Blog
With the year winding down, most salespeople have the pedal to the metal to crush their sales targets & start building pipelines for 2022. For some, this looks like persistent cold-calling and follow-up emails on follow-up emails. If this sounds familiar – let me remind you of a magnificent tool called referrals.
I’ll admit, at first I was hesitant to ask clients for referrals because I felt it was asking for a favour. I quickly found out that not only is it a lot less daunting than it may seem, but most people are actually happy to provide a referral (bonus points if you can give them a referral back!).
Over the past few years, I’ve made a concerted effort to ask for referrals. Recently, I completed our yearly analysis & discovered that over 80% of our new business was sourced from referrals!
Still doubting the power of referrals? Here’s the facts:
- People are 4 times more likely to buy when referred by a friend or colleague.
- 84% of B2B decision makers start the buying process with a referral.
- 83% of consumers are willing to refer after a positive experience – yet only 29% actually do.
- The lifetime value for new referral customers is 16% higher than non-referrals.
- 87% of frontline salespeople, 82% of sales leaders, and 78% of marketers surveyed agree that referrals are the best leads your business can get.
- 69% of B2B frontline salespeople, 70% of sales leaders, and 67% of marketers believe that referred leads close faster than other leads.
From the Buyer’s Perspective:
- 73% of B2B Buyers prefer to work with sales professionals who have been referred to them by someone they know.
- 76% of B2B executives prefer to work with vendors who have been recommended by someone they know.
- Having a personal connection with a Buyer (such as through peer recommendation/referrals) makes you 4.2 times more likely to get an appointment.
- B2B Buyers are 5 times more likely to engage when someone else introduces them to your company.
Source: referralrock.com
Ok, so you’re probably seeing the importance of referrals now, but what next?
Start developing your referral strategy!
Don’t waste your valuable referrals – keep in mind the following traits that sellers need to have, to get and keep a buyer’s attention:
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Healthy respect for their time; it’s valuable to them and should be to you
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Ability to lead meetings in an organized and concise manner
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Tenacity
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A genuine interest in building relationships with their clients
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Integrity
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The insights to ask thought-provoking questions that show understanding of the prospect’s business
Be strategic, be proactive, and be brave when asking for referrals to secure more new business & build a strong pipeline for 2022!
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.
Blog
If you had known what the past 90 days would bring, what would you have done differently?
We are almost at the 90-day mark of COVID shutting the entire world down. It has impacted businesses, customers, families, and personal lives so drastically. What is different for you, your customers, your business and your family now?
In last week’s blog, we talked about what you CAN do, rather than focusing on what you CAN’T do. As we reflect on the past 90 days and the next 90 days, it is an opportunity for you to align your goals with plans for what you CAN do for sales, business and personal interests!
Some people and organizations have accomplished many things in the past 90 days things, while others have hit the “pause” button.
The reality is that we can’t afford to pause anymore. We need everyone, especially salespeople, to pick up the pace and improve performance to turn this economy around, or the last 90 days of 2020 could be a bloody business bath.
It’s summer, so let’s enjoy the time outdoors to fuel our energy for what we need to do for our business and our customers’ businesses. The past 90 days may have been a pause, but that just means that the next 90 days is all about picking up the pace!
Before you plan the next 90 days, it’s important to reflect on the lessons learned, the insights and the meaning of what this pandemic has brought to us. Find a different place to do this reflection. My favourite place to reflect is near the water – I’m not sure what it is, I just think differently when I get away from my desk. Go for a walk, a drive or, like me, find your own place with a note pad to write down your thoughts and your future 90 day goals.
Ask yourself:
✓What did you learn about yourself?
✓How would you rate your business in how they handled the COVID19 situation?
✓How were your sales impacted?
✓Who are the individuals and companies that did an incredible job of pivoting to thrive during COVID?
✓What are the lessons learned?
While many people view the past 90 days as having put a “pause” on the world, we can’t afford to “pause” the world’s economy.
We need strong leaders and salespeople to turn this around. We need to move from “pause” to “pivot” and finally, to “performance.”
