NEW! Coaching Acceleration System & Certification Program | Virtual | May 1st

Sales Managers

sales manager cadence

, , , ,

Build Your Sales Manager Cadence (& Save Time and Stress)

Sales Management is the busiest, most overwhelming job in the world (right?!) And that was before most of us went remote.

It’s no wonder so many new managers hit a wall and ask themselves, “Did I make a mistake getting into management?” Trust me, you’re not alone.

But it doesn’t have to be this hard. One of the biggest game-changers for managers is building a cadence, or a system, for how and when you engage your team. Like sellers need a sales process, managers need a management process. This is how you take back control of your day, stop fighting fires, and get back to why you took this job in the first place: to develop and lead people.

Here are 5 things to help you take back control of your day (and learn to love being in management!) Let’s dig in.

New call-to-action
No More Whack-A-Mole

If your day feels like playing whack-a-mole with Slack pings, rep questions, and customer escalations, you’re not alone. These are what I call “jello days”, days that feel messy, unstructured, and impossible to control.

Picture trying to nail jello to a wall. That’s how sales managers often describe their days. No matter how hard you try to stick to your plan, something always slips, shifts, or melts away. It’s reactive chaos. You’re busy all day, but not moving anything forward. You’re putting out fires, answering questions, jumping into calls, but not doing the proactive work that actually drives results.

It’s exhausting. And it’s not why you got into leadership.

Most of us became managers because we love seeing others win. But when you’re stuck in jello days, that purpose gets buried under a pile of “got a sec?” interruptions and endless meetings.

So what’s the fix? A structured cadence. Organizing your week around proactive touchpoints like coaching, huddles, and strategy sessions helps you take back your time and lead with intention.

Here’s the difference between reactive and proactive tasks:

Reactive:

  • Reading your email
  • Tending to the line at your desk
  • Helping reps with questions and issues
  • Creating reports for the boss

Proactive:

  • Calling a morning huddle
  • Planning the team meeting
  • Pulling a rep into a strategy meeting
  • Coaching!

Want your life back? Prioritize the proactive.

READ: How to Run Successful Sales Rep 1:1 Meetings

Plan Ahead

I literally pull out a Post-it each day and write down the one thing I must do. I don’t leave until that’s done. It’s simple but powerful.

The magic formula:

  • Identify your top priorities
  • Build them into your calendar
  • Do your one thing first before opening your inbox

This discipline is what separates high-performing managers from the rest. The best don’t just exceed team goals. They get more of their team to quota, reduce attrition, and consistently coach. That doesn’t happen by accident.

READ: The Best Sales Coaching Questions Ever

Create a Cadence

Let’s break the myth. You don’t need to cover everything in one meeting. It doesn’t work. Instead, you need a sales manager cadence, a system of regular, focused meetings that make everything more efficient and effective.

Here’s the cadence I teach:

  1. 1:1 Meetings (Monthly) – Focus on performance. What happened last month? What’s the plan this month? How are we tracking? Then shift gears. This is also your chance to connect and coach.
  2. Call Coaching (2x/month) – Small groups (no more than 3). This is real coaching. Feedback on call execution, not just listening together.
  3. Sales Huddles (2x/week) – Stand-ups with energy. Talk goals, wins, contests, and questions. Keep it short.
  4. Pipeline Meetings (2x/month) – Stop doing these 1:1. Make them group sessions. It builds accountability and saves you hours.
  5. Sales Strategy Sessions (Ad hoc) – When someone’s behind, this is your chance to step in and help with deal, territory, or lead strategy.
  6. Team Meetings (1x/month) – Focus on culture, recognition, and updates. Make them worth showing up for.
  7. Quarterly Career Reviews (1x/quarter) – Go deep on development. Celebrate progress, talk about career goals, and lay the foundation for retention.
Calendar It or Forget It

Now, make it real. Start with a blank calendar and schedule your cadence:

  • Block quarterly reviews
  • Add monthly 1:1s and team meetings
  • Layer in weekly huddles and coaching
  • Leave half your day open for the inevitable reactive stuff

Don’t over-schedule. Try to keep your total meetings under four hours a day. The other half of your day will get eaten by the unexpected, so plan for it.

