Sales Rep Tips

Tips for selling right now

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Tips for Selling Right Now

Last week I shared the rough stages we’re seeing in companies’ responses to COVID-19:

  • Step one was focusing on connectivity (WFH)
  • Step two was focusing on morale and connections (Zoom happy hour anyone?)
  • Step three was focusing on messaging (leading with empathy)

—–somewhere around the present day ———-

  • Step four is about re-aligning sales metrics, KPIs, milestones and goals
  • Step five is about closing new sales with finance
  • Step six is about back to work / back to normal

In May, we heard from our Friends of Factor 8 Open Bar community that the most difficult conversation they’re having right now isn’t in prospecting/early stages, but now it’s getting deals across the line. Most of us experienced a complete death of the existing pipeline we had in March. 

What’s filling the pipeline now are different deals. New industries, those with more urgent needs, maybe those growing today. New buyers found us (whew! This sales and marketing thing is working!)

And even though they came to us and they WERE aware of this whole pandemic thing… the deals are getting stuck before they pull the trigger.

55% of Friends of Factor 8 Leaders reported “Getting deals across the line” as the most difficult sales conversation right now.

This is supported in recent data published by Chorus who saw an approximate 100% increase in executive decision makers attending sales calls – with the biggest spike by the Chief Financial Officer.

This means our new focus is on closing with a new buyer. Finance is joining calls because:

  1. Everyone’s spending is down.
  2. You’re competing against spend in other departments with the CFO determining most critical spend.

That’s right, never thought HR systems compared with your marketing data budget? It does now. Sales tools vs. legal research? Game on.

We need to answer: Why is it business-critical to spend this money right now?

We used to answer why we are better than our competitors. Why you should spend this money with us. 

But now, it’s why this money will either:

  • Protect them from risk
  • Help them increase revenue
  • Help them save money
  • Help them pivot and come out on top of the pandemic

So even if good ol’ Corona didn’t come up once during the sales process, get ready at the end to sell to finance to get the deal over the line.

More sales tips from our Friends of Factor 8 in my next blog. Then stay tuned to learn from the folks planning re-entry.

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20 Reasons to call your customers

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20 Reasons to Call Your Customers Now

Whether you’re an experienced virtual seller or just getting your “inside legs” after transitioning from face-to-face field selling, we all need more reasons to call our customers. This is because we don’t get to “bump into” customers in the hallways and because we tend to get less accomplished in sales phone calls (See this blog here on call goals).

So why do we need a reason to call? Because “touching base” is a mortal sin. Wait, too much? Nope, seriously not overstating that. Never ever, ever just call to check in. Your prospect’s time is valuable, and if you’ve nothing better to do than check-in, don’t call at all. (You’ll notice I’m interchanging customer and prospect in this article. Treat them the same.)

And why do we need multiple calls? Because we’re fighting “out of sight, out of mind,” and because we have our own goals to accomplish. We may not have gotten all the information we needed in our previous calls, or we may just be trying to avoid the dreaded “gone dark” that happens more in virtual selling than face-to-face.

Your goals for calling back are to get more information, get a status update, or just stay top of mind, but unfortunately, those aren’t great prospect-facing reasons to call. Doubt me? Try leaving a message like this and see if you get a call back:

“I’m just calling to get a status update and check-in. Call me back…”

You’ll be waiting a long time.

So the goal instead is to call with a customer value-add reason and then accomplish your goals. That brings us back to the topic at hand. 

Fill out the form below to download
“20 Value-Add Reasons To Call Your Customers”.

How Do I Sell If I Can’t Meet My Customers?

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How Do I Sell If I Can’t Meet My Customers?

If you’ve been carrying a bag for a while, I’m going to be honest. The transition to “virtual” sales or inside sales can be rough. 

It feels like a wall has been placed between you and your customers.  You’ll miss the face time.  Deals seem stalled.  Relationships aren’t quite as robust.  And that’s not even talking about what’s happening to your airline status!

If any of this sounds familiar, sign up now to keep getting new blogs.  We’re writing a series to help you transition.

My name is Lauren Bailey and I’ve been teaching phone sales for over 20 years. I carried a bag myself and when I “went inside” I felt all of the above. Moreover, my young virtual sales team struggled with how to position what they’d learned over the phone (and they were hired for selling virtually!). I’ve traveled the world launching digital sales teams and written over 40 courses that help salespeople use the phones to sell. I hope this perspective can be of value.

Today’s insight is about setting call goals.

What you used to be able to cover in one on-site meeting will take you anywhere from 3-5 calls today (and about 10x that in dials).

