To sell your ICT services, you need to get in front of the CEO or appropriate C level Director. It's not always easy to get in the Top Dogs door... how effectively do your team open doors with C-Suite execs?
The prospecting process. A time-consuming, hit and miss exercise often carried out by Salespeople who would rather be doing anything else. Success measured purely by the number of meetings set for a given week and not the quality of the interactions. What have we got? A busy but ineffective sales team.
Businesses need momentum to accelerate their growth. That momentum is built through filling your pipeline with qualified leads and beginning conversations with those leads when they are ready to have them.
Traditional practices of filling pipelines are not only unsuccessful in delivering the daily meetings we need to reach our targets but also do not deliver meetings with the “right people”.
Again, this gives us busy, but ineffective salespeople.
Throughout my career, I have worked with Sales & Marketing teams to create momentum in their sales environment. We’ve achieved this by using digital tools in our prospecting processes and then developing the skills in the team to convert those prospects into customers.
We developed highly effective Sales Professionals supported by a powerful lead magnet.
Digital Prospecting: The sudden acceleration of a 10-year-old trend
“You can't do today's job with yesterday's tools and be in business tomorrow.” (Dr. Helen K.)
That quote is from 1940. 1940! To be fair, it held its relevance well enough for decades. Unsurprisingly, the tools that will shape the future will be technology-based and digital.
Digital Disruption has been around since the 1990s. Although many businesses have already walked this path, many more will just be beginning their journey thanks to Covid-19.
As companies begin to imagine their Digital Migration Strategy, Customer Engagement will be at the top of the agenda. The objective of this Migration is simple: use technology to keep solving customers problems in a better, quicker and more convenient way than before.
As part of your Digital Strategy, I suggest exploring the tools available to get your Sales professionals in front of prospects better, quicker and in a more professional way.
The right tools will open doors for your selected target markets and contacts in those markets.
Momentum Killers
In search of ‘sales momentum’ teams revert to ‘old school’ practices. They also make the same mistake time and time again.
Old School Practices
Attempting to fill the pipeline via cold calling, traditional marketing, SEO and AdWords campaigns will not provide the momentum we seek. These forms of marketing do (SEO / AdWords) and will (sorry Cold Calling, not you) have their place in the world as it continues to evolve. What that evolution does mean is that we need to adapt to more effective ways of sourcing new customers.
THAT Mistake
THAT mistake I call, “Starting Low”. For a number of reasons meeting with junior execs is a momentum killer. To meet sales targets consistently you not only have to fill the top of your pipeline daily but ensure that the deals your team are working on are qualified correctly. The best-qualified deals are those that have reached that status through the sales professional engaging with the Top Dog and doing so early in the deal cycle! Often the most challenging person to meet with from the starting line but no doubt the most rewarding. First time meetings with the Top Dogs are possible, should the right digital tools and sales processes be in place.
Lead Magnets
Laptops, telephones and a CRM software. What more could a Sales professional need to generate new business?
Engaging with Sales Directors and Managers as frequently as we do, we hear how prospecting and developing new business is a daily challenge. Teams have been banging their heads against the wall trying to overcome this challenge for years. The world is changing, and we must change with it.
Digital lead development and nurturing aren’t only there to develop warm leads for your Sales team to follow up. It also serves the purpose of freeing up your Salespeople from a laborious and ineffective task.
Putting them in a position to focus on what really motivates them, taking HOT leads and making customers out of them.
Digital Lead Magnets will not only improve the number of leads your team is going to be working on but also the quality of those leads. Imagine having to manage your incoming leads by level of priority, what a beautiful problem to have.
Rapport vs Relationships
Challenge - Sales professionals need to have Rapport with Top Dogs to get a first time meeting and then build a relationship with them to create momentum in the deal.
Often confused as being the same, Rapport vs Relationships develop in different stages in the sales process. One is a momentum killer, the other a momentum accelerator.
Rapport, in sales terms, is defined as the “early click” you have with a prospective client. Often built in the lead up to the first meeting and during the first meeting.
Relationships are defined as deep and meaningful connections that take time to build with customers.
Often built towards the end of the sale or even after the deal has been closed.
Rapport with your brand and value proposition can start much sooner than an interaction with one of your Salespeople, and it should!
The process, enabled by a Lead Development & Nurturing Tool, is as follows:
- Source Decision Makers
- Gently build personal and brand credibility
- Handover Prospects to Sales Professionals
The power of this system is two-fold; firstly, rapport with prospects is being built daily without time and effort being spent by your Salespeople, and secondly, you're building a foundation of potential customers who appreciate and are excited by your insightful information and professional approach.
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