Once it’s on your calendar, protect it. This is your new system. If you move meetings around, your team will too. When your reps know when they’ll get your attention, the “drive-bys” stop, and they’ll start saving their questions for the right time.

Send out the invites. Include prep expectations and agendas so everyone shows up ready. And if they don’t? Don’t let it slide. Your calendar only works if your team respects it — and they’ll follow your lead.

DOWNLOAD: Successful Sales Manager Meetings

They Aren’t All Fires

You don’t have to answer every rep question in the moment. In fact, doing that all day is exactly what’s keeping you in firefighting mode. Start redirecting those interruptions into your existing cadence.

Try phrases like:

“I did hear your call. Nice job. Let’s break it down during coaching.”

 “Can we talk about that in tomorrow’s huddle?”

 “I’d love to help, but I only have three minutes right now. Can you bring this to our 1:1?”

Reps will always take the path of least resistance. If you make yourself available 24/7, they’ll keep coming. But if you push conversations into the right meetings, they’ll start to respect your time—and even come more prepared.

Lauren calls this “guarding your time.” The requests won’t stop, so you have to stop them.

This is where the Eisenhower Matrix comes in. It helps you quickly sort out what’s:

  • Urgent and important (you handle it)
  • Important but not urgent (you schedule it)
  • Urgent but not important (you delegate it)
  • Neither (you trash it)

Urgent usually means there’s a time-sensitive deadline. Important means it impacts results or revenue. Just because something feels urgent to someone else doesn’t mean it is.

Building the muscle to decide what gets your time is one of the most critical skills a manager can learn.

Eisenhower

Building your sales manager cadence will give you back your day and maybe even your life. It creates structure, accountability, and clarity for your team. And it lets you do the thing you wanted to do when you took this job: lead.

Try the cadence. Try it for one month. I’ve gotten hugs around the world for this structure, and I hope it helps you too.

And if you’re not sure where to start? We’ve got cheat sheets, templates, and a full class in The Sales Bar to help you Own Your Day and run every meeting like a pro.

Subscribe to our email list to receive new content, webinar invites, and training offers.


How To Build A Sales Manager Cadence (And Save Your Own Life) [Webinar Recording]

How To Build A Sales Manager Cadence (And Save Your Own Life)

[Video Recording]

Build a Sales Manager Process to Gain Control of Your Day

Sales Management is the #1 busiest and hardest job in the world – and that’s BEFORE it went remote! This month, Factor 8 founder LB is sharing secrets from our world-famous manager certification course, Essential Manager Meetings, and it’s all about how to set up a process. Like sellers need a sales process, managers need a management cadence – it’s the #1 way to take back control of your day!

This session will help you:

  • Stop the line at your desk
  • Prevent 24×7 chat blowup
  • Make your team more self-sufficient
  • Make more time for coaching
  • Stop constant fire-fighting

A MUST-WATCH for all Sales Managers, Enablement Leaders, and Revenue Leaders concerned about their management teams.

Watch the video replay!


Build a Sales Manager Process to Gain Control of Your Day

Sales Management is the #1 busiest and hardest job in the world – and that’s BEFORE it went remote! This month, Factor 8 founder LB is sharing secrets from our world-famous manager certification course, Essential Manager Meetings, and it’s all about how to set up a process. Like sellers need a sales process, managers need a management cadence – it’s the #1 way to take back control of your day!

This session will help you:

  • Stop the line at your desk
  • Prevent 24×7 chat blowup
  • Make your team more self-sufficient
  • Make more time for coaching
  • Stop constant fire-fighting

A MUST-WATCH for all Sales Managers, Enablement Leaders, and Revenue Leaders concerned about their management teams.

