Sell, Sell, Sell! » sales prospecting

Return on Investment (ROI) for Sales People

craigklein — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 00:06:30 +0000

I’m a big fan of the concept of sales people qualifying prospect thoroughly early in the sales process so that they can conserve their most precious resource, their time.

The sales person invests his time in prospects hoping the return will be a sale and the resulting commission. The art of qualifying prospects gives the sales person the ability to choose intelligently where they make their investments. It’s one of the first fundamental skills I look for in sales people, whether hiring or training them in my own company or helping users of our online CRM and email marketing solution close more sales.

The trouble is that qualifying prospects can be tough. It really is more art than science. Sure, in a highly regimented selling team, the “escalation” of an early stage prospect to the more time intensive steps like presentations, demonstrations, proposals, etc. can be completely contingent on thorough technical qualification. Approved credit applications or other very specific criteria must be met first.

Of course, this takes the decision making out of the hands of the sales person completely. Most sales people make the judgment of a prospect’s worthiness based mostly on instinct. After all, in typical B2B sales, there are many factors that are completely subjective.

Sales people commonly see a stronger opportunity with prospects with which they have a strong relationship, even though the prospect’s company just announced layoffs. It just costs less time to work with that prospect so, the risk is smaller.

In my experience, there is only one method of qualifying a prospect that is virtually guaranteed to be accurate, time after time. Just as the sales person is making their own assessment of the return on their investment, of course, the prospect is doing the same.

Will the investment of their funds yield an acceptable return? Cool features, a strong brand and other sexy aspects don’t always add to the bottom line. Will the purchase save production time, reduce maintenance costs, improve quality, etc. in ways that will increase the bottom line more than the investment? Further, will the prospects investment of time in researching your solution yield a return for them?

As seasoned sales pros know, customers will often spend time with sales people with no intention of ever buying anything. Often, it’s not a malicious effort to extract free lunches, just an aimless search for answers to challenges and problems.

As a sales person, if you can’t identify how the prospect will realize return on their investment, then you can bet that the prospect has not identified it either and will not be making a purchase any time soon.

Yet, most sales people still pontificate on the features and benefits of their solution without ever doing the ROI math for themselves or the prospect.

For every sales person working harder than ever to find qualified prospects and bring home the bacon, it’s a two step dance to success:

1) Can you clearly articulate in simple terms how your product or service yields a quantifiable return on investment to your customers in general?

2) For the prospects you’re working with today and the ones you’ll meet tomorrow, focus your questions and dialog on identifying the ROI equation for each specific prospect. If it cannot be identified, then move on down the road.

4 Steps to Closing More Sales with Online CRM and Email Marketing

craigklein — Fri, 20 May 2011 18:34:10 +0000

Can an online CRM really impact sales in a traditional sales organization?

This week we hosted a webinar with Wendy Weiss, The Queen of Cold Calling™, and Beth Rush of Rush Marketing Group entitled “Maximizing Sales Funnel Conversions through Combining Sales Calling and Emailing”.

What a great discussion! The webinar was very popular, Wendy and Beth were great, and the slides, video, etc. are available here.

Online CRM and Automated Email Marketing Really Does Impact Sales – What a concept!

It hadn’t really dawned on me until we heard the type of questions being asked by the group but, there are a LOT of businesses and sales people that want to add emails into their sales process but, just don’t know how to get started.

So, with that in mind, here are the 5 things I think any business should know as they add emails into the sales process.

Have a system – dare I say an Online CRM…?

This is a point Wendy Weiss hammered home during our webinar. We’re all busy and if you don’t map out the steps in the process of pursuing and closing a prospect, you’re going to get lost, forget, procrastinate and mis-time things. Wendy is a big proponent of voice mail scripts. Plan out what voice mails you’ll leave on the first call, the second call, etc.

Well, the same is true with your emails. And of course, your calls, voice mails and emails should all complement each other. In any business, there are a series of messages you need to communicate to potential customers that highlight the need for your service, differentiate you from your competitors and demonstrate the strength of your solution. Your campaign can hit these messages one by one, in voice mails, calls and emails.

Keep it simple – don’t waste months on complex online CRM implementations

It seems, in talking with our many online CRM customers, that most sales leaders get stuck trying to develop a system that’s way too sophisticated. For instance, if you’ve never done email marketing before, there are a lot of unknowns. However, all day every day, your sales team is sending emails to prospects manually. Just ask them what they send out most frequently and develop standardized emails to accomplish the same goals. The same is true for voice mails. Start with making a more consistent system out of what you’re doing today.

The secret is to understand that you will never get it perfect. But, you have to start somewhere.

I think the easiest way to take a step forward with adding emails to your sales prospecting process is to create simple emails asking for an appointment. After leaving two voice mails, send an email asking if there is a good time to call. Some people respond to emails more frequently than calls. This is an easy win.

Measure it – that’s what online CRMs are great at!

Figure out how you’re going to measure how many dials are made, conversations are had, voice mails left, emails sent and of course, orders taken. If you can measure these things, then you don’t have to sweat the details of what the voice mail script is or the email says. You’ll quickly see which ones are working and which ones are not and can make adjustments as you go.

If you’re only way to measure the process is to see what sales get closed at the end of the month, then you’ll never know which parts of the system are working and which are not.

An example is email tracking. Email marketing systems let you measure which emails get opened or clicked on and how often. If a particular email is not getting opened as much as others, then there is something wrong with the subject line. If an email is getting opened a lot but, no one is clicking on the link, then the call to action is not compelling. This is actionable intelligence that you can use to make quick adjustments.

Start Now

As above, this doesn’t have to be rocket science. However, the potential return is HUGE! If you have sales people calling prospects all day now, then just increasing their success rate in connecting with prospects by 5 or 10% means significant dollars on the bottom line. By organizing your campaign to be sure all prospects hear all your key messages, you’re more thoroughly branding your company and even those that don’t respond today will know to call you when they need you. Sales people will spend more time on the phone with serious prospects and less time with tire-kickers.

The great news is that sales people aren’t going to resist this as much as they typically resist new technology. It’s just intuitive that sending out automated emails via an online CRM that coordinates the emails with their calling efforts is going to help them connect with prospects and sell more.

Want to have some fun?

craigklein — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:19:56 +0000

There is a lot out there to read about how to use technology to improve sales. There are many out there saying “Cold Calling is Dead”.

So, I found it pleasantly surprising to read Brandon Hull’s recent post on orchestrating a good old fashioned “Sales Blitz”.

Check it out. It sounds like a bunch of fun to me.

Let me know how your next one goes!