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9 Proven Strategies to Boost Sales in Your Organisation
Selling may seem like no rocket science – but with so many tools and techniques available, using them all effectively is likely to give you a headache. If you’re struggling to choose the best methods for boosting your sales, we prepared 9 tactics that can really make a difference.
Learn how to improve your sales
Boost your sales with these 9 simple techniques
There’s no doubt that the effectiveness of your sales team affects the overall performance of your business. Improving efficiency, therefore, should be one of the main priorities for any sales team out there. Sadly, it’s not always the case.
The truth is that there are plenty of sales methods available, but not all of them can be effective for your team and thus, for your business. With so many options, making the right choice can easily become challenging. This article provides a guide to how to choose wisely.
#1 Pay more attention to lead qualification
Lead generation is the main focus of modern sales professionals. Yet, lead qualification is of the same importance.
Let’s face it. Not all leads are equal. Even though you constantly need to continue selling, only part of the targeted individuals will become your customers. Implementing effective lead-generation tips is crucial for business success, if your sales team spends too much time on leads who are yet not ready to buy, it is not very effective in the long run.
So, how to make sure you’re choosing the right leads to focus on? Pay attention to your sales prospecting methods, and the way you actually qualify your leads. As a matter of fact, 50% of sales time is said to be wasted on unproductive prospecting.
Start with outlining your sales funnel and building an ideal customer profile, based on the characteristics of your target audience. Then, add lead scoring into the equation. It should help you prioritize your prospects based on the strongest possibility for closing the sale quickly. Once you’re at it, in the first place, you may want to focus on connecting with the decision-makers.
#2 Make contact with your prospects as soon as possible
By getting in touch with leads within an hour, sales reps are seven times more likely to have meaningful conversations than those who wait longer. The shorter the time, the better. According to Lead Response Management, sales professionals are 100x more likely to successfully contact a lead, and 21x more likely to qualify that lead if they respond within 5 minutes.
You can also efficiently harness the power of CRM systems, ensuring seamless organization and analysis of customer data, which is one of the best ways to generate sales leads. With CRM, making contact with your prospects as soon as possible becomes a strategic advantage, allowing your team to capitalize on timely interactions and nurture valuable relationships for enhanced sales outcomes.
The conclusion? Don’t wait too long before you get in touch. Potential customers seem to be more willing to do business with you if you answer their initial inquiries almost immediately. The more you make them wait, the faster they lose their interest.
#3 Be prepared for meaningful conversations
Around 85% of prospects and customers are dissatisfied with their experience over the phone. Make sure it doesn’t happen to you.
First of all, equip your sales team with a proper cloud-based phone system. CloudTalk will not only allow your sales agents to make and receive more calls, but also to access caller data right away and essentially make the most of each conversation.
Then, it’s crucial for your sales team to always be prepared for all calls they’re making. Start by creating a relevant script – if you do it right, your sales reps should immediately become more confident. They shouldn’t just read the script out loud, though.
It’s important to listen to the interlocutors carefully, and be ready to answer all their questions. If your sales representatives pay more attention to the conversations, they may lead more meaningful interactions, identify the most common objections, requests, and issues, and tailor their sales pitch to those.
#4 Try to leverage more channels than calls and emails
Cold calling and emailing is still effective, but in the long run, trying different channels can help you to reach more prospects. Take social selling as an example. It may still seem like a buzzword, but it’s actually quite an effective strategy.
As a matter of fact, 54% of salespeople can track closed deals back to social media engagement and 90% of top-performing sellers use social media in their sales strategy. It may be time for your sales reps to do the same.
To further amplify your reach, consider integrating LinkedIn outreach into your sales strategy. However, be mindful of LinkedIn limits to ensure your account remains in good standing and not getting banned from the platform
#5 Don’t give up until you get a definitive answer
You might find it desperate at first, but email follow-up is actually crucial for any sales effort. In fact, 50% of all sales happen after the 5th contact, but most reps give up after only two. Don’t make the same mistake. If you send more emails than one, you’ve got a 25% chance to hear back eventually.
It’s worth taking that chance – follow up as many times as necessary, until you get a response. Whatever this answer might be, at least the potential customer is not leaving you hanging.
#6 Consider product demos & free trials
Incorporating a free trial into the sales strategy can easily boost sales. Consider offering a full-featured, yet relatively short trial – this way, you’re attracting prospects who are likely to actually test out your tool. If it meets their expectations, they may be willing to stick with it after the trial ends.
In order to make that happen, consider investing in proper onboarding or product demos. By doing so, you won’t leave potential customers to their own devices, but rather encourage them to invest in your solution.
Also, product demo videos make it easier for your sales reps to specifically address your prospect’s challenges on the spot, and show exactly how your product can help to solve them. It’s hard to disagree that showing off your best features “in real-time” is much more effective than talking and writing about them.
#7 Once in a while, “target” the existing customers
Did you know that, on average, it’s about 5x more expensive to acquire new customers than to retain and continue providing value to the existing ones? Increasing customer retention even by 5% can boost profits by 25%–90%.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should stop growing your customer base. But, if you’re planning to introduce new features and deals, you might as well invite your loyal customers to try these for a limited amount of time, before anyone else does. Try to make them feel special – this often results in their willingness to do business with you on a regular basis. Especially if you already have an established relationship with them.
“Limited offers” also help you create a sense of urgency – most customers, no matter if prospective or existing, don’t buy until the last possible moment. By offering special deals, you help them realize why it makes sense to buy right now – and this often proves to be a good enough incentive.
#8 Know your competition
There used to be a common misconception that competition is an enemy which needs to be avoided. Truth is quite the opposite. An old quote from the ancient Chinese book “Art of War” by Sun-Tzu says: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” It is still accurate today and applies to sales perfectly.
First, you need to do your homework and research who your direct competitors are. When you know it, you can start exploring products and services they offer, their customers, brand strategies, ways of communication, and much more.
Nowadays, one of the most effective ways to boost sales by learning about competition is social media listening. Since social media are a dynamic platform, you can always be sure that your findings are up to date. Primary marketing tools for researching your competitors are currently Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
Another obvious source of information is Google. Yet, try to go beyond only Google search results. There are several tools on the market where you can set a reminder that keeps you informed of your competitors’ latest actions, such as Google Alerts. You may also incorporate various keyword searching tools, which also helps you to boost your own SEO strategy.
#9 Use visuals
We live in a visual world. Our brain generally processes visual content 60 000 times faster than a text, meaning that 90 % of information is transmitted to our brain through visual perception. By incorporating visual aspects to your sales strategy, you can create a contrast to the rest of your content, which boosts a sense of urgency and helps you to close more deals.
There are several visuals that we recommend using. Video, for example, is a great tool to explain how your product works in an efficient and easy-to-digest way. Try to also use it for telling your brand journey. A good story that people relate to can help you turn your leads into customers by simply playing on their emotions.
Less dynamic, yet still very effective visuals to boost sales are pictures, screenshots, and infographics. Infographics help to effectively summarise all important information, without a necessity to read the whole text. Pictures and screenshots have another major advantage – they show prospects exactly what your product looks like, giving them an instant overview of what they are considering purchasing.
Stats showing the impact of agent motivation and agent training on sales
Start boosting your sales right now
No matter if you’re leading the sales team or you want to become a better salesperson yourself, the above-mentioned strategies can easily help you boost sales effectiveness.
At the end of the day, however, you have to tailor these strategies to your business and see what works best in your specific case. And if you’re just starting out, make sure to take a look at this in-depth review of CloudTalk from serial entrepreneur Jeff Solomon.
Keep your eyes open – learn from every interaction with your customer, be it prospective or existing ones. Make sure you’re equipped with the right tools to help you focus on boosting your sales rather than performing manual tasks.