No, it’s not always true, but if you plan for it to be this way, you’ll feel less frustrated and improve your forecast accuracy. Here’s why:

Our calls aren’t always scheduled.  You’re trying to “get in front” of your customer or prospect with a call and three out of five times they won’t pick up or won’t have a full hour.

We have to spend more time building rapport. Gone is the handshake and back pat with a quick peek around the office and quick reference to what happened last we met or a look at the kids on their phone. We do it all with words now. It takes longer to warm up and communicate (alas, a picture DOES take 1000 words)

Digging into needs and explaining solutions also takes more time.  Not only for the extra communication without the visual cues, but because we may not have everyone we need in the room, because we’re easier to blow off or stall when we’re not face to face, because we’re bound to miss a queue somewhere and lose our customer’s focus during the meeting.  There are probably ten more reasons, but that’s enough.

New call-to-action

So what do we do? Slow your Roll.

Set a goal for each call that are subsets of typical sales goals. In fact, make a list right now (I’ll wait 🙂 ). If it is a new prospect, it might look like:

  1. Get direct contact information (cell phone) for easier outreach next call and landscape of key contacts, influencers, decision-makers and other parties
  2. Learn how the company is pivoting during the pandemic
  3. Uncover key priorities and current situation including numbers, current software, challenges, contracts, and timelines
  4. Uncover key values, trigger events, goals
  5. Agree on potential fit and set a meeting to deep dive + include additional decision-makers
  6. Present solution tied to key needs, values, priorities (only!)

You get the idea…

Frankly, you may have achieved all of these in a face to face meeting in the past. It will be key to have established call goals and notes from each call so you keep moving the sale forward.  (Wait! THIS is why most sellers are notoriously bad for updating CRM!).

It also makes call bridging a key skill (tune in later for more on this skill)

Feeling a bit impatient? Here’s the good news. Using the phone may net you less on each call, but you can have more connects each day. The technology and SaaS industries have moved nearly 100% inside due to the efficiencies and speed to market. Combine smart call-by-call goals with dedicated call blasts and you’ll find yourself having equal selling time with MORE contacts each day.

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Field Sales to remote engagement-01

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How Do You Transition From Field Sales To Virtual Engagement?

If you’re a seller whose “office” is face to face with your customers, you may be experiencing tougher times than the rest of us. Your world was full of vibrant interactions, personal relationships, handshakes and live presentations. You carried your world in your passenger seat and you’ve built beautiful relationships over many meals, drinks, and outings.

Welcome to virtual selling my friends. So how the hell do you transition field sales to virtual sales?  We’re here to help. 

Today’s blog we’re talking about selling time. What I mean is the actual voice to voice connection where you get to do your job. In the past, great field sellers could meet with two to four, maybe five prospects/contacts in a day. You likely planned meetings based on geography and how you could hit buildings in a similar location, avoid traffic, or make the most of your plane trip to the other coast.

Great news, there are no boundaries now. Time Zones are your only constraint, and great phone sellers can talk with ten people a day. If you do it right, you just got much. more. efficient.

Bad news, it ain’t easy getting people to pick up their phones or call us back these days. Not because of a pandemic, but because we don’t answer calls from people we don’t know, because we all have competing priorities and because frankly, it’s easier to ignore someone ringing in than someone walking in.

That’s why in virtual sales, we focus on getting on first. Billy Bean will tell you (shameless Moneyball reference) “You can’t get to home if you can’t get on first.”. The first base is a conversation. It happens by:

  1. Leaving great voicemails that people will actually return
  2. Dialing 5-10x the number of conversations you want to have
  3. Starting calls with a compelling introduction that won’t turn people off
  4. Overcoming a brush-off and keeping contacts on the phone with you

These four basic skills can literally triple your first-base average. (Is that a thing? There must be a baseball stat focused on the number of times a player gets on first?). In virtual sales, this is often referred to as “talk time”. Talk time is a leading indicator of sales opportunities. And it’s a critical one.

One: Amp up the dials my friends and resist the urge to feel frustrated. 

It’s easy to curse your old pal Joe for not picking up all ten times you call. Hey, he may not even know you are calling. Or he may be ignoring you. Don’t give up. It takes about 7 tries to get over 90% of your targets on the phone. The trick is not cursing at Joe when he finally does pick up. Your job is to be genuinely happy to talk with him and NOT hold it against him that he launched you a few times. Tough, but really critical.

Two: Make yourself a call list. 

I recommend segmenting by industry/talk track so you know what you want to talk about with every contact on your list.  That way when someone picks up after 15 misses and you’re a bit startled, it’s an easy recovery.