Watch the video replay!


mastering call coaching

,

Tips for Mastering Call Coaching

Call coaching is literally THE hardest new skill for sales managers. Yes, it’s a new skill even if you’re not a new manager. Why? Because as a seller – hell, as a HUMAN – our job is to take action to get results. We are “me” focused and “results” focused. Coaching flips this on its head as we’re told to be “rep” focused and skill improvement vs. deal focused. Let’s be clear, you guys…

THAT.

ISN’T.

NATURAL.

And the better you were as a seller, the harder it was as a manager. Great sellers are competitive, a little selfish and needy (c’mon, own that), and ruthlessly devoted to the “W.”

DOWNLOAD: Call Coaching Tips To COACHN Success

In fact, the very best skill coaching (aka call coaching aka just coaching) is NOT focused on the deal. It’s about the rep’s development first and foremost. Focusing on the deal over the rep is where we get in trouble and make common coaching mistakes like, “The Laundry List” and “Be Like Me.” Why? Because we’re impatient to get the win, to save the deal, to bank the commission. Let me summarize in caps, as that makes me feel like I’m really driving the point:

GOOD CALL COACHING IS NOT DEAL COACHING.

If you can enter into the meeting 100% not caring if they win or lose the revenue and only if they feel better about themselves and are excited to improve, then you get it.

You’re also some sort of superhero because that’s basically impossible.

OF COURSE, you care about the “W”. You’re in sales!!

So, herein lies the rub, folks. This is exactly why The Sales Executive Council ranked call coaching as sales managers’ #1 worst skill. Because…

CALL COACHING SIMPLY ISN’T NATURAL.

Over my years in sales leadership and training leadership, I’ve developed a lot of hacks to fix this situation. For example, I only use call recordings of past deals. This prevents my natural sales animal from emerging and ripping the headset off a sweet, well-meaning newbie and taking over the deal (and thereby completely deflating if not scaring my employee).

I also have a GREAT way to take notes during the call to help me vent my frustrations, but still appear supportive and encouraging to an underperformer (admit it, that’s hard).

There’s also a rule of thumb to NEVER break on what to coach, plus:

  • How many things to coach at once
  • How often to coach each rep
  • How to track it so improvement happens
  • How to make time to do more coaching

It’s a complex challenge we face in doing more and better coaching on the job. And going virtual didn’t help. Alas, it’s a worthy pursuit. Frankly, I feel a bit like the Captain Ahab of sales call coaching. I’ve evolved, improved, and added to my training solution pretty much every year for the past ten years. I keep searching for new and improved silver bullets to make the transition easier and faster. And we’re getting there, folks. We’ve created a comprehensive and effective program that changes behaviors and results (contact us if you’re interested in our sales call coaching training).

I would be remiss if I did not mention the call coaching framework we created here at Factor 8: The COACHN℠ Model. It ensures reps and managers have the most efficient and effective coaching sessions possible. Check out the image below (and save it to your desktop!).

COACHN

Subscribe to our email list to receive new content, webinar invites, and training offers.


Sales Manager Fears, Fails, and Fixes: Fast Actions to Prevent Burnout & Failure! [Webinar Recording]

Sales Manager Fears, Fails, and Fixes: Fast Actions to Prevent Burnout & Failure!

[Video Recording]

Fast Ways to Help Sales Managers Thrive

Each year we work with hundreds of front-line revenue warriors, and they tell us their secrets (😱). Come learn the 3 Fs of your sales management team:

  • FEARS they have you probably don’t know.
  • FAILS they’re making right now and how to prevent them.
  • FIXES they want from you but aren’t asking for.

Tiny fixes, easy questions, and small investments that will lead to better team performance quickly and PREVENT BURNOUT (LinkedIn recently reported nearly 50% of Sales managers are burnout!)

This session is JAM-PACKED with insights, low-cost/no-cost tips you can enact TODAY, and tactics for helping your sales managers survive the grind, thrive on the job, and get better results!

MUST-WATCH for all Sales Leaders – Sales Directors, Enablement Leaders, and Sales Managers!

Watch the video replay!


Fast Ways to Help Sales Managers Thrive

Each year we work with hundreds of front-line revenue warriors, and they tell us their secrets (😱). Come learn the 3 Fs of your sales management team:

  • FEARS they have you probably don’t know.
  • FAILS they’re making right now and how to prevent them.
  • FIXES they want from you but aren’t asking for.

Tiny fixes, easy questions, and small investments that will lead to better team performance quickly and PREVENT BURNOUT (LinkedIn recently reported nearly 50% of Sales managers are burnout!)

This session is JAM-PACKED with insights, low-cost/no-cost tips you can enact TODAY, and tactics for helping your sales managers survive the grind, thrive on the job, and get better results!

MUST-WATCH for all Sales Leaders – Sales Directors, Enablement Leaders, and Sales Managers!

Watch the video replay!


10 Tips to Prevent Sales Manager Burnout [Checklist]

10 Tips to Prevent Sales Manager Burnout [Checklist]

Top Tips to Save Your Sales Managers

Sales management is one of the most stressful roles in sales (if not the most stressful). To make matters worse, many managers are promoted without leadership training, leaving them unprepared for the demands of the job. This leads to a lack of confidence, increased stress, and, all too often, burnout. In fact, 60% of new managers fail within their first two years.

If you’re noticing burnout among your managers, download our checklist for 10 actionable ways to better support them and help them succeed in their roles!

Download Cheat Sheet

Top Tips to Save Your Sales Managers

Sales management is one of the most stressful roles in sales (if not the most stressful). To make matters worse, many managers are promoted without leadership training, leaving them unprepared for the demands of the job. This leads to a lack of confidence, increased stress, and, all too often, burnout. In fact, 60% of new managers fail within their first two years.

If you’re noticing burnout among your managers, download our checklist for 10 actionable ways to better support them and help them succeed in their roles!

Download Cheat Sheet

Managing Remote Sales Team

,

Tips for Managing a Remote Sales Team

Sales Management is a tough gig. Virtual sales management is tougher. Like our sales teams struggle to sell “with an arm and leg tied behind their back” with the exclusion of visual cues, difficulty reaching customers/prospects, and having drastically limited selling time, these same challenges (and more) affect managers. Especially newer leaders.

In my first few years of sales management, I relied heavily on the visual cues of how my colleagues managed their teams. I saw huddles happening (“Oh, I should do that.”) I overheard team meetings and coaching sessions (“Wow, I need to give that kind of advice”) and I picked up deal strategy and day management skills.

Until we’re tenured leaders of sales teams, we don’t have our management cadence locked in. The cadence is our management process – the series of meetings, touchpoints, and actions we take in a day, month, and quarter to keep our business on track. In fact, I dare say most sales managers spend their first year or two bouncing between requests, fires, and demands.

It’s natural to be reactive in our high-demand, fast-paced environment. There’s a line at our desk, in our email inbox, and in our assignments from above. Without these, we’d wander a bit aimlessly trying to figure out our jobs as we transition from individual contributor/seller to leader. It’s why so many leaders struggle to give up the deal, the customer base, the live sales calls – we know this world! We RULE this world!

And herein lies the rub. Now that we’re managing virtually, we need a proactive approach. We need to shortcut the learning curve and have a plan – one that includes the challenge of not seeing who’s in their seat, overhearing the calls, and picking up on the team dynamic. Rough.

To speed this process, and alleviate some stress along the way, let me share a few key tips:

1. Establish (and edit) your proactive management cadence immediately. We teach this in “Essential Manager Meetings” (a course in The Sales Bar) and it’s one of our first courses for all new managers. At a minimum, your cadence needs to include:

    • Multiple weekly sales huddles to provide focus, inspiration, energy, and insight
    • Monthly private 1:1 performance meetings with each team member
    • Multiple 1:1 to 3:1 call/skill coaching sessions with each team member monthly
    • Multiple team forecast meetings (frequency depending on sales cycle)
    • Ad-hoc sales strategy meetings helping reps hit goal (deal, lead, account, and/or territory)
    • Monthly team meetings for updates, development, communication, connection

Where do you find the time for all these meetings? By pushing the daily incoming demand to one of these meetings. Rep Slacking you with a “great call update?” Push it to your morning huddle or your next call coaching. Rep forecasting below goal? Schedule an ad-hoc sales strategy meeting to review deals. Getting lots of emails with company questions? Move forward the team meeting and address them together. 

We set the process and then we daily teach our reps to operate within it by delegating, pushing, and scheduling “official” meeting time vs. reacting all day. That makes time management a critical management skill…

2. Own Your Day (another course in The Sales Bar). Especially now that we’re at home, it’s way too easy to work 12 hour days (or the opposite for some). The line at your desk is now your chat. Email is center screen all day. It’s harder than ever to stay proactive and protect our rep-focused parts of the day. We have to schedule it, and then protect it. Our top priorities also get calendar time and we protect them like our most important meetings of the day.

We love the Eisenhower Matrix (everyone’s favorite part of this course) to help managers decide when to fire drill, when to delegate, when to schedule, and when to trash a request. When you’re in charge of your own day, you can help reps be in charge of theirs – so critical for virtual selling. 

3. Call Coaching. When we’re virtual, the tendency is to count heavily on the numbers. If we can’t hear the calls and watch the behavior, we watch what we can – the metrics. This is a mistake. Especially now that your reps are selling a new way, focus on quality over quantity. That means it’s time to get visibility. If you don’t have call recording capabilities, start lobbying for it now. ExecVision, Chorus, and Gong make it easy to be legal and to get the insight you need into rep conversations + the tools to coach them.

READ: The Best Sales Coaching Questions Ever

Scheduled call coaching using recordings or ride-along meetings are critical. It’s going to be tougher than ever to make it happen (hence the first two points), so give this to your reps. When your calendar is up to date, they know when you are free and it’s on them to invite you to 1-2 calls/week.

Sales skill feedback also has some new priorities right now. Field sellers gone virtual will need some help and focus on phone detective skills – working phone systems, making multiple attempts, capturing new contacts, qualifying accounts – honestly some of the basic skills covered for new BDRs. They may not LOVE the idea of getting entry-level phone skills training, but these are tools they need in their belt today – and tomorrow.

Phone sellers now struggle with video. They need your feedback on the basics like backgrounds, lighting, proper attire, and etiquette. We’ve all seen the fails – those are on us as their managers. Check out our course Running a Virtual Sales Meeting in The Sales Bar for basics on virtual meeting agendas, engagement, and online tools use.

The key is that they get the coaching and support regularly and you build it into a regularly scheduled meeting as part of your cadence.

My entire team – including the sales team – has been virtual since inception. Our BDR is new and gets call coaching every Tuesday and Thursday for 45 minutes at 9 a.m. She brings the call recording to support what we coached last time and before it’s over there’s a commitment to what we’re coaching next time. The coaching is done over video so we can see faces and reactions and expressions – this is a personal development moment, and it helps us connect. 

Remember, a connection to the boss is critical for every employee. Call coaching is about helping develop reps skills (not close deals) as much as it is about increasing our team’s engagement with us and with the company – and there is nothing more important for retention. Coaching is bonding 1:1 time and your team needs this attention from you, even more, when we’re virtual.

Subscribe to our email list to receive new content, webinar invites, and training offers.


time-saving tips

,

4 Time-Saving Tips for Sales Managers

I’m writing this blog at 9 am tucked into bed with the flu. I started to write it at 7:15 am, but decided on OJ and an episode of American Housewife instead. 

In the 45 minutes I procrastinated, I received 74 emails. WHAT?!

Please be clear that I counted the new emails, scanned briefly, and then shut Outlook. Why? Because if I didn’t this article wouldn’t get written this morning – probably not even by end of day. And because if someone really needed me there are at least 3 faster ways they can get a hold of me.

Email is the new snail mail. It’s where un-urgent requests, FYIs, and sales pitches belong, and if you aren’t treating it that way you and your organization could be wasting precious time. Yes, you get enough emails to keep you busy 4-6 hours/day, and if you ignore them all the time they will pile up (you make good points my dear sweet email lover). Alternatively, answering other people’s requests is probably not the most important part of your job, is it? 

Our completely normal instinct to deal with something simple that’s in our line of sight is prioritizing other people’s to-do lists over our own. 

New call-to-action

Here are a few best practices and time-saving tips to take back your day:

  1. Get rid of email alerts. Immediately. If we can agree that email is NOT where urgent items live (read: it has an imminent deadline), then quit interrupting your current screen with them. Every time the pop-up happens, a part of your brain goes down the rabbit hole until it finally just can’t resist a quick alt-tab to email to take care of it. It only takes a minute, right? Sure! Until you see the next one and the next one…it’s like trying to eat just one handful of popcorn at the movies. Impossible. If we could resist we wouldn’t be in our inbox right now. Kill the alerts. Be present in your current task instead.
  2. Designate a time for email. There, that may feel better to my GMail addicted friends. 🙂 I do email once a day at the end of the day. True, my assistant cleans it out for me in the morning, so I’m cheating just a little bit. Carve out two hours/day, put it on your calendar, and be strong. It only hurts for a couple of days. You’re not ignoring. You’re prioritizing. You were hired to coach, strategize, lead…not to type.
  3. Set communication expectations with your team. Have a conversation about what you consider urgent and important tasks and requests. Agree on what task/topic requires an instant message, text, phone, call, drop by, or email. Help team members know when you want to be CC’ed and when you don’t (there’s 50 less per day for you) and help them understand that if they email, they can expect a reply in 2-3 business days. If you choose to reprimand them for “bumping their email to the top” and sending you emails about their emails, that one is up to you. It may also be a great time to let them know when you’ll be doing meetings, coaching, and other activities that may not be interrupted with a minor customer issue or system question.
  4. Assess in a week. Getting more done? Finding times where you wonder what you should be doing? Getting more rep coaching done? These are good signs. If you find you’ve chewed off your nails and you’re staying at work late to do all the email, your addiction is more serious and I’m sorry for recommending this cold turkey. Try some of these gentler adjustments instead:
    1. Start the day by cleaning out emails – just book your first meeting within an hour so it doesn’t go long
    2. Try an email cleaner like Unroll.me that will aggregate your junk mail
    3. Consider delegating – if you’re on email alerts, groups, etc. for leads or training, perhaps someone on your team could monitor these and bring hot topics to a team meeting
    4. Eat lunch at your desk once or twice a week and take the extra hour to respond during that time
    5. Find one email/day your can unsubscribe or junk

I cordially invite you to try several of these time-saving tips and join me in the sweet, sweet freedom of being released from email jail. Looking for more ways to get sales management tasks done in less time? This was one of over twenty hacks in our top-rated sales manager course “Own Your Day”, which is now available on-demand at The Sales Bar.

Subscribe to our email list to receive new content, webinar invites, and training offers.


Top Techniques for Closing the Sale

, , ,

Top Sales Closing Techniques

So you put in the hard work, you hooked your prospect, you got to the decision-maker, and you’re at the finish line – it’s now time to close the sale.

Time to celebrate? Not quite yet…

A shocking 64% of reps don’t actually end up closing the deal. (and unsurprisingly enough, only 10% of customers will close themselves).

So, why aren’t most reps closing? Hint: there are 5 main reasons.

Keep reading to learn our top sales closing techniques. Buckle in, folks!

READ: How to Close More Deals

You Feel Too Pushy & Lack Confidence

I get it – you don’t want to come off as the “used car” sales rep and hound someone to get your deal finalized. Or maybe you’re just nervous and don’t have the full confidence to take that last step.

Let me help you out here – take a look at the graphic below of the buying funnel. Most prospects are stuck up in the top half – they’re in research mode!

Buying Funnel

When you lack the confidence to ask for the close, you’re letting them stay in an endless loop of research and evaluation without clear next steps. The reality is you should be offering clear steps on the VERY FIRST CALL to lead them into the evaluation phase.

Think about it like this: when you go to buy coffee in the morning or stop to pick up lunch, do you walk up and order? Or do you wait for someone to ask you what you want? You probably stared at the menu figuring out what to get and then someone asked if they could take your order, right? They prompted you out of your research and evaluation mode into the bottom half of the funnel!

Helping lead them into those next phases is the core of being a sales rep! It’s not pushy, and not doing it shows a lack of confidence. This is where you decide if you are a true salesperson or not.

Remember: Closing. Helps. The Buyer.

You Don’t Know How To Ask

If you’re worried it sounds too good to be true – it’s not! You can literally just ASK them questions to inch closer to the close. Okay, so the reality is that a lot of those go-to closes rely on cheesy or crappy tactics. Here are a couple good questions and statements for closing sales to steal:

  • Ask a Question: Did we solve the problem? Did we meet your needs? Ready to move onto the next step? 
  • Make an Assumption: We’ll get this nailed down and start next week. When do you want to take delivery? (You’re acting like you’re already involved in the next step!)
  • Which pitch: Which solution is a better fit right now? Which option is a better match for budget? Do you like option A or option B? 
  • Timeline: You mentioned wanting XYZ in place by next month – working backward we’ll need to ink the contract by next week.
  • Add-On: If we can get this wrapped up by the end of the month, we can throw in an extra license and a live training. 

DOWNLOAD: How to Transition to Close

You Need More Customer Info

Don’t make the super embarrassing mistake of lacking customer insight and information by the time you get all the way to closing!

CSO Insights estimates that 26% of deals are actually LOST because sellers weren’t fully aligned to a buyer’s needs before closing. Save yourself the time and hassle by making sure you know these before you get to close:

  • What is the agreed customer goal or pain?
  • What is the “why” behind the buy/value to them?
  • What’s their budget & timeline?
  • What does their buying process look like?
  • What is their current state vs. desired state?
  • Are there other options/competition?
  • Any personal motivation here?

(Hint, if you need help coming up with a pitch that aligns with their value – check out SWIIFT℠!)

READ: SWIIFT℠ Selling Methodology 

You’re Out of the Closing Habit

Closing is a muscle just like anything else – if you aren’t exercising it, you’re not going to know what to do with it when the time comes to use it!

You can close every single call you have with something we like to call closing for commitment. 

Think about football for a second. You’ve got your first downs to lock it in – and instead of having to go all the way back, you get to start on THAT yard line. Now when you apply to this sales – even if it’s something small you’re getting a customer to make a commitment to you. That means next time you’re starting from THAT point! You’re taking up mindshare with them.

Here’s an example:

You’ll never have to ask yourself if it’s closed because you will know and you will OWN exactly what you need to do.

Always plan for the win!

READ: Increase Close Rates Fast With This Technique

You Don’t Know When to Close

Can you guess the most critical stage when it comes to closing?

Gong did a study on this, and believe it or not – the qualification stage is MOST important. Close rates decline by 71% when the next steps are not covered on that first call. Plus – deals that closed the fastest spent 1.53 times MORE talking about those next steps compared to other deals.

If you have a well-defined sales process, you’re 33% more likely to close your deals (TAS Group). And if you don’t know how to gauge when that is or how it plays out – do a trial close! Try something different!

Sometimes you have to abandon your sales script, and that’s okay.

Read: Quickly Transition to Close on Sales Calls

The more confident you get with closing, I promise the easier this gets. So don’t be afraid to get out there, practice, and remember that there’s a closing strategy for each and every one of those fears you might have. You got this – now go get those deals!

Subscribe to our email list to receive new content, webinar invites, and training offers.


« Older Entries

Shopping cart

Your cart is empty

Subtotal:

0.00 US dollars

Begin checkout