Nearly 40% of All Sales Professionals Are Being Assigned More Duties With No Increase In Pay

Hello, people. Welcome to the BBC Youtube channel. Despite challenges in the aftermath of the pandemic and resulting Great Resignation, sellers remain undeterred. Roughly one third still struggle to close deals and meet quotas according to a study by CRM analyst firm Beagle Research Group and Oracle. 

This insight comes from 512 American sales professionals and shows how changes in the industry are difficult, sometimes due to a lack of technology that supports modern sales processes. If you want more of this content, BBC Member, subscribe to the BBC Youtube channel and hit the notification bell.

 

The pandemic and Great Resignation have altered who sellers interact with and how

With much information to note, sellers must be prepared to bring in data and make sure buyers are up-to-date with product history and deals progression. The more you know regarding your customers’ needs during the buying process, the easier it is to sell them products they will be happy with

Most, but not all, of the sellers did not make the switch to a new job during this pandemic. One-fifth of sellers say that customer contacts change often.

Customers are slower to make decisions, which is reducing sales. 43 percent of sellers believe that customer purchases are decreasing due to this speed-back trend.

Seemingly, the customer is getting more active in the buying process toward the end of the purchase—but they still want sellers to meet their needs. 36 percent of buyers today say that a wider range of products are available to them on their own research (compared to 40 percent from just two years ago) and buyers are more willing to shop for best deals on products these days.

 

Sellers struggle to close deals due to a lack of resources and distraction

To avoid having poorer than expected sales, one-third of sellers have difficulty in various aspects of their work, which impacts their chances to make quota. The important link between a seller’s success or failure and other factors is the amount of time that each task requires.

37 percent of sellers say that their sales organizations have created higher workloads, while they’re not receiving any more resources or salaries.

59 percent of sellers are engaged in training and onboarding new sellers.

The group of responders shows that 52% report a training time of four-to-five hours per week, and 26% reporting over five hours

29% of sellers say that if a co-worker leaves, they use digital notes outside of CRM to transfer learnings.

 

More automation is encouraged to help offload routine tasks

Existing vendors are happy to offload boring, manual tasks like managing and archiving data if it helps them sell more. Continuing with the trend of automating services, sellers would be happy to get rid of tasks which require human input, like CRM systems.

39 percent of sellers said they spend too much time working in different technologies.

While 16 percent of sellers describe their sales processes as the Wild, Wild West — with intuition being used instead of data or best practices — use cloud-based tools to get better results.

AI has led to greater automation in buying and selling, where 70% of sellers want their leads evaluated by automated processes, 60% of sellers want prioritized deals traced automatically and 80% of buyers now track the progress of their purchased items.

 

“The pandemic exposed the challenges that many sellers face every day. We knew before the pandemic that sales teams were not performing at their best, but technologies built to help were not being adopted,” according to Denis Pombriant, managing principal, Beagle Research, Inc. “Our data shows today sellers are beginning to embrace AI-based technologies because these new tools are easy to use, offload menial tasks, and give sellers more time to engage customers and ultimately sell.”

Katrina Gosek, vice president, Oracle Fusion Cloud Customer Experience (CX), stated, “Our research shows that sellers want automation technologies that will off-load rather than just simplify tasks. Inputting customer information, documenting milestones, tracking materials shared with the customer, and many other tasks can all be automated to keep sellers focused on what they do best – building relationships and selling.”

 

You’re Paying Your Sales People HOW MUCH?

This title asks how much you should pay your sales team and how you should structure the sales compensation plan. The HOW MUCH in this title could be describing overpayment or underpayment of your sales team. Where does your pay plan fall? Are you paying your salespeople too much or could it be you are underpaying them? Developing a sales pay plan isn’t terribly hard but it is more difficult than identifying a simple salary range for non-sales positions. I’ll answer the two most common questions about sales play plans. (1) How much should I pay my salespeople? and (2) How should I build the pay plan?

Creating a sales compensation plan can be challenging. I use a Five-Stage approach by breaking it into manageable tasks.

Identify your profit and sales goals and sales expense budget

Evaluate your sales position’s job factors

Identify Individual Sales Goals and Fair Compensation for your position

Come to terms with a structure or blend of salary, commission and bonus

Consider perks and benefits

The first step to planning out a marketing plan is knowing what your company’s profit goals and sales budgets are.

What are the company profit initiatives and what’s the budget for sales compensation?

 

In order to determine your plan structure, you first want to assess the impacts of your pricing plan on revenue and profitability. Here are the steps:

Calculate the Gross Sales Profit (GSP) or the Gross Profit After Sales, which is made up of operations expenses and desired profit; It is the amount of money needed to fund the Firm’s current operation expenses and desired net profit. It is what is left of top line sales revenue (sales revenue after COGS and sales compensation expense). To determine what this company needs to fund operations and realize their profit, ABC Company has determined that $1.4 million is required.

With every dollar of sales revenue, half has already been spent because it took time and money to establish the product. Your company should divide COGS/SR to get your COGS percentage.

Budgeted Sales Expense Percentage: 15% of sales revenue is the amount budgeted for compensation for salesperson salaries and commissions, bonuses, and expenses. Knowing you have a check and balance helps you plan your compensation program. Use the whole 15% or not at all depending on what your budgeting needs are.

Sales Revenue Goal: By using the goal of $1.4 million in Gross Profit % and other related rates, this means that sales revenue of $4 million would bring the ABC company to its GSP goal.

 

Some people have said that it makes no sense that we are allocating 50% of the company’s revenue to its cost of goods sold. Here is how I calculated those numbers–we take 50% of the company’s revenue and make sure that 35% goes to its general and administrative costs (GSP) based on what we know COGS is, which is 50%. Lastly, we allocate 15% of the revenue to selling selling expenses (SCE), and 100% of the company’s revenue leaves with you in total.

Divide the Gross Sales Potential of $1,400,000 by 35% (the percentage of sales you’ll be able to create with this amount), which is $40,000 … then multiply this number by 100% (which means you’ll have a total of $4,000,000 in sales) …

 

Evaluate your job factors

Picking a compensation plan based on company factors such as location and tasks performed can help managers create fair plans. One factor to consider is the fairness of the plan and its ability to justify pay opportunities.

It’s important to know the local market for a similar position if you want to find the best people. It’s necessary to research this in order to find the most talented team members.

In the lead generation process, which steps is it most likely work for salespeople to handle or will the company invest in marketing?

In order for a sales person to provide quality support and be able to share ideas with customers, it takes away from their time finding new business. This can impact your job decision or individual sales goal.

Anyone who has the knowledge of their specific field can be successful in this industry if they have the right compensation program.

The average sales cycle is 6-12 weeks. If the salesperson spends too much time without a sale, their salary or commission may need to be increased. Lowering their salary or commission will increase commission for them.

 

The number of sales opportunities that a salesperson can take on at one time influences the standard of success that they can achieve.

It usually takes a high level of skill to deal with a complicated sales process. With a more complicated or advanced sales process, one may be required to have more experience and expertise in order to do so. Such people need to be compensated for their efforts.

 

How much should you pay your salespeople and how much should they sell?

Just because someone completes their sales quota doesn’t mean they are well-compensated. Check with your peers and a salary database to get a better sense of fair compensation for what type of job you are doing. Your individual or team sales quota doesn’t need to be the same as industry norms. The ABC Sample Company determined $90,000 is the median compensation for individuals who meet their target sales quota.

Zippia – Salesperson Salaries

Determine your individual sales goal and make sure it’s stretch-worthy. When looking for a goal, ask other professionals or publishers in the space. Celebrity consumer brands are rare and hard to find, so strive for a goal that would be reached by industry professionals with success, but not the superstars who have already achieved huge success.

At this point, if your product sales percentage falls short of the desired goal, you can figure out how much more money your company needs and comes from your own paycheck. The individual compensation is a function of the goal set in step C above, divided by the number of that goal. The ABC Company needed to allocate 15% to payroll and incentives, so they calculated an expense share of 9% and found they had 6% remaining not accounting for marketing expenses or other unusual financial activities. Once the company has their positive back, they will proceed to taking charge of all operations with their bonus and profit.

Once you set the pay for your employees, it’s time to work on the structure of the plan.

How should you structure the pay plan?

Here is a sample of how to craft a plan for the ABC Company. These aren’t percentages that are standard or set baseline, they are just used here as an example. The ABC Company is sitting in great shape with almost 6% in cash on hand so I have different options for salaries, commissions, or a mix of both.

 

Commission only with a draw

Commission only is easy to calculate: 9%. You might need to provide incentives for new members and offer stability with the difference in sales.

A draw is an advance on future commissions. When commissions are earned, any draws are diminished from the commissions prior to the check being cut to the sales rep. I prefer offering salary plus commission as it provides the company greater return on over achievement, and demonstrates your commitment to the sales person. In most cases with a draw, if a sales person does not perform, the company rarely recovers the draw, so in essence it’s like a salary.

Salary plus commission

The commission plan stumps many online investors because it seems more complicated and risky to them. In contrast, salary programs are much simpler because they don’t require a lot of set up while still offering the potential for higher rewards. This is precisely why we consider the risk reward option so important as Figure 4 and 5 demonstrate.

Salary Percentage Considerations

A lower salary or draw must be considered in the following situations:

Businesses thrive on a consistent revenue stream. For example, when security systems, office equipment or advertising are the chosen type of sales, salaries can be lower.

 

A medium salary or draw must be considered in the following scenarios:

When the performance of a business goes up, so do its goals and sales cycles. The many variations create uncertainty in revenue and profitability.