Three: Be sure to bookmark these resources for more tips on improving your intros.

5 Tips For Mastering Your SWIIFT℠ Pitch

The Ultimate Sales Script To Get A Buyer’s Attention

Four: Be sure to sign up / subscribe to get notified of more phone sales tips like these.

If you’re serious about taking your remote selling to the next level and coming out ahead of your competition, check out our top-notch virtual training on all of these topics at The Sales Bar (the only bar actually open right now). Now may be the best time to invest in yourself and your teams.

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prospecting

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How the Hell Do I Prospect Right Now? Part 2

In part 1, we talked about call planning.  I hope you’ll check it out here as your outreach depends on getting to the right people with the right questions.

Outreach

So let’s talk about the outreach call, email, or social media message? 

Written

My advice: keep it short, zero sales, and very human.  Lead with humanity, the desire to help, and an eagerness to learn and talk.  Not pitch.  I dare you to craft a message that has nothing at all to do with you and everything to do with them.  I’ve replied to messages who even say that it’s a strange time to reach out, even those who vaguely apologize for doing so.  I haven’t replied to a single three-paragraph value prop. 

Voicemail

Ask yourself what calls you’ve returned in the past few weeks. Company I’ve been dodging for months to sell online credentials – hard pass. In fact, I’ve eye-rolled at the message as he and I both know damn well I should have been segmented to the bottom (read about segmenting and more planning in part 1 here)

FedEx account rep who was sorry to bother but thought she could save me some money – yes. Even called her during “I’m on kids” time and talked for fifteen minutes.

We have four simple strategies that work better than any other I’ve seen for getting a call back (watch more here) but the key is to customize these even further with empathy.  During these times I recommend you downplay the “mystery and urgency” approach and lean more on the “value or lever” approaches.  Let your message show that you know who they are and you get their situation.  A few lines I like to get you started:

“I’ve been thinking about you and wondering how you and your team are doing”

“What a crazy time to call…or maybe crazier NOT to call…but I do hope you’ll call me back…”

“You may not be taking sales calls, but if you’ll give me five minutes, I might be able to save you some money right now / make things easier right now.  Anyway, I’d really appreciate it…”

“I understand you won’t be going to XYZ conference anymore this summer with person A and person B, could we talk about that…”

Call

Same with our opening call.  How are you doing?  How is your business doing?  How are your people doing?  These are your go-to questions right now, and people want to answer them (a year ago I told folks to ditch the “how are you?”).

Keep the rapport building and empathy section of your call long and strong.  A quick pivot into exploring for sales opportunities starts to smell.  Want to build the fastest rapport?  Get real and share your side as well.  Skip the pat, “Hanging in there…it’s the new normal.”  If you want to connect, share something real.  What are you struggling with?  For me it’s managing homeschooling and not drinking every day.  It’s a little personal and a lot real and it builds fast connections with virtual strangers.

Now is the time to be 100% human.

Not an employee.  Not a rep.  Not a brand.  Be you.  And enjoy it.  Connecting with people is probably a big reason you got into sales in the first place.  If you achieve nothing else but a fifteen-minute rapport-building session at a personal level, you’ve achieved a lot.  Be willing to leave it there.  In the wise words of my friend Colleen Stanley, author of Emotional Intelligence for Sales Leadership: Ask yourself if your prospecting effort demonstrates that you get their world right now.  It’s the perfect litmus test.

Disco Anyone?

If you’re lucky enough to go further and you’re in a discovery call, lead with learning.  Understanding how your customers and prospects are approaching their business and lives gives you great stories to share with the rest of your prospects.  I want to know:

1.       How are sales?

2.       How are they serving their customers?

3.       What are the biggest challenges?

4.       Any hiring or layoffs?

5.       Any new markets or approaches?

6.       Any changes to the tools they are using?

7.       How has their leadership approached this?

8.       Have they had to change or cancel plans?

9.       Are budgets frozen?

10.   What are the top priorities right now?

And that’s just getting started.  These answers will not only help you connect but even change your approach as needed. 

Tell Stories

Even better, if you’re leading with learning in discovery, you’re collecting stories to tell others that can help other prospects and even yourself (XYZ company is actually hiring right now because….spending right now because….buying software because…)  Storytelling is key right now – right up there with empathy.

You are providing a service by doing some cross-pollination.  What is the flowerbed over there doing?  How about our competition?  What are you hearing that’s real and not either fake news or LinkedIn fluff?

And the Pitch!