What will the next 90 days bring? We don’t know the answers or have the crystal ball. But we can develop goals and plans for our business, customers and even ourselves to enjoy the next 3 months of summer.
What will you plan for the next 90 days to pick up your performance?
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.
Blog
Are you missing your road warrior days? You know what I mean: you’d start the day with your favourite coffee, head out early to avoid traffic, and get an early start on your first customer sales meeting. You’d continue your day with several other customer meetings, including a great customer lunch. Can you believe these road warrior days were your everyday normal just a short time ago?
Even though businesses are starting to open up and you’re getting itchy to get out on the road to meet face to face with your customers, the reality is that many of your customer sites are not allowing sales professionals on their premises. You want to get back to normalcy, to seeing your customers and hitting your sales numbers. You’re getting frustrated and feeling the pressure to increase sales.
There is a way to build rapport, establish trust through technology, and maximize your productivity while working your territory, from your home office. You can use your road warrior selling approach to become a tech Titan.
Here are ways to turn your territory into a tech-driven performance plan to get results:
It’s all about what you do BEFORE, DURING and AFTER your customer calls, and that means mapping out your series of Purposeful Conversations.
SELF-TALK Conversation
It begins with you and your mindset. You may not love technology, your CRM, or the volumes of virtual calls that fill your day. Yet, you like the idea of becoming a Titan – top of your game and ahead of your competitors. This is the opportunity to unlearn your traditional territory selling approach and embrace the Trusted Titan way.
STRATEGY Conversation
Map out how you work your ideal week, without even leaving your home. How will you re-gig your territory to meet with the right buyers on their terms? Identify technology that will save you time and hours of driving, and provide you with the time to enjoy breakfast AND dinner at home with your family. Maybe you convert your typical drive time into a new hobby, or finally put time towards optimizing your CRM.
REASON to MEET Conversation
Our recent conversations with buyers revealed that they are receiving hundreds of cookie-cutter emails each day that do not succeed in winning their attention. To secure a meeting with a buyer, it’s about quality over quantity and using exciting technology (eg. customized videos in emails) to win attention.
Our buyers said that a customized video email would get their attention, as they are getting very little of these types of emails as a means of securing a meeting. Buyers also told us that texting, or the old fashioned technology of a telephone call with an email, would give them the gentle nudge to differentiate you from the competition. At Teneo, we call that the double whammy to increase sales efforts. Again – it’s technology other than yet another email that will get a buyer’s attention.
PURPOSE Conversation
This is the opportunity for you to shine. It’s no longer about your products or even having the best price. It’s about having a Purposeful Business Conversation to ask even more questions about the challenges and impact on your client’s business. What new problems are they trying to solve? How are they trying to become more efficient and optimize costs? What are they doing to pivot and grow revenue? Using different virtual platforms will allow you to be the Titan! Have a discovery call to develop trust in a video call. Demonstrate your new product line, or host an interactive lunch-n-learn using polls to impress and get their attention. Customers will have to validate every decision and cost expenditure – turn your products and promos into a purposeful proposal with ROI that will help them grow their business.
FINAL YES! Conversation
There will be more objections or budgets on pause than ever before. As a Tech Titan, you are armed to anticipate those objections and address these even earlier in the buying process to influence and collaborate on new solutions that will make your buyers heroes! It’s all about making your customers look good – that is what Tech Titans do and it is what you can do to turn things around- both for your sales and for the economy.
Harness your Road Warrior Approach to become a Tech Titan Hero and enjoy your summer, even more!
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.
Blog
Why is “intel” – aka gathering client and competitor intelligence – so important right now? There is no crystal ball to forecast the future. What insights do you want your team to gather to help you make future sales decisions?
When we asked sales leaders to identify their biggest challenge with COVID, 83% stated it was the unknown and how challenging it is to plan for the future.
Even though several businesses are starting to re-open, there are still many travel restrictions, especially into customer facilities. Business owners, senior organizational leaders and customers are seeking business intelligence to help them make future decisions on how COVID will continue to impact their business.
Even though your sales team is not currently on their “feet on the street”, they can put on their detective hats. They can still be creative, be curious, and be confident in order to gather this important intel.
Turn your Check In Conversations into more PURPOSEful Business Conversations to gather business intel for your senior leadership team and help them understand what is going on in the marketplace.
Your sales team needs to understand that business will never be the same. Your sales team needs to understand why this information is critical to the future decision making, sustainability and success of your business. This information can be as critical and precious as new leads.
Here are different ways for you to gather business intelligence for your organization. Talk to your customers to ask and learn:
- What projects are they working on now and in the future?
- What will the new norm look like?
- Will there be pent up demand for their services to their customers?
- Will there be a pent up demand for your services?
- How will they adapt their facilities to allow employees & customers back?
- Will current deals be lost during COVID and into the fall?
- Is there different services they are looking for?
- How will their staffing situation change?
- What is the impact of their sales?
- Are they employing cost cutting, cost optimization or spending for growth?
- Is their senior leadership team being pro-active, reactive or cocooning?
Here’s one of the best questions to ask, “What do you think January 1, 2021 will look like for both business and your personal life?
Talk to your fellow sales colleagues and ask them the same questions above to get their insights.
Research your Competitors:
- Check out their Website and COVID update
- Order their product online to experience their e-commerce experience
- Check out their Social media channels
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.
Uncategorized
Are you eagerly looking forward to when you can meet face to face with customers? Maybe you’re craving the days when work wasn’t solely digital: getting up at 6 am, traveling outside your home, dodging traffic, and barely making it to your next client meeting on time – then ending your day with a client dinner or returning emails in the evening. OMG – this was reality just a few weeks ago?!
Today’s reality is: will you get to sell the same way this year? The chances of large tradeshows, conferences, and even a meeting room with 3-4 buyers and decision influencers present will be slim. Customers will be very selective about who they let in their facilities; interactions are going to remain digital for some time.
I’ve heard sales people referred to as birds in cages who just want to fly. In reality, your wings have been clipped and you’ve been confined to digital working, yet you are still expected to sell and hit your sales targets.
Your daily commute can be traded in for a virtual platform with a fancy headset and webcam. You can even add a green screen for an intriguing background.
It’s time for you to become an expert at using digital video platforms to sell and differentiate yourself from your competition – this will become your new sales weapon!
That’s why you need to get really good at digital selling – before your competition does just that.
Selling over video calls is a great way to accelerate your success while working from home. It allows you to read facial expressions and body language so that you can understand how to best engage your buyers. As well, seeing each other face to face will enable you to develop trust and credibility.
Here are tips to help you turn your digital conversation into a confident PURPOSE conversation:
- Daily Sales Team Huddles so everyone can become familiar with different platforms. Assign a salesperson a different topic or feature to become an “expert” on. It’s easier than you think – just try and practice!
- Use the PURPOSE Consultative framework as the format to prepare and conduct a digital consultative PURPOSE conversation, just like you would do if you were F2F.
- Turn on your webcams – what does your background look like? Do you feel comfortable seeing yourself on the screen? How can you improve your surroundings to create a professional environment?
- Build rapport by asking clients about their home office environment – look for the clues
- Practice sharing documents, proposal or even a video
- If you’re really brave, you can do a product demo or share products from your showroom
- Don’t do a Sell and Tell Presentation – make it interactive, apply PURPOSE, and ask many open-ended questions. Don’t Sell Too Soon!
- Schedule the next call and follow-up with another virtual call
- If you are conducting a professional sales conversation, then ensure you are dressed professionally – the digital meeting room is not the place for ball caps, t-shirts or hoodies!
Why use virtual platforms and digital solutions, rather than a conference call?
- It allows you to read facial expressions and body language
- Your buyers will be more engaged
- Video calls will last longer than a conference call
- You will develop trust & credibility if done right
Don’t think your customers are relying upon the digital? They are definitely using House Party, Facetime, and Zoom to connect with friends, family … AND your competitors.
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.
