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Today's
sales professionals are under extraordinary pressure -- to generate
new leads, close more business, and repeat their previous-year
performance -- with a more skeptical, tight-fisted customer base
than ever before. After you've implemented the bonus systems, commission
programs, incentive rewards, and other carrots/sticks, what else
can you do?
Education itself is the final component. Sales training programs
are widely available, both online and in-person. As trainers
will promise, they can improve the performance of any sales
force. What's
less obvious is that also improve general motivation. This is
key, because it can spill over to parts of your company
outside the sales
team.
Many sales-training professionals
will try to sell "their unique
program", which is "guaranteed to transform your
salesforce",
etc. etc. Rather than take their pitch at face-value, dig deeper
and about these key areas which are crucial to success in today's
climate:
- The anatomy
of the sales cycle: from prospect to repeat-customer,
the chain of events in making a sale needs to be taught,
re-taught, and
understood. In sports, this would be called "learning
the fundamentals",
and a refresher is always good even for your veteran
players.
- Qualification: with more time pressures
on salespeople, it pays to qualify your prospects fast to know
if they'll
be buyers.
- Upsell and Cross-sell: there are fewer new prospects
out there with money to spend, so make each sale count
for as
much as possible
- Integration with online marketing: More customer
leads are being generated from the internet. How should
they be
treated
differently?
What are specific characteristics of online leads?
- Telephone skills: Travel budgets are down (and it
takes forever just to get on a plane anyway). Improve
your telephone
sales
skills, including over-the-web demonstrations, and
learn to create lasting
relationships without a physical meeting. It's difficult,
but the pros do it all the time. That's where training
can be so
helpful.
- Referrals count: Every satisfied customer, and even
the not-so-satisifed ones, can be valuable referral
sources.
When it feels like
you're squeezing blood from a stone, soliciting your
happy customers
for leads will help carry you through a tough quarter.
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