A higher salary or draw must be considered in these scenarios:

High-ticket sales with less sales opportunities and a prolonged sales cycle.

You have a proven performer and they choose and perform better with a salary plus commission in any situation.

Commission Percentage with Salary

When a salesperson makes $1 million in sales, they earn $90,000 based on the mix of elements (salary and commission).

Bonus

Bonuses are designed for the earned income of your business in order to improve certain areas of performance. Bonuses allow you to place emphasis on different areas of your business as needed. The number and types of bonus opportunities should be announced regularly to provide a moving target that improves your earnings.

Commission Percentage

One way of calculating commission might be the high salary rate would pay 1.5% across all sales and the low salary would pay 6%.

Risk/Reward

The company faces more risk with a higher commission and earns more when the employee performs well; this creates momentum for the company to consistently meet and surpass their goals. Employee satisfaction has also been shown to increase due to the better working conditions kept by the company or increased advertising, service, or sales incentives after investing in performance.

Tiered Commission Percentage

Tiered commission structures are designed to be a performance bonus program that is built into a given sales period. A tiered commission structure has an increase in commission percentage as sales increase for a duration. You can use it weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly based on your product or service. A tiered approach could minimize risk on medium to high salary plans as well as provide a built-in incentive to exceed goals. Here is a simple example:

Monthly sales goal of $60,000

Sales between $1 – $30,000 realize a 3% commission

Sales between $31,000 – 60,000 realize a 5% commission

Sales between $60,001+ realize a 10% commission

 

That’s it for this blog BBC Member, remember to subscribe to our channel and if you feel like we’ve delivered value please share this blog with ONE person. That’s right just one person as a token of your appreciation for the hard work we put into making content that educates and helps you on your mission of building your own fortune. Remember you can read blog after blog, but it isn’t until you actually take action that you’ll start to see results. See you soon!

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Ways to Respond Over 20 Ways To Become a Better Salesperson

Excellent salespersons have consistently higher sales that outperform the average. Their success is not just a result of hitting their quotas on time but also having blow-out months or quarters. Successful reps earn the admiration of their prospects and make them more likely to achieve success. 

To become a better salesperson, you must skillfully handle objections and preemptively surface concerns to make them disappear. 

Luckily for you, BBC Member, we’ve produced a list of over 20 ways to become a better salesperson. Remember, the first step is completing any of these fantastic courses. Second, a more important step is taking action, even if it’s imperfect action.

 

Paul Harvey references the American experiment when discussing how selling can work. Whether selling an idea, an experience, or an investigation, it’s all about positioning yourself as a trustworthy expert.

This is true if you are selling a product, idea, or concept traditionally considered a tough sell, such as self-discipline.

We can all be different salespeople, but if we state that everyone has the same approach, then Harvey is right, and we are wrong. The approach brands should take depends on their goal, what they are selling, and how confident and knowledgeable they feel about the product or service.

The most successful salespeople in the world make selling appear effortless by carrying themselves as experts in their industry. They make sure their prospects know it and deserve that recognition because they are selling a product that has to be delivered by experts.

 

However, your prospects’ view of your company is only based on what’s happening with their work. To represent your company authentically, you need to offer a bird’s-eye view of the significant trends happening across the entire industry. If your prospects don’t understand why they should align with you, it might be because they think you’re coming off as sales instead of a qualified lead.

First, let us know what are the things that make you a good salesperson. 

 

A good salesperson has something more to offer customers than cue one-liners or a flying pitch. They know how to handle rejection and learn from their most significant sales and those that didn’t work. They’ll put in the time to find out how customers want them to solve needs, be empathetic, and show that they’re willing to deal confidently without compromising the deal’s success.

So, what are the traits that make someone a good salesperson?

 

• Attentive

A good salesperson will realize that each customer has different needs. To create a deal they’ll value, you need to listen closely to their perspective and offer a solution that fulfills it.

• Analytical

A salesperson’s friendly demeanor is a good trait, but you must let your customers know that your company is prepared for service when they come to schedule. You want customers to do business with your company because of your knowledge, professionalism, and ability to listen, ask questions, and deliver answers on time.

• Delightful

An attractive appearance and a warm personality can be seen as signs of professional respect. A first impression may establish a professional relationship in the future. As a salesperson, your appearance and etiquette should be on point and create a positive first impression for clients.

• Enthusiastic

Being a good salesperson means you put in the work and remain motivated. Wanting to get the job done shows how passionate you are.

 

• Confident

When you are confident in your product or service, your customers feel more confident in purchasing whatever you offer. It also helps to be confident in yourself, as your confidence will make others more willing to follow you.

• Committed

Good salespeople never give up, even if the path is hard. Those who are willing to challenge themselves will find success in their careers.

• Adaptable

In sales, your approach needs to be adaptive so that you are going to be able to address the changes in the game. It’s also essential that you delegate time shifts accurately.

 

• Empathic

Connecting with your customer’s emotions allows you to see what they want in a sale. By appealing to their sentiments and needs, you can meet their expectations in new ways.

• Resilient

Despite fluctuations in sales figures, a good salesperson goes back to work. They know there are always ways to improve, and the right way to do it is not to get discouraged about a bad week.

• Meticulous

The sales professional should be an expert in their domain and know how to demonstrate this knowledge.

To be an effective salesperson, one must be familiar with what makes a good salesperson. In this list are some habits, tips, and general life skills that every mercantile individual can benefit from improving their strategies. This manual has been created to help people improve their procedures for success.

Now, let’s go to the primary purpose of this blog. Now, let us talk about how you can become a better salesperson.

When it comes to habits, we have nine things to follow. 

 

• Know and stick to your customer’s persona

A well-defined buyer persona is crucial to an effective sales process and has proven to increase the efficiency of store reps. Ineffective product sellers tend to take a more personal selling approach, often leading to a lack of prospecting.

An effective rep stays true to their buyer persona and knows whom they are selling to and why. They also hold fast to their ideal perspective for the product or service they’re promoting so that everything messaging is relevant and on point.

• Use a measurable and repetitive sales process

Low-performing salespeople use intuition to guide them, but high-performing salespeople follow a structured process that maximizes opportunities for qualified leads to move to “purchase.”

Many reps might be unable to do their jobs well because they aren’t tracking the right metrics and aren’t taking appropriate actions or adjusting as needed. Reps who are good at this are known as high-performing reps. Low-performing reps don’t track key metrics, lack diligence, and motivation, and often require more assistance from a manager, who must spend time with them.

 

• Be knowledgeable of your product

You can only sell what you know, which is why understanding your product or service is essential.

In the old days, selling was hard because people relied on their intuition for success. But today, prospects are more skeptical when information is easy to access, and you need to know your products genuinely. To connect with your audience and add value, you should focus on genuinely understanding your product and why it’s essential to your audience.

• Review objectively

A good sales rep knows how to balance over-enthusiasm with careful analysis. They can verify opportunities, avoid happy ears, and provide accurate forecasts using their influencers database.

• Look for hacks or shortcuts

Once a great salesperson finds a successful strategy, they use it repeatedly until it stops working.

Time is a struggle for reps. They are always on the clock trying to reach their goal. This means that if they spend time experimenting, it takes them less time to succeed with something that works. There’s also a cost involved in “sticking with what doesn’t work.”

You should not change your approach as a general rule, but you can do so selectively when you need to. This allows you to implement or stop the new strategy after it has served its purpose.

 

• Listen Actively

Successful salespeople are present with the person they are talking to and understand the conversation as a whole. They’re not considering other deals, scrolling Reddit threads, or sending things to their teammates. Successful salespeople have meaningful conversations with prospective buyers.

Mastering active listening will give you the tools to build stronger relationships and help you position your product as the best option. This requires being a better listener, which can be challenging because we’re more focused on what we choose to say than what our prospects want to hear.

• Work Hard

In the last minutes of the working day, employees would spend time outside of work, which includes going to a bar and celebrating because they reached their target. The remaining employees would still try to engage with prospects who had not responded to their emails.

The intelligent CEOs are also in the office, and they’ve already exceeded their goals. They’re sending emails and meetings anyways, even though they haven’t reached their destination yet. By building momentum before they reach their goal, they blow it out of the water while making their plan succeed.

 

• Make a follow-up

For many salespeople, following up can seem complicated. The prospect may have missed the email they sent, and there is no way to know unless they call or write again.

• Be personal when creating a message

Salespeople are committed to understanding their prospect’s unique pain points and providing good value. As part of this commitment, high-performing reps consider various factors such as pain points, marketing, or company culture when geared up to interact with their prospect.

Now, here are tips on how you can become a better salesperson. 

• Be a team player

A long-lasting career and success require help from others. Because of this, you should create a trusting relationship with your colleagues who will motivate and support you in your progress. Asking for help or assistance when you need it is the key to great sales.

• Emulate your peers

If you want to improve your objection handling skills, speak to the salesperson who best uses their time to find solutions during a call. Observe them as they handle potential customer objections and learn from them. Building a close relationship with colleagues builds trust and fosters cohesion between your work team.

 

• Master your people skills

To succeed in your job, you need to have small talk skills. Even if what you are doing is socializing with people or networking, practice conversations with others so that you can make them feel comforted and confident. Practice what makes people laugh or even zone out during discussions by noticing body language and energy during the first meetings. This information can help make your sessions much smoother and more productive.

• Be Honest all the time

Don’t promise features that don’t exist, prices you can’t deliver on, or services your company can’t do well. Honesty is never the best policy, as research has shown. When you make mistakes, your customers may react negatively, and your reviews will suffer. Plus, when people are honest with themselves, they have higher levels of dopamine and serotonin, along with less stress and jealousy.

