to work smarter not harder.  Flexibility with work schedules is important to millennials so that they achieve a work life balance.

2. Transparent Culture That Is Inspiring And Engaging

Millennials place a high value on transparency and respond well to authentic leaders.  They want a culture where strengths are valued, voices given and stories are shared.

3. Collaborative work culture

Millennials where raised to share, it is embedded in their DNA.  Having a collaborative work culture rather than a competitive one is required to engage this generation.  They seek coaches not managers.

4. Trust & Empowerment

Millennials want to explore new ideas and challenges to keep themselves motivated.  Provide a platform for their distinct skills in order to keep them engaged and become better producers.

5. Meaningful Work

Millennials are suckers for significance.  They want a higher purpose to make the world a better place.  They want to know that their personal contribution makes an impact.  They expect more assurances that companies care about their consumers, employees and the shaping of the world.

Lisa Leitch, CSP2

Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.