Under Pressure! Inside Salespeople Move Out of the Comfort Zone
Last month, I was the selected speaker for several global inside sales conferences, looking out into rooms full of people sitting with my book in their hands, I came to deliver this very important message: "Inside Sales, if you want to survive this year, you must move out of your comfort zone!"
Today, inside sales teams and managers are under tremendous pressure from expectations to generate the real revenues for their territories. In the last year, the economic landscape has impacted the sales cycle, the buying cycle, the social network, and the knowledge base. Forget hiding behind a bad economy or waiting for the market to turn back around! The time is has come for inside salespeople to transform their traditional sales habits, move away from their comfortable selling methods, and elevate their sales intelligence, conversations, and presentations to a higher level.
It's time to pack up the mental baggage and old habits that keep you paralyzed, get up to speed with new predictions and new trends and take a good look at your Sales 2.0 world.
Here's what it looks like:
- Talk the Power Buyer Talk: My No-Po's have become a household term by now, yet many salespeople still hang out in the No-Po zone. Why? Because it can be so warm and cozy—in a non-revenue-generating sort of way. Time to move on. Move your sales conversations and presentations to the CXO level, and start talking their language to the people who have the power to buy.
- Use Sales and Social Prospecting Tools: Instead of hiring more headcount and counting phone activity, start selling smart with sales productivity tools. Don't rely on other departments to get you a license. Take the first step on your own to research what's out there. Go tools shopping and build your smart sales tool-kit.
- Listen for Trigger Events: Just because you're running a promo on a product line doesn't mean it's time for your prospects to buy. Pay attention, listen for the trigger events, and be there when it's time to pull the trigger.
- Multi-touch Strategy: In an era where content is king, frequent distribution of varying content (such as trend reports, webinars, articles and the line) is a must. Sending what Ardath Albee calls "contagious content" which follows prospects throughout the sales cycle shows buyers you understand their needs and can solve their pressing challenges.
- Metrics Revisited: As sales managers scramble to find ways to measure their team's performance, they realize that much of it is moving into the clouds. Sales productivity is now measured by the ability to learn and use your sales tools. The good old phone "buzz" is being replaced with loud pounding on keyboards. Online messages and texting have replaced the old sounds of productivity and managers and team members must quickly redefine what a productive day looks like and sounds like.
"Smart Selling to People with the Power to Buy" eBook: This essential, free ebook dives into the latest sales 2.0 trends, putting social intelligence at the forefront of any new enterprise business development efforts.
Smart Selling Service Offerings 2010: TeleSmart provides a wide assortment of service offerings, ranging from on-site training to virtual webinars. Our training is all about inside sales, combining phone, online, and sales and social tools productivity. Invite Josiane for the following:
- Book & Brownbag Talk
- 6 Transforming Sales Trends Talk
- 2-Day On-Site Training
- Smart Selling Skills and Tools Training
- Sales Kick-offs and Conferences
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