Finally, if you’re in a position to pitch something, very carefully lead with value – and customized value to the situation (you planned this above!).  You’re not just convincing people why to do business with you, it’s why to do business with you RIGHT NOW.

May I also be so bold as to recommend a backup.  If you pitch the sale, be prepared with an offer.  I’m offering discounts, payment plans, and delayed payments.  I’m trial closing for next month or quarter when this doesn’t work.  Help people who want to say yes to do it or to sell it internally right now.

I hope you grabbed some nuggets in the above.  Take “lead with empathy” to a new level with your planning, your outreach, your discovery, and your pitch.  Note what’s working, cross-pollinate stories, and set yourself up to love your sales day rather than feeling (and smelling) like failure.  Harsh…but fair.

It’s time you guys.  Let’s get after this together.

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How the hell do I prospect right now-01

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How the Hell Do I Prospect Right Now? Part 1

I can smell fear.  You can too. And if we’re being pressured to produce pre-pandemic numbers I can smell the source. But if it’s leading to mass cold outreach and a  tireless blast of pitch pitch pitch, these days it smells not just like sales C-list, it smells like sales Death.  

So let’s get intentional about how we sell during the pandemic and let’s pray these best practices stick to all of us afterward (and that I never have to type that phrase again).

A few best practices from our team at Factor 8:

Planning

Take five to ensure that when you do get someone you’re prepared. They may actually be the most important part.

Ruthlessly Segment

Start by segmenting your list into companies or people who might need your services even more right now.  Then the folks who still could need your services.  Hard-hit industries and companies go to the bottom.  Be selective and force yourself to put your list into these three categories as evenly as possible.  Resist the urge to say, “Everyone needs XYZ right now…” that’s as fool hearty as, “I have no competition.”  Be a critic and be ruthless with yourself.

Value Prop

Now reframe your value proposition.  Why do these companies need you more or still need you now?  Carve your typical features and benefits to only benefits and those influenced by our current times.  It’s always best practice to tie your product to an industry trend, and boy do we have a biggy right now.  Start by asking how this global trend would affect your prospect and develop 1-3 key benefits for them right now (not features, benefits).

For example, prior to COVID, I could say any company with an inside sales team needs phone skills training for reps and management skills for new leaders to improve call quality, sales results and employee engagement.  Now the very top of our prospect list are companies who traditionally sell face to face and who have no idea how to engage digitally. Companies with years of inside sales experience and enablement departments with robust virtual offerings are bottom of my list.  I don’t lead with the amazing results we get in live workshops, I talk about our virtual offering, executive forums, referral programs, and dedicated manager coaching. (In other words, leave some of your tricks in the bag.) The benefits we emphasize are improved call quality vs. quantity, protecting them from lost opportunities, making it easier on their leaders, keeping morale high, and the long-term payoff of a team ready to crush it when things are back to normal. 

Image

I’d be remiss in not also advising y’all to get intentional about your background.  Video calls are king, and I’ve seen open closets, unmade beds, and piles of laundry in backgrounds.  On the same note, use your prospect’s visual clues to build rapport. Family pictures? Golf trophies? The weather out a window?  If you show it, you want to talk about it – both directions.

Reframe Goals

Finally, I urge you to create some baby call goals. If your usual goal is to get a meeting, send a quote, or close a sale; your new goals could be to get their interest, develop a relationship, or qualify the account.  We need small wins here and although budgets may be frozen, now is an amazing time to set up your future self for some fast sales. Right now people are:

  • Taking more calls
  • Attending more scheduled meetings
  • Attending more webinars
  • Getting real

(Thanks to my friend Chris Beall at ConnectAndSell for feeding me that data based on thousands of calls, connects, and shows).

So what if we went into calls with the goal of having a good conversation, learning about their situation, identifying future needs, and connecting with people at a human level?  That’s a sales call I’m more willing to make and one I’m more willing to take. It also helps me start my day with an achievable (dare-say benevolent?) goal rather than a waft of desperation.  If we open up a few opportunities during this, awesome. If we pave the way for future success, let’s take it.

Tune in to part 2 to learn more tips on the email, social, and phone call outreach.

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6 Ways To Kill Your Sales Call Intros

Our Factor 8 trainers hear a lot of sales call intros. Thousands of them. And, the bad news is that there are a lot of bad intros out there. Really, I mean a lot of horrendous intros. The good news? They’re easily fixed and your reps can begin to see an immediate impact by implementing a few tips.

I shared with Sales Hacker how reps can fix their intros. Read about it here. Got a comment or call intro successes to share? I want to hear them! Share them with me on LinkedIn.

6 Horrendous Ways To Begin Your Sales Call (And What To Do Instead)

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Let’s Have A Bad-Ass Contest

I have a fun, EASY bad-assery tip for you this week. Why not run a contest! Watch the video to see how to run the contest, launch it this week and then watch to see the results that you’ll get! Don’t forget to share your success stories with me here at, lb@factor8.com, or better yet put them on LinkedIn to share it with everyone!

Now, go promote bad-assery!

P.S. Have you downloaded our free SWIIFT℠ Training In A Box yet?! Let’s fix those intros guys! More at-bats = more home runs!  This full guide gives you step-by-step instructions to implement training for your team. It includes recorded webinars, articles, videos, cheat sheets, grading forms, and even the “Touch-base Montage” for a little fun. Everything you need to see a revenue lift right away! Get yours here.

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You got hung up on? Congratulations!

Let me just bottom line this bad-ass blog post for you guys. When reps are “scared” on the phone, this is what they’re scared of. Seriously. It is literally the very worst that can happen to them when selling on the phone. (Actually it would be a funny post to see what WAS the worst thing that ever happened to you when selling on the phone…let’s do that next!).

So my advice is, help this happen to them as soon as possible. In fact, put a contest around it and reward it.

It’s not EXACTLY like falling off a horse or throwing someone fully clothed into the deep end of the pool. . .but it’s the Factor 8 phone sales training equivalent. The rep who emerges on the other side? Total. Bad. Ass.

Watch the video for more details. Thanks for promoting bad-assery!

LB

PS – Last week I talked at the SalesHacker / SalesForce conference in New York City (holy humid you guys. I didn’t even sight see!). I talked a lot about the benefits of focusing on your reps’ introductions and helping them get on first base.

We’ve built our first Factor 8 “Training in a box” and I’d love you to check it out. It’s free, and it has step by step instructions on how to use all our free training tools to roll out training on better intros to your whole team. Give it to your trainer or a sales manager and send us your results! Here’s the link to get it: https://factor8.com/fix-your-sales-intros.

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Coffee is SOOO not for closers anymore

…nor are the cookies for the “Boss Baby” fans out there. But I digress (already!)

Listen, in today’s modern sales era, we don’t typically get face-to-face meetings.  This is when closing was king. We can assume our contacts are busy and they are hiding from us behind their phones. I mean, how often do you pick up calls from unknown numbers or known vendors?

That means the BIG SKILL for inside sales (and smart field/channel sales) isn’t the close, it’s the opening! It’s Moneyball folks, you can’t close what you can’t open. OK, I mixed metaphors there. It’s about getting on base with our intro.

My team and I listen to about 1000 phone calls a year, and we’ve categorized the majority of sales intros out there into six horrifying and all-too-common bad-intro buckets.

  1. “Show up and Throw up.” Seriously, I played an actual example of one of these at a conference and we had to fast forward it for time. The customer didn’t talk for 2:24. Guess what he said when he did?
  2.  “Good for You.” Congratulations on being my Account Rep. Did that seriously warrant a call to waste my time?
  3. “Yeah, that’s my Value Prop.” There’s a time and place for your two-second pitch. The intro is NOT it.
  4. “Get out of Jail Free.” Don’t ask them if they’re the person who handles purchasing decisions for your service. Who in their right mind would say “Yes! (And I love vendor calls!)”
  5. “The Setup.” I’m not sure who invented the “That would be of value to you, right?” pitch but I want to scream every time I hear it. It just BEGS me to say no. “You want to save money right?” STOP!
  6. “The Touchbase.” Don’t touch my base. Ever.

Sales Call Intros that Work

The good news in this litany of bad is that intros are easy to fix. How? Put your customer at the heart of it. Lead with what’s in it for THEM and not you. Sure YOU want to introduce yourself, but why should THEY care?

In two sentences you can get their attention AND lay out the purpose of your call. How? We call it the “SWIIFT℠” intro (So, What’s in it for Them?). This is what I covered in my webinar for BrightTalk. I dug a little deeper & provided tools to help you fix intros at your office. Click here to download the recording.

OH! And I collect these now. Send me your hilarious examples of my top 6 offenders. We’ll edit the names to protect the guilty. Yeah, I’d love to hear your good ones too – AND how many more at-bats you and your team are getting. Check out our business development training to learn how fixing intros raised close percentages up to 300%! 

So let’s get out there and play some ball! Oh, but now while drinking coffee right? Oh, whatever.

Interested in sales training for yourself or your team?
Let us know!
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