 

• Know when to stop

Have you spent hours researching, only to discover that the deal interest is lukewarm and it’s time to move on? If time is money, understanding how long deals last will help you prioritize your time.

Sandler suggests using a reverse negative to get more revenue if you’re in the business of selling subscriptions, and the average sales cycle is around 45 days, and the deal goes on for 90 days.

If a prospect doesn’t have challenges you can solve, they may not be a good fit. When this happens, no matter the circumstances, you will abandon the approach and work on prospects who need your help. Past customers trust you more when they see no brutal sell tactics and only the best opportunities are targeted.

• Accept rejections

There will be times when you have to admit defeat, even if you lost. It’s imperative to stay determined on your path and overcome the challenges that arise from rejection.

It’s vital to see rejections as a motivator to move on from one door and prepare for the next. Though sometimes you might feel like it’s a sign that you are failing, it is often proof that you are after business with clients with substantially high success rates.

 

• Seek for referrals

Successful salespeople know the best close often comes when you ask for one referral. Sales professional Marc Wayshack recommends asking for a referral every day. The social proof is already there, and the initial outreach is direct. Like a sale, sales cycles are often shorter with referrals. Once you’ve successfully closed the deal, always ask for referrals, and follow up quickly with them.

• Know what the customer wants

In addition to staying on budget, you can save time by not overselling your customers on features or services they don’t need. A consultative selling approach helps you stay clear of overpromising and help in longer-term engagements because the customer will value your honesty.

As a salesperson, here are good habits you must practice.

• Have a healthy lifestyle

Salespeople often deal with more positive and negative moods in a single week than other professionals in an entire month. You may feel like you don’t belong in sales at times.

For reps that connect with their clients, it’s essential to be calm and focused even when business is going well. When your deals are closing, remind yourself not to get too cocky; they will pick up soon if you keep chugging. It’s also important to let yourself feel the feelings of the difficult times; when sales die down, tell yourself not to become demoralized because you’re going in the right direction, and things will improve soon.

 

• Take breaks or pauses when needed

In sales, talking to your audience is often a way to drive business results. The more campaigns you send, the more meetings you book. The more appointments you book, the more demos you set. The more demos you select, the more deals you close.

Many salespeople work 10-hour days every weekday and even put in time on the weekends, thinking they’ll make more money this way.

The lack of sleep can harm your mind and body, as well as reduce productivity. It was no coincidence that some of the most successful people in history, like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Charles Dickens, and Charles Darwin, prioritized sleep over everything and they keep their schedule balanced. Breaks are scientifically proven to help boost memory, focus on creative ideas, and quality of work.

If it sounds like you’re constantly at a dead end and your days are seldom full of activities to occupy your time, take a break. You can use this extra time to walk your dog, socialize or watch television alone. Plus, overworked people are less productive than they think they are.

• Get enough sleep

To be at your best when you’re on sales calls, prioritize sleep. In a research by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, most adults need 7-8 hours of sleep. Studies have shown that if you get less, you will suffer from irritability, decreased motivation, anxiety, depression and distractibility, reduced energy, fatigue, and restlessness. The more time you spend awake working, the more opportunities will be lost that could make your customer’s buying experience better.

• Build Personal Relationships with your customers

A good example is Dan Tyre. He is a great salesperson because he can connect with people professionally and personally. He interacts with people in ways that make you want to talk to him again, and he does so authentically rather than for business purposes.

Instead of building relationships you can’t sustain, focus on making connections in which you have an impact. As a salesperson, relationships are your capital – they’re crucial.

 

• Always be prepared

A salesperson prepares to make calls with research and data. So their big meeting with a potential customer will be worthwhile because they know their potential customer’s needs and wants.

Top sales reps don’t wing it with their customers but plan for challenges and come prepared. This way, they anticipate questions and prepare effective responses to avoid losing the sale.

• Look for potential customers in places you would never think

It is essential to always be engaged with customers, whether on the phone or in person. It is also necessary to persistently pursue new opportunities after leaving work. Reps are good at finding and engaging people at networking events and dinners.

• Believe in your product

The most effective salespeople not only use a product and believe in its value but also incorporate it into their life. Passion starts with the product, then generates enthusiasm for customers to feel that same passion.

If you’re not excited about what you’re selling, search for people looking to buy it. Sending potential buyers relevant testimonials of how this product has benefited them on a large or small level will help reinforce your motivation and give you valuable social proof when talking to potential clients.

• Know your market

You cannot sell effectively if you don’t understand your target market, their needs, wants, who they are and what the landscape looks like without speaking with them. To be a successful salesperson in today’s digital age, you need to know who your target is and what their personal preferences look like.

What does your prospect’s day look like? What do they face? What could make their life easier? You can help them by thinking about things happening in the world or by researching what matters most to them.

With this knowledge of your prospect, you can tailor your product and increase the number of people that want it. This will allow you to discuss the benefits of their features to create a more personalized plan for them.

You have to evaluate whether or not your product is solving enough pain points. In addition to understanding your prospects’ pain points, knowing who else is competing against you and their strategy in competing against your company is essential. It would be best to consider how your product could be differentiated, so it doesn’t look like everyone else’s similar product.

• Know what motivates you most

All successful salespeople need to be motivated and accountable regardless of their motivations. Bloggers with a clear goal that they are striving towards will lead to more successful content. Only top-selling bloggers show up daily and focus on making the goal or obstacle in question happen.

Begin your growth journey by asking yourself, “Why do I want to be successful?” If you can’t answer to yourself, you need to find that motivator.

There is not one single way to become a successful salesperson. The apps, resources, and habits listed in this paragraph can help develop your performance, demonstrating passion, knowledge, self-determination, and adaptability.

 

That’s it for this blog, BBC Member. Remember to subscribe to our channel, and if you feel like we’ve delivered value, please share this blog with ONE person. That’s right, just one person as a token of your appreciation for the hard work we put into making content that educates and helps you on your mission of building your fortune. Remember, you can read blog after blog, but it isn’t until you take action that you’ll start to see results. See you soon!

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Ways to Respond to Your Price is Too High

 

People would have laughed at you if you had told them a decade ago that there are ways to respond to high prices! The internet has made it easier than ever to learn just about anything you want. So with all this content and information available, how did you know which ones to learn from and which ones actually work

Luckily for you, BBC Member, we’ve produced a list of ways to respond to your high price. Remember, that while the first step is completing any of this amazing information, the second and possibly more important step is taking action even if it’s imperfect action.

 

“Your asking price is way too high!” Regardless of what we sell, we have all heard this a lot. Sometimes it seems like our prospects will reject our price offer no matter what it is. It’s almost like they are trained to respond in this knee-jerk manner. Perhaps they have received the necessary training? Our hypothesis is that every consumer, including you and us, responds in this way and should behave in this way as a result of our research. We discovered that our responses to price and just about anything we purchase are psychologically conditioned to be the way they are. Let’s examine this issue more closely now.

 

Price Realization Difference

Since we all know that customers never pay MSRP, Rarely are the costs that consumers see in publications like catalogs, websites, car stickers, shelves, or quotations that we actually pay. Pricing professionals refer to this difference between the price requested and the price actually paid as the “price realization gap.”  The phrase “pocket price” refers to the actual amount paid. Almost every industry and virtually every product and service on the market exhibits this gap.

The primary cause of the price realization gap is that sellers offer customers incentives in various forms in order to close the sale. This might be the result of intense competition, a deal for the end of the quarter, the introduction of a new product, an inventory management system, or even the fact that you need this specific sale to earn your bonus. For whatever reason, we are taught as consumers that the price displayed is merely “suggested,” and that the price we ultimately pay will always be less.

Did you know that 90% of Americans use coupons to reduce the cost of packaged goods and groceries? Additionally, when we type in our phone number at the grocery store checkout, extra money just appears. Popular websites like Kelley Blue Book, Edmunds, and TrueCar give you the “fair purchase price” when you’re buying a car, you can easily print what you should be paying, take it to the dealership, negotiate the price, stick it on top of the sticker, and tell the salesperson, “This is what I will pay, take it or leave it!” Purchasing something online? For tens of thousands of online retailers, Retailmenot offers discount codes that you can use at the checkout. Then there are Groupon and LivingSocial, which elevate digital coupons to a whole new level by offering discounts for a variety of goods and services that can reach as high as 90% in some cases. The list is endless.

 

What effect has this had, then? There is no longer a single fixed price for practically anything, which is what has happened. The price that is listed for a good or service is simply the most that a customer could be willing to pay. If you pay it, you are basically a sucker! If a potential customer tells you that your price is too high, you can’t hold it against them because, unless you offer all of your discounts and incentives up front, it probably is. Don’t let this irritate you when you hear it from your perspective because we are psychologically programmed to react in the way we do whenever we see a cost for something.

Having said that, what should salespeople do when they encounter the objection that the price is too high?

 

A pound of treatment is worth an ounce of prevention.

You should nudge a client a little on price before you put together a proposal and possibly even before you meet with them. Before you put in the time and effort to provide a firm quote, everyone will have a general idea of what to anticipate.

By using phrases like,  you can do this without feeling gross or leaving money on the table. Do you think that’s what you meant when you stated, “All my projects start at XYZ?” Is that what you were thinking? A similar project came in around XYZ. Every project we work on begins with an audit, which costs XYZ. Here are the items the audit covers. Would you like to continue?

(*Note that in order for the third option to be successful, your audit/entry-level offer must be in line with the cost of your project. Therefore, you cannot charge $50 for an audit while starting your projects at $1,000. For the $50 audit to provide any useful information about their willingness and ability to spend $1,000, there is an excessive price jump.)

However, suppose you floated a price and they responded by saying they couldn’t afford it.

 

Now, we’ll say that frequently, the financial barrier isn’t the real one. They might have that much money available, but they don’t think it would be worthwhile to use it for this project. Those objections may or may not be addressed during the sales process, but that is a subject for another time.

Whatever you do, avoid dismissing what they have told you out of hand by saying things like, “Oh, it’s not that much money.” The client will feel as though you’re not paying attention to them and either leave right away or strengthen their conviction that they cannot afford you. Say goodbye to your sale.

Do not accuse them of not appreciating quality work or not desiring your delivered results with enough fervor by using passive-aggressive language. You know who nobody wants to work with, right? An absolute gaslighter. You are unfamiliar with their daily routine and business. Let them be the authority on what they are capable of.

Okay, now that that has been clarified, let’s assume that they actually lack the financial resources to collaborate with you.

• Determine your goals

Choosing whether you still want to collaborate with this client on this project should be your first priority. It’s acceptable that some projects are only worthwhile if you’re getting paid well to work on them. That’s actually a wise move because, if you accept a project at 20% less than what you originally requested, you forfeit the chance to work with someone else who might be willing to pay your full price.

If you don’t want to accept less cash, kindly express your appreciation for them sharing their business requirements with you. If you know of any other service providers, you can recommend them or simply wish them well.

There are options available if you still want to work on this project with this client.

• Change the project’s scope

Reducing the project’s scope is the first remedy that most people try. Given that posting social media content is a straightforward, repeatable process, you might offer to create the content while leaving the client in charge of doing so. Alternatively, you could construct their website’s home page and then design a template that they can use for the rest of their content pages.

When it comes to the parts that the client will complete on their own, make sure you are still positioning them for success. Make a plan for how to fill the gap and how to update that later if you’re going to skip some steps in the process for the time being. If the client will be doing some of the work themselves, manage expectations about how things might look and function differently because you always want to deliver the results that you promise.

• Provide a shortened timetable

Time spent on customer service and opportunity costs incurred during the project makes up a sizable portion of any project fee. You will need to say no to some other opportunities during the course of a 6-month project or keep the project active the entire time (at least mentally).

By compressing a project into a VIP day or week, you can save some time and money. Offer a specific period of time to complete a specific range of work. Once that is over, you are done. The VIP day/week also has the advantage of making the client accountable for making the most of the time they have paid for. When they are aware that they only have a day or a week to complete tasks, they are more likely to finish their homework on time, reply to messages promptly, etc. (Be sure to state clearly what you expect from this right away.)

• Present an extended timetable and payment plan

The alternative is to lengthen both the project’s timeline and its associated payment schedule. Make the project a 6-month one rather than a 3-month one to give them more time to pay. This is useful for clients who have limited cash flow because they can generate the necessary funds for the project but may not have them all at once.

When extending the timeline, exercise extreme caution. Longer projects frequently require more energy than shorter ones, especially if you’re juggling them with other tasks. To get yourself and the client back up to speed on something you haven’t touched in a month, you’ll need to allow some time. To reduce the amount of task switching required, we advise treating an extended timeline like a series of VIP days or weeks. We would also associate payments with particular milestones to make sure there is clarity around what is anticipated to be done and when.

• Present a payment schedule

The client’s final option is to repay a portion of the project charge after the work is completed. We advise only recommending this to clients you have previously worked with or who you know will respect your boundaries. ( We would actually advise against doing this with friends and family.)

• Recognize your competitors

Know who your main rivals are and how your product or service differs from them. In the early 2000s, when we were selling Pontiac Vibes, We were aware that the Toyota Matrix was my main rival (both produced at the same production plant). We made it our responsibility to be aware of the differences between the Pontiac and the Matrix as well as its flaws.

• Put value first

The majority of people who raise a price objection are already aware of what your competitors’ goods or services are and how they differ from yours. Keep the benefits of purchasing your product or service as the main focus of your presentation. What additional value can you offer that goes beyond the actual product? Improved client services? Extended warranty terms? Fewer returns?

• Have a distinct ROI

Be specific about the returns your product or service offers when describing it. A sale is when a customer exchanges money for a valuable commodity or service. The sale becomes simpler the stronger the return on investment is, and the more you can communicate this. What is the product or service’s return on investment?

• Provide clear pricing

Never try to avoid or put off talking about price. Delaying (or waiting until asked) a price discussion only breeds skepticism on the part of the customer. This is not to mean that you should start with the price, but make sure you mention it straight immediately after you’ve addressed the three reasons mentioned above if it isn’t already evident.

• Offer price ranges

The odds are against you when a price is a black-or-white choice. You significantly increase your chance of closing the sale when you can include options. Make sure to offer choices at various price points.

• Quiet!

Pause for reflection before moving forward. It will give you time to collect your thoughts, but it also gives the prospect the chance to justify their position. Someone usually starts talking after a few seconds of silence, and if it’s the prospect, it could be very helpful because they might give you a lot of valuable information you can use.

 

• 12 “Give and Get” 

When clients request a discount, find out what they are prepared to give up. This is consistent with selling products based on value rather than price. Find out which features, for instance, if your good or service has a lot of them, they would be willing to give up for a lower price. If your product is bundled, you may need to unbundle it. A “unilateral concession” is when you make a concession without expecting anything in return, which is something that salespeople do far too frequently. This gives the impression that you initially overcharged your client.

• Pose inquiries

Understanding the customer’s perspective is crucial, and the right questions will enable you to identify the main cause of the objection. Here are some excellent inquiries to make:

• What is too expensive in comparison to?
• Have you discovered a less pricey option?
• How high have we climbed?
• What did you anticipate paying?
• Do you mean the initial cost or the overall expense?
• Is the cost the only thing keeping you from signing?
• Do you have a target ROI percentage in mind?

• Client testimonials

Referencing three or four of your customers who are of comparable size, work in the same sector, faced the same problem, and felt the same way is a great way to address this objection. Nobody will be able to sell your customer more effectively than a different customer. Get them on the phone with the other company and allow them to discuss their experience and outcomes. Send a follow-up email with several case studies of additional customers, emphasizing the return on investment they experienced after using your product or service.

Let’s get down to what to SAY in these circumstances. The phrases to use, which will support you in upholding your boundaries and the client relationship, are listed below.

Just a quick reminder that these conversation starters are meant for potential clients who are already somewhat interested in working with you. You can use them in follow-up emails, sales/discovery calls, and initial response emails.

They cannot be used for

• arguing with random strangers on social media who will never hire you and defending your life decisions to skeptical family members’ price
• confronting “competitors” who are attempting to lower your self-esteem by projecting their uncertainties and ignorance onto you.

Part 1: Measuring If the customer finds your price to be too high

Keep the conversation brief and straightforward at this point. Ask concise questions that only require a yes or no response. This gives everyone a polite way to leave if necessary or it sets them up to answer yes to additional questions in the future. Be quiet after you’ve asked so they can respond. Do not become alarmed by the silence.

• Would you say that sounds like what you had in mind? All of my projects begin at XYZ.
• Is that what you were thinking when you heard about the project XYZ?
• Every project I work on begins with an audit, which costs XYZ. Here are the items the audit covers. Would you like to continue?
• The majority of my [project types] fall into the ABC-XYZ range. Are you able to handle that range?

Part 2: Validate When the Client Can’t Afford Your Price

If a customer rejects your price feelers, you HAVE to admit that they think your price is too high. Why? Because doing so demonstrates that you respect them as experts in their own lives and businesses and that you believe them.

They will feel ignored if you try to convince them to spend more money right away than they are willing to. They will either maintain their stance or say they cannot afford to hire you. Ever say, “Oh, it’s not that bad,” to someone? How was that for you? or do they stop participating in the conversation? They’ll wish they were somewhere else even if they stay. You should never begin a client relationship that way.

Don’t give a state of the union address once more. Give them time to respond after using some of these affirmations. Put aside your own agenda; until the client has faith in you, you won’t get what you really want. Work any information they’ve shared with you about their motivations or other current events into the validation naturally and without criticism.

• That seems to have been more than you had hoped to spend on this undertaking.
• If you’ve never invested this much money in XYZ, I can imagine it’s intimidating.
• Given what you’ve told me, it makes sense that this might be a stretch for you.
• I wonder if returning to a project of this size would be advantageous when [X circumstances are different].
• I appreciate you being honest about your financial situation. Although the budget isn’t there right now, it sounds like this project is very important to you. I’d be delighted to send you [recommendations, DIY instructions, courses, etc.]

You can respond to a price objection in a number of ways. Always take the initiative, and practice the various responses we’ve mentioned, choosing the ones with which you are most familiar. If your customer complains that your product is too expensive or that your price is too high, you won’t miss a beat if you are prepared. That is frequently your best strategy for dispelling price objections.

That’s it for this blog BBC Member, remember to subscribe to our channel and if you feel like we’ve delivered value please share this blog with ONE person. That’s right just one person as a token of your appreciation for the hard work we put into making content that educates and helps you on your mission of building your own fortune.  Remember you can read blog after blog, but it isn’t until you actually take action that you’ll start to see results.  See you soon!

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20 Ways to Respond to I Want To Think About It

Hello, people. Welcome to the BBC Youtube channel. Should you wait for the buyer to make a decision, or should you try and find other buyers?

You shouldn’t postpone your decision. Salespeople too often agree to postpone their decisions until later. If you want more of this content, subscribe to the BBC Youtube channel and hit the notification bell.

 

If a prospect doesn’t reply to your email, it can be difficult to maintain communication. It’s best if you reserve judgment and wait for the other party to take the first step in order to move forward.

Determining the reservations of your prospect is more effective. Use any one of these five questions to identify what the prospect’s issue is, and propose a mutually beneficial agreement.

Here’s a quick watch on how to counter “we’ll think about it” in sales. Go deeper by watching our list:

Identify the three most likely obstacles and ask the prospect to choose one

“We understand that you may be hesitant to try out machine learning. Some of our customers are not certain about their concerns, so I want to answer your question. You might be concerned about the cost or implementation, but most businesses are intrigued by machine learning’s capability.”

To move forward, it helps to identify the obstacles you’re currently facing. 

 

Ask for permission to speak candidly

“I might ask you what the advantages and disadvantages of your decision might be, or I might offer an opinion on a different option.”

When you speak to people, focus on the emotional pain they have not been addressing. Discuss the financial implications of that problem and find a solution.

 

Get a reality check

“Do you want to continue working with me, or no?”

Many salespeople are hesitant to ask for a reality check because they think it may create negative thoughts in the customer’s mind, but David Sandler from Sandler Training used to say “You can’t lose what you don’t have.”

Awkward questions can help you make more sales. If there’s no chance of working together, at least you’ll know before wasting any more time.

Request the next step

“That sounds right. It’s as if you were the one making this decision.”

When you are drafting an agreement, it’s important to be agreeable with your counterpart

If you get the opportunity to book a phone call, and the prospect commits to giving you a final decision, then you’ll know how things will go much better than not knowing at all.

 

Set a timeframe

“I understand. If I don’t hear back from you by this date, what should I do?”

In order to figure out what the prospect needs, try getting them to talk about their issues. This should provide a lot of insight about what the person is struggling with and what would be most helpful for them.

 

Ask what will change

“Interesting. Can I ask what you’re currently working on? What can I help you think through right now?”

When prospects need to “think it over,” they need help from their sales rep. Roleplay with them on the phone and facilitate clearer decision making.

 

Check on key stakeholders

“Would you like for me to do any research about your team members before making a decision?”

After looking at key factors, your prospect will make a final decision on which vendor to choose.

This will be your last opportunity to give prospects the talking points they need from you that will help them be your champion in this meeting. Ask if there’s anyone else you should speak with, and offer any last-minute support that your prospect requires.

Tell them you’ll follow up

“Sounds like we’re on the same page. When will be a good time to check in again?”

To avoid your prospect thinking longer about the opportunity until it is too late, set a realistic timeline when following up with them. You should also expect that they will need to meet with other stakeholders before they make their final decision.

If they don’t have a decision by a deadline, ask them for a final answer and if that falls through, move the timeline up.

 

Ask questions to understand the reasons why

If you spend a lot of time with the customer, it is fairly reasonable to ask what is holding them back. This works both ways – you get a better understanding of your customer, and they feel honest and reassured by your concern. For example, you could say “sure”, but then ask “do you mind if I ask what’s holding you back?” This would invite them to think about their issue on the spot.

Ask how to get in touch with them

Send the potential customer a summary of your discussion, and then follow up with them afterwards. They may need to talk to their partner before deciding. If you are feeling comfortable, you can set a time frame where they will hear from you again.

Tell them availability is limited

This technique is only effective for last minute bookings. By communicating that you are running out of available rooms, you will help pressure the customer into accepting your offer. Even if they can’t make a decision on the spot, you can reassure them that you will keep in touch with them.

Offer to send some more options

If a customer wasn’t able to find what they wanted, sending out one last email with creative solutions to keep their interest is a good idea. Doing research and brainstorming ideas will make them feel like you’re still selling for them, even though it could take days before coming up with something new.

Accept the rejection politely

When you are speaking with a customer that is not being open to your product, it can be worthwhile to push for more. However, when this does not work, respond politely with “take your time” or “sure, no problem.”

When you are selling a new product and someone says they have to think about it, you can get the person’s attention with a personalized message.

By using these scripts for overcoming the “need to think about it” sales objection, you can see if your prospect really needs to think about it or if they are blowing you off. This will save you weeks of chasing and begging for a deal that will never close.

“It sounds like one of the three things is holding you back- are you not going to be a deal for whatever reason and just want to get me off the phone, do you like the idea but need to find money or ask your partner, or do you really like the idea?”

“Hey ________, I might have given you too much information on the warranty. That’s it!”

(Now hit the mute button and let them tell you what they really think)

“Would you like me to stop if this isn’t what you want? I don’t want you to be hurt.”

In the book “The Paradox of Time Pressure,” the paradox of immediacy has always been for salespeople who want to sell but need to be given leads, and a customer is not yet convinced to buy.

Not all of the customers are necessarily open to you sharing their decision, which can result in you getting frustrated and blaming them. Rather, it’s your responsibility to not make the customer feel misled or offended by improper preparation, rather than blaming them.

You can stop blaming and start taking responsibility for the objection by preparing for it way before you get to the sales call.

Here is what to say, here’s what to offer, and here’s how to offer it

Here are some questions to help you in your decision-making process: “How much is it?” “When do I need it?” and “What’s a realistic budget?”.

If you’re selling IT services and data protection, here are a few questions that relate to this trade:

 

Mr. Prospect, here are six things you need to think about as you’re deciding:

How much is your data worth?

Who is protecting your data daily?

How much spam are you getting on your email? How much time do you spend deleting that spam? What is your time worth?

What happened the last time you lost data?

What is your definition of a business heart attack?

What is the cost, in hours or days of work, between 99% and 100% guaranteed uptime? 3.65 days of downtime.

Would you like to think about these questions by yourself or with me?

 

Take into consideration, you have expertise in your field. If a customer is consulting you for advice about something, it’s crucial that you portray confidence, not just information.

“I want to think about it” is your GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY to give value.

THE SECRET: When you call a prospect, don’t get frustrated when they say “I want to think it over”. Instead, act as if you are surprised by the response. And make sure that you present my solution in exactly the manner I have described above.

When presenting this answer to a prospect, your tone must be both friendly and calm. The audience will see that you are prepared, and they might be impressed – or they might be engaged and willing.

With this solution, you will NOT succeed 100% of the time, BUT you WILL create value.

 

That’s it for this blog BBC Member, remember to subscribe to our channel and if you feel like we’ve delivered value please share this blog with ONE person. That’s right just one person as a token of your appreciation for the hard work we put into making content that educates and helps you on your mission of building your own fortune.  Remember you can read blog after blog, but it isn’t until you actually take action that you’ll start to see results. See you soon!

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10 Effective Ways To Motivate Your Sales Team

With the right team attitude, you can stay motivated while experiencing dips and ebbs in your sales. Even though things may slow down, ensure that you have a team that keeps moving forward with the same motivation.

Luckily for you, BBC Member, we have prepared a list of 10 effective ways to motivate your sales team. Remember that the first step is completing any of these fantastic courses and the second another important step is to take action even if it’s imperfect action.

The average organization invests $2,020 per salesperson on sales training annually. Seventy percent of those organizations plan to maintain or increase their spending on sales training in the year ahead.

As a team leader, it’s your job to motivate your team when they feel their progress is slower than desired. You must provide them with the resources and tactics needed for success so that they can keep moving forward. Here are tips you can use to motivate your sales team.

Number one, Form a mentoring program

For sales apprentices to learn about the job and further their careers, a mentoring program in which successful and experienced sales leads help new reps better understand the field is practical. Younger salespersons most commonly learn from coaching, but much of that occurs within the framework of a mentoring relationship.

With better mentorship, there is more potential for both the mentor and mentee to benefit. This means relationships should not be made arbitrarily. Some of the more effective mentorships consist of a match where both parties collaborate to maximize benefits.

It is critical to define the following when planning a mentoring program as part of an organization’s overall sales training effort:

1. The best date
2. Get a better understanding of what should be talked about
3. Evaluating mentoring outcomes
4. Exit Strategy

A mentoring relationship is typically six to nine months long and includes weekly meetings. At the beginning of each meeting, mentors specify what their goals are for the interaction and their expectations for each other. The end of the relationship typically consists of checking in about what was accomplished and taking any necessary steps before continuing with the next session. 

Some sales team leaders are assigned the responsibility of being a mentor, and they are evaluated based on their mentoring activities and accomplishments. When mentoring is done well, the mentee develops his or her knowledge and becomes more effective in their position with the company. The mentor also gains leadership skills that support their career advancement.

Number two, compensate for them well and offer advancements.

One of the biggest motivators for salespeople to reach the results that a sales leader wants them to is to make sure their compensation plan aligns with those results.

Each business has different needs and goals, so the kind of compensation plan that’s successful for one company might be ineffective for another company. For example, a plan geared towards winning more customers might not help a company that already has too many customers. To ensure your sales compensation plan is strategic, take time to think about the overall goal of your company.

With an already struggling economy, adjusting your sales compensation plans appropriately is crucial for a team to make progress toward their goal. Schedule meetings immediately after promising demo results; do not just compensate them for the number of demos they make, but reward their performance on successful meetings.

Make sure that your compensation plan has an accelerator built-in to motivate reps to exceed a specific target goal and break into the next commission tier. Remember not to limit any commissions, so be sure to clearly communicate that to your reps!

 

Aside from compensation, offer advancement to the sales team who deserves it. As an employer, offering advancement opportunities to your salespeople can help the employees that are inclined to take you up on the offer. These individuals will remain loyal and dedicated to their jobs.

A business’s ability to encourage and use the skills of each employee can motivate them to do their best now.

Number three, don’t micromanage

One sign of micromanagement is that you may find yourself being unproductive because you’re keeping a watchful eye on your business. Jobs are increasing the need for organizations to delegate, but for those benefits to take place, a company needs to constantly monitor its performance and metrics.

Managing too much or micromanaging can be demotivating; it prevents creativity and causes stress. It also makes you too dependent on your own judgment and skills in a given situation and not aware of others’ strengths.

With work becoming more and more complicated, management is another thing. Eventually, your goal should be to hire people with self-motivation, who have a proven track record of selling themselves and working autonomously. This can be one of your criteria when considering remote or self-managed work.

 

Instead of micromanaging, you’ll want to hold meetings with your sales managers and individual meetings with your salespersons. You’ll also want to give them specific goals so that they know what they need to do and know where you expect them to be. However, you’ll also have to let them work in their own way as well because that’s how they will learn – by doing things on their own.

Autonomy is important for sales teams, who need to feel as if they have the freedom to make their own decisions and carry out their own plans.

Number four, Set S.M.A.R.T. Goals

Without specific goals to aim for, you will struggle to motivate your employees, as a generic goal of “let’s sell more” won’t lead them to do anything. Specific goals allow you to successfully activate your team and achieve success.

But, What does S.M.A.R.T. stand for?

S for Specific – Identify exactly what you want to achieve.

M for measurable- track progress and report on your progress.

A for Achievable- adopt a goal that your company can realistically achieve with its resources.

R for Relevant- Check your current sales goal against your business objective

T for Time-based- Every sales goal should have a deadline. Without deadlines, your sales team will not act in time to make money on these targets.

Set a monthly or quarterly sales goal. Use your sales professionals to break down the goals and help them reach their expected results by aligning them with the company’s plans.

Number five, Make Work Meaningful

You can be selling widgets or services, but that does not mean you are worthless. They help your customer in some way; by providing them with what they need in some way.

Some online businesses lose sight of what they want their substance to be as they sell widgets and services on a daily basis. This is true not just for the business in question, but also for their sales reps.

It’s up to you to remind your sales team that your product offering has value and meaning. Remember that thinking of selling your product as a commodity can be demotivating and they will work harder if they consider it is solving an important challenge in their customers’ life instead.

 

You need to keep reaffirming this to your team members. You are not selling an item, instead you are offering a solution with added value and your sales representatives will be motivated to work harder when you do this.

It’s essential to share customer success stories with your salespeople. Salespeople need reassurance that they are making a difference. If a company doesn’t already have a “mission statement,” work with others on your executive team to create one.

Number six, gain respect from the team

If you want your salespeople to respect your authority, you should do the things that make them work hard for you. The top three things sales leaders can do to earn the respect of their team is to demonstrate expertise in their industry, take accountability for every aspect of their business, and focus on customer service. But here are more additional tips on how you can gain respect from your team. 

1. Be transparent- As a general rule, the more transparency and honesty you have in your business, the better. Unfortunately, some companies only share information on sales if they recognize it as successful. Instead of hiding things from their salespeople because it wasn’t considered a success, these companies could build trust with their own data systems rather than relying on outside sources.
2. Be consistent- Your reps should be treated equally to reach their highest potential. When something applies to Sally and Sue, they should both benefit from it. Your salespeople can detect inconsistencies quickly, so you should have a level playing field.
3. Ask for their feedback- Don’t ask for feedback then not use it. Feedback is really important and should be used to improve your work culture. Companies who ask for feedback from their employees get better results and stronger engagement from team members.
4. Offer help- Help to make them feel secure by acting as back-up support and making it known that they can count on you when they have a woe. If you’re booked solid for demos, consider helping them out by drafting up a proposal for them. Follow-up with a lead that has been hard for them, help to smoothly re-engage, and ensure your work appreciates their trust in you will reap the same rewards. Attaching yourself to your client’s success is most rewarding when others are authentically helpful.

Unsatisfying work environments can lead to anxiety and put a damper on team productivity. Openness to questions and concern will teach your team how to seek solutions and improvement.

Always be a source of support. As you progress through your sales career, you know what it’s like to feel like an outsider, especially if your company is not experienced in sales. Bringing new viewpoints to the table can provide fresh ideas for a team and allow your prospects to feel more confident about buying from you because you won’t turn down their requests for additional resources.

Number seven, Educate your sales team

Education can make important differences to your sales team at work. You can offer training, webinars, and books as tools to help them improve their career. Working with these methods gives you the ability to steer individuals on the right track.

In order to access relevant data, sales representatives need access to your information technology infrastructure. You can give your sales team a one-day workshop (physical and virtual) that teaches them new techniques regarding their work, which will help them produce better results and receive bonuses in return.

A proven strategy is having a 1-on-1 coaching session between the rep and sales manager, reviewing every call or demo with that individual, to identify their strengths and weaknesses each week. Create a “scorecard” which defines your standards of excellence for particular parts of the sales process or skills that you are looking for in your reps and assess their performance based on those standards. Choose one area where potential growth could be seen by the employee monthly, as growth can only come from consistent coaching.

Consider taking your team on a fun trip together when you can feel comfortable doing so because the world is a safer place. Having a positive work environment will help increase productivity.

Number eight, Be Flexible With Your Leadership

To explore the different incentives that direct sales people face there is a need to understand what each of them thinks of success. By understanding each individual’s personal motivation, how they react to different leadership and the types of activities that suit the department best, this will give you a realistic idea of how to pave the way for them to succeed.

If you want this one-on-one program to grow, take the time to chat with your salespeople about their thoughts on what works best for them. Ask them questions such as “How often do you prefer to interact?” or “Do you like praise in front of others or privately?” While these questions may be different for each salesperson, as they progress and learn more about the business, your one-on-one reviews should adapt with them.

If there is a pandemic, or if employees feel more productive from working from home, let them express this preference and have flexibility in their schedules. Surprise your employees by considering your flexibility options, and avoid forcing them to come into the office unnecessarily.

Number nine, Foster Collaboration and ignite creativity

Naturally, salespeople are competitive. However, that does not help when your sales team is competing against each other. You wont notice it often, but your sales team is going against one another, that will eventually lead to reduced motivation if one salesperson is seeing better results than others.

For example, to avoid anyone taking too much precedence over others and getting ahead too easily, foster an environment that emphasizes collaboration with activities and exercises to help your sales team grow together rather than being individuals.

And when they collaborate, try asking your sales team to think outside the box and explore new ideas—rather than being too restricted. A great way to help them is by offering them the opportunity to test, research, and error using techniques like creating a whitepaper or testing different calls-to-action.

Salespeople on your team are the ones most in tune with your tactics and, because of their skills to garner market knowledge, will come up with new ideas based on those tactics. They can also see how the business is doing and any shifts in demand for pricing or marketing strategies. Lastly, when a salesperson is more invested in an idea, that translates into a better chance of going mainstream and seeing success.

Number ten, Show Appreciation

Rather than thanking people with money, let your team know that you value the work they are doing throughout the company. Show appreciation for their hard work by praising them to boost the morale of everyone in the studio. The more co-workers feel appreciated, the more engaged and motivated they’ll be to contribute to a great work environment.

Organizations that have a sales strategy, implement training, and offer opportunities for higher levels of knowledge and advancement will find increased revenue from their salespeople. The less obvious, but substantial, benefits for organizations include the ability to retain talented employees and market to them more effectively.

In recent days, job seekers are looking for opportunities and to make employers look good. Companies that provide sales training with a continuous learning component are considered likable.

 

That’s it for this blog BBC Member, remember to subscribe to our channel and if you feel like we’ve delivered value please share this blog with ONE person. That’s right just one person as a token of your appreciation for the hard work we put into making content that educates and helps you on your mission of building your own fortune. Remember you can read blog after blog, but it isn’t until you actually take action that you’ll start to see results. See you soon!

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10 Ways To Build Trust With your Sales team

As a sales manager, few challenges are more daunting than building trust with your team. However, if you have risen through the ranks, it can be difficult when you have previously been just a single contributor in the team. Your trustworthiness will determine your success to a great degree. If you break that trust, you can set yourself back by months, or even cost yourself your job if they turn against you.

Trust is necessary to drive performance in a sales team. Sales people need to feel trusted by their managers and the company in order to be successful. The Harvard Business Review found that employees in high-trust organizations are more productive, have better energy levels during the day, collaborate better with colleagues, and stay with their company for a longer period of time than people working at low-trust companies. So if you want to know more about how you can build trust with your sales team, then this blog is for you.

Luckily for you, BBC Member, we have produced a list of ten ways that you can build trust with your team. Remember, that while the first step is completing any of these amazing courses, the second and possibly more important step is taking action even if it’s imperfect action. 

 

Simon Sinek’s inspiring TED Talk about good leadership and making people feel safe made me realize the importance of looking at the concept of reward for those within the business world. He talks about the military, who gives awards to those who give their lives for others. In his discussion, he points out that the military is called heroes and honors them with ceremonies.

They’re rewarded with medals for their bravery and selflessness. They deserve to be recognized for what they contribute, also. Military personnel depend on each other and trust is what unbinds them. Without trust, they could not complete their duty assignment and would be more likely to fail. Sometimes being self-promoting is rewarded.

 

It’s a different story in business. People who are outspoken often get recognized and people who self-promote, even at the expense of others get rewarded. In a Harvard Business Review article, it was noted that an employee may be hesitant to help another person if they are unsure if the favor will be repaid.

Sales people in particular can avoid the help of others because they are by nature competitive, and some sales teams offer incentives to individuals rather than teams. When teamwork takes the backseat, teams tend to become more and more detached. Having a team consisting of members who have a mutual trust will bring awareness to one another’s weaknesses, abilities and strengths. 

So, how can you create a culture built on trust in your sales team? Here are ten ways to get you started.

The very first tip is to start at the top. It is possible to demand trust from your sales reps, but it must be built or else it won’t be achieved. To start earning trust at the top, one may provide a compelling reason for them to connect and create deep, meaningful relationships with the people they are contacting. In order for you to succeed as a sales leader, you should get talented people and train them effectively.

 

You should also trust your employees to do their job right. With some autonomy, your team members will take a sense of ownership and accountability for their work because it’ll prove that you trust them.

Competence, consistency, and responsibility are key to earning the team’s trust. When your salespeople see that you know what to do when they get cold leads or a prospect, they won’t feel like you need their assistance. But, if they see competence on your part, they’ll be open to being coached by you. The easiest way to break trust among employees is to be inconsistent. Employees resent inconsistent leaders, especially those who make promises and don’t follow through with them.

 

To gain someone’s trust, do what you say you are going to do, show up when you’re supposed to, and avoid changing your behavior based on temporary trends. Consistency creates loyal employees who have faith in the company. It is important to spend time with each member of your sales team and listen, as this shows that you are empathetic, interested in them and concerned about their success.

However, it doesn’t need to mean becoming everyone’s best friend. People need to know you care about them before they will take the first step towards trusting you. As a sales manager, it is your responsibility to stay up to date on the industry and best practices in sales. Doing so will help you trust your employees more because they know that you are steering them in the right direction. Set up schedules with your sales people for coaching and reviews. Commit to those meetings, and hold yourself accountable. Salespeople don’t trust managers who don’t walk their talk.

Trust cannot grow in a vacuum. To grow trust, a manager must be present and provide nurturing. Managers need to get out in the open and interact with people. Managers need to spend time developing relationships with their salespeople, outside of scheduled coaching and reviews.

 

Human connections are important to trust. Conversations with salespeople that happen during “water cooler” time or just walking through the office can help establish connections and provide opportunities for managers to identify when individuals need additional attention. Building trust between your team and you will start with your leadership. The article suggests that two traits leaders should demonstrate are warmth and strength.

Leaders who start by connecting with the sales team show them they can be trusted. Leading with strength, however, requires employees to trust the leader out of fear rather than genuine motivation. Fear can cause disengagement from work and prevent employees from giving their best. Employees will disengage from their work when there is a lack of understanding or appreciation for the creativity and problem solving skills of your employee.

 

Two things that commonly kill trust on sales teams are manipulation and snark. Managers think they need to lie to salespeople, guilt them, or treat them like enemies in order to get the job done. This is counterproductive because people don’t trust that anything you say is 100% true. This is toxic and damages the relationship between salesperson and manager.

Managers must shift their mindset so they support sales employees, maintaining trust in them and praising them when they do something right. Managers should criticize employees by criticizing a specific performance measure that needs to be improved.

Building trust may happen best when managers do not settle for average performance and, instead, set aggressive goals. However, these goals must be supported by management in order to be effective, otherwise, they are likely to lose the trust of their employees. Building a supportive, mutually trusting workplace will motivate everyone to work towards the common goal of reaching your business targets.

It can be scary to share your weaknesses or opinions in the workplace when you don’t know how they will react. Will they get attacked, laughed at, or will they get help and support? The goal should be to find a solution to a problem, not necessarily dominance. A workplace when employees trust their leadership and teams, will be more willing to engage in conflict.

Every person has a preferred communication style that is most effective for them. A more effective way to motivate and understand your team members is by identifying the best way to communicate with each person on your team. Brooks Talent Index provides a thorough assessment that identifies how individuals prefer to communicate, which makes them more motivated. Having the distinction between those tasks out in the open will help the whole team improve collaboration and performance.

 

Managers can use personal stories to strengthen their leadership, as the brain is hardwired to trust information when it’s presented as a story. To do so, they can offer anecdotes from themselves and other salespeople about the client’s needs. When you select stories for managers, don’t choose ones that are too serious. Choose relevant stories with significant meaning to salespeople, not just ones that will make the manager look good.

If an organization is unsatisfied with its sales department’s performance, it can be difficult to rectify the problem. Most organizations will try to fix the situation. However, some managers will revise their expectations of the team in order to find a balance before punishment ensues. The high achievers and those who follow the company process will become resentful of low performers and those who are “rebellious” when they’re not held accountable.

On the other hand, the sales people who know they will be held consistently and firmly to their commitments will learn to trust their leaders. Peer accountability is a strain on your team member’s trust, commitment to their team and working towards the same goal. Consider tying part of your employees’ compensation to a shared goal that they are all striving to meet.

 

Only with peer accountability can you truly expect success in sales. Team building is an important part of developing a flourishing business, and celebrating team goals and accomplishments can help build better relationships with your marketing team.

 

Do not be afraid to fire. You might think that firing salespeople would result in anxiety and distrust for your team, but this is not always the case. Most of the time, it’s actually having the wrong people on the team, who consistently underperform, that leads to such an effect. Create standards for how to evaluate, support, and hold accountable people who are in the wrong job. Once you’re done with that, as a last resort you can fire them. That’ll make your team more trustworthy.

Provide your employees with the tools to see how their individual roles can contribute to the company’s success. They’ll be more invested in their role, and will be motivated to work together with other employees to reach common goals. Create an environment where individual results can be shared and aren’t used against the individual. Use individual results to show how it affects the team when one person doesn’t meet their goal.

You will have a culture of trust when competent employees who hold themselves accountable are hired. Identify exactly what your open positions need to be successful, and then hire the perfect fit. Sales teams that trust each other have good conflict, commitment to the company, accountability, and attention to results. This is a great recipe for a growing company.

 

That’s it for this blog BBC Member, remember to subscribe to our channel and if you feel like we’ve delivered value please share this blog with ONE person. That’s right just one person as a token of your appreciation for the hard work we put into making content that educates and helps you on your mission of building your own fortune.  Remember you can read blog after blog, but it isn’t until you actually take action that you’ll start to see results.  See you soon!

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15 Prospecting Mistakes B2B Salespeople Make

People would have laughed at you if you had told them a decade ago that there are prospecting mistakes that B2B salespeople make. The internet has made it easier than ever to learn just about anything you want. So with all this content and information available, how did you know which ones to learn from and which ones actually work?

Luckily for you, BBC Member, we’ve produced a list of the fifteen prospecting mistakes that B2B salespeople make. Remember, that while the first step is completing any of this amazing information, the second and possibly more important step is taking action even if it’s imperfect action.

15 Prospecting Mistakes B2B Salespeople Make

Worst Mistakes Salespeople Make in B2B Sales Prospecting

1. Using Lead Generation Without Specification

It’s important to be very specific when choosing your ideal leads! Knowing exactly who your prospects are is crucial, especially in B2B sales. If you have a sizable pool of potential customers, but they don’t actually fit your product or service, you’ll just waste a lot of time and be let down.

Although your business solution is excellent, not all businesses on earth require it (maybe). As a result, when choosing your ideal leads for your sales strategy, you must be very particular. In the challenging lead generation process, the more specific you are, the more time, energy, and resources you save!

Making the ideal prospect profile is the solution.

How can you and your sales team target lead more precisely? The process begins with developing an ideal customer profile. An elaborate description of your ideal prospect is contained in an ideal customer profile. It contains information about their psychographics and demographics, to name a few. You should all sit down and create that profile before you and your sales team even consider any tactics to generate leads. And if your business is a B2B one, you should be as specific as you can!

Just keep in mind that it’s preferable to have a small number of quality leads rather than a large number of shoddy ones if the profile you and your team create makes it harder for you to identify them. Don’t get your sales process off to a bad start! If you want to ultimately close more deals, be picky up front.

2.  Difficult Sales Outreach

Overcomplication is at the root of the biggest errors in B2B sales and outreach is perhaps the area where sales teams over complicate their sales process the most. The truth is, you don’t need to use aggressive, overly eager sales techniques to compel your prospects to respond. An outreach strategy may appear difficult and impressive from the outside, but that doesn’t guarantee that it will be successful. What is more efficient is to adhere to a set of fundamental outreach strategies and deliver them flawlessly.

For instance, despite having a bad reputation, cold calling and emailing are still two of the best outreach strategies available. Although they are somewhat difficult, they are not complicated. If you can make your sales calls and emails as high-quality as possible, your chances of closing the deal will increase. Your company’s bottom line will significantly improve if you start to concentrate on basic, straightforward outreach techniques and make them as high-quality as you can.

Easy Outbound Sales Strategies is the solution.

You ought to concentrate on straightforward but effective outreach strategies. These ten 10-minute sales techniques are great illustrations of how prospect outreach doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming in order for you to get a response. When it comes to outreach, it’s frequently less about the sales technique you employ and more about how you employ it that helps you hear “yes” more frequently.

3. Not Following Up

You, therefore, place one cold call. Another follows. After which, another. Nothing, though. Every call is ineffective. Even worse, prospects aren’t just rejecting your offers; they aren’t even answering the phone! Did you know that it typically takes a salesperson five attempts to get a prospect to respond?

Therefore, whether you close the sale or not can depend on your willingness to consistently follow up, even just a few times.

Being persistent with prospects is the solution.

Even if you have the best sales pitches ever, you probably won’t get the chance to use them if you don’t make an effort to stay in touch with your potential customers. After making your initial outreach attempt, regularly following up with prospects is one of the key elements to achieving sales success. Simply put, persistence is the key to success.

Don’t interpret a prospect’s delayed response as a rejection. Instead, put yourself in their shoes. What are some reasons they might not be responding to you if any? Although we frequently imagine our prospects as people who are not at all like us, this is not the case. Additionally, they experience almost identical difficulties as we do.

You don’t need to be concerned with upsetting or overwhelming your potential customers. Just keep contacting them until you receive a response. If you’re sincere about helping them get past their challenges, it will all be beneficial in the end.

Worst Mistakes Salespeople Make in B2B Sales Presentations

Congratulations! Now that you have some good prospects in your hands, you’re ready to present your sales pitch. Finally, this is your chance to shine. Avoid making these fatal sales presentation mistakes if you want to really impress prospects!

4. Taking control of the sales conversation

Your initial sales pitch serves two main objectives, including: 

• introducing yourself and your solution to potential customers
• determining the customer’s problems

Finding your customer’s needs is the more crucial of the two, more specifically, what hurts them!

You’ll be able to pinpoint their primary sources of struggle if you let them speak the majority of the time. They will naturally reveal to you the source of their problems if you steer the conversation in the right direction.

Many salespeople make the error of assuming they are already aware of the main issues the prospect is facing. Because they believe they know the answers, they take control of the sales conversation.

Letting the Prospects Drive the Conversation is the solution.

Let your prospects take the lead during the sales conversation rather than doing all the talking. Allowing them to speak also gives them the impression that they are in charge of the situation, which gives them the freedom to express all of their frustrations.

Consider it. Wouldn’t you feel like you were being sold to if you were in their shoes and your sales rep wouldn’t stop talking for even a brief moment? You would, at the very least, have a bad customer experience.

5. Including Sales Pitch Facts

Trying to sell facts about a product or service is among the biggest sales mistakes reps make. For instance, they use statements like “this car has 400 horsepower” or “this CRM system has customizable tools” to win people over. 

Then what? Even though the facts are crucial, they don’t actually make the sale. A sales leader making the fatal error of focusing their sales pitches on facts is unacceptable! They won’t ultimately achieve the outcomes they desire!

Telling sales stories is the solution.

B2B sales strategy entails more than just disclosing every feature of your good or service in the hopes that potential customers will take notice. Instead, it involves creating a narrative about your good or service and then presenting it to prospective customers. Stories are valuable. The best storytellers are the most effective salespeople. Every sale can become a story thanks to their expertise!

6. Ineffective Sales Training

There are a plethora of different sales training courses available. Finding the best option among all the available ones is a headache in and of itself. Additionally, the issue with almost all sales training programs is that they only provide theoretical instruction rather than allowing participants to engage in real-world practice.

The majority of sales training programs hire sales representatives who already have knowledge but don’t teach them how to put it to use. While having knowledge can be beneficial, it is useless if sales representatives don’t know how to use it!

Giving salespeople more control is the solution.

Simply knowing how to do something is insufficient. In actuality, simply knowing how to do something is meaningless. The only thing that counts in sales is the ability to put the learned information to use in real-world sales scenarios. Empowering sales representatives is a better way to phrase this.

How effectively a person can stand up for themselves and their knowledge in any situation is defined by their level of empowerment. It has to do with being self-reliant and capable of acting decisively. If you don’t empower your sales reps, don’t expect them to perform well. The very best sales  courses accomplish this. They equip sales representatives with the knowledge and abilities they actually need to succeed in every sales scenario, including:

• The use of sales psychology
• Negotiation
• Scaling sales deals

These are all empowering abilities. They focus more on action than sales theory.

Salespeople’s worst closing sale errors

The very end of the sales process is arguably the most frustrating place to err in B2B sales. Even if you follow all the rules, one fatal mistake on the last lap can ruin your entire race. Avoid being the person who drops the sale right before the finish line. The most typical closing sales errors and how to avoid them are listed below:

7. Not having the necessary items to complete the sale.

Imagine you are prepared to deliver the best pitch ever at the sales meeting. Up until this point, everything you did as far as lead generation, lead outreach, and creating the ideal sales pitch went perfectly. The pitch is then a success! Is there any alternative way to explain it? The chief decision-maker then inquires, “When can we get started?”

You halt. You believed that your prospect’s desire to make a purchasing decision was immature at this point in the sales process. You are aware of your accomplishments, but you did not anticipate their hasty attempt to close. That brief pause develops into a protracted awkward pause. Your prospects can now begin to doubt you because the door has been left open.

In sales, situations like this one are all too typical. Sales representatives perform flawlessly, but they lack a deal to put on the table. A prospect might be prepared to close at any time. Just enough time is left for your prospect to fall through the cracks if you are unprepared for that situation.

 Arriving prepared is the solution.

Never ever enter a meeting without a perfectly crafted deal in place. A perfectly planned deal should at the very least include the following:

• How do you plan to put your deliverable into practice
• How do you intend to regularly communicate with the prospects
• How much do you intend to charge them

No matter where you are in the sales process, your deal needs to be ready to go. Don’t be the person who, due to lack of preparation, loses the sale at the last minute. 

8. Price-Negotiation

How many times have you experienced this? You reach the part of the sales pitch where you specify the terms of the agreement. When you state your price, the prospect’s eyes widen a little, and they become much quieter. Your price tag has undoubtedly shocked them, and you are concerned that this is it.

You start a price negotiation in an effort to try to save the sale. That, in your opinion, will ensure their loyalty. Whatever you do, don’t make your price negotiable if you ever find  yourself in this situation. Get rid of the notion that you need to compromise on your standards in order to convince customers to buy from you.

Never lower your value out of concern that a potential customer will turn you down. In the end, you’ll only lose more.

Maintaining high standards is the solution.

Never bargain your price with potential customers. The goal of B2B sales is to establish an equitable relationship between two businesses. Your prospects must comprehend and accept this if they want to proceed if you place a monetary value on your good or service that is equal to the value of your solution because the relationship will only suffer if it begins on unfair terms because one party isn’t receiving everything they truly deserve.

Additionally, consider whether or not your prospect is really a good fit for you if they don’t understand that you need that particular sum in order to give them exactly what they need. Even though you shouldn’t haggle over price, you can still be adaptable.

A simpler choice is to create a flexible payment schedule.

To assist prospects, you can be accommodating with your terms, but you shouldn’t ever compromise your standards of quality. Because if you do, you will only be asking for a resentment-based relationship.

9. Take things less seriously.

The sales process should be enjoyable even though the stakes could not be higher. While it may occasionally be stressful, it should also be enjoyable so that you and the prospects look forward to your sales calls and meetings. When you take things too seriously, you exude a bad vibe that eventually contaminates potential customers. Even though you might not be aware of it, you are unintentionally upsetting them. Once more, sales can be stressful, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with them!

Being authentic is the solution.

It’s simpler to say than to do. And given that selling is all about telling stories, you might be wondering how you can be yourself there. Being yourself means approaching the sale in a way that comes naturally to you. Instead of hiding your distinctive personality, tell a story that brings it out.

Being true to yourself makes you more endearing by default. Additionally, prospects are more likely to respond positively to you when you are more likable. They will ultimately feel more comfortable trusting you because of that positive energy. And as you are already aware, the basis of a fruitful sales relationship is trust.

10. Not Looking Into Lead Research

It’s likely that if your leads approach you cold, they will get lost in a sea of other leads and never hear from you again. 

Thoroughly investigating your leads before contacting them is the solution.

This will not only give you more insight into the problems your prospects are experiencing, but it will also explain how you can assist them in resolving those problems.

11. Not placing enough emphasis on brand building

For a business or product to generate leads and leave a lasting impression, brand building is crucial. Most B2B marketers ignore this, and as a result, they suffer. The brand is the most effective way for your business to stand out from the competition, regardless of whether you are a developing business or seeking to develop a visionary product or service.

You can easily establish credibility by concentrating on emotional marketing and developing a strong brand identity, which will help you attract customers and inspire staff.

12. Pitch lacked originality

Despite the fact that creativity isn’t typically associated with B2B sales, the best marketers actively seek out new ways to prospect.

You can build a strong brand by starting with your prospects’ needs and how you can meet them. By thinking outside the box, B2B marketers can strengthen relationships with their customers. Being inventive makes you stand out. Gain their trust by sending them personalized, carefully targeted emails that read like a conversation.

13.  Neglecting to Interpret Your Results

It’s crucial to evaluate what went well in every interaction, whether it be a phone call or an in-person meeting. What could we do better?

Marketers can find opportunities to enhance the customer experience and work to develop solutions by comprehending their needs and goals.

14. Pitching Lack of Sensitivity and Humanity

B2B companies may occasionally come off as stuffy and formal, but creative people are aware that you don’t always have to use formal language to pique your audience’s interest. Giving a little bit more than is expected is the key to being edgy. If it is not genuine, you risk alienating people, especially millennials.

However, don’t be afraid to incorporate some edginess into your copywriting, as it can be done in a way that resonates with the emotions of your target audience.

15. Pitching while not familiar with your products

Knowing your product is even more important than knowing your customer. If you are unaware of the benefits your product offers, your potential customers won’t know what it achieves or how it will benefit them.

It is essential to conduct a thorough analysis of your product because doing so will help B2B marketers build a company that sells high-quality, problem-solving products. Any problems with a product ought to be clarified, and it’s worth ought to be determined.

 

That’s it for this blog BBC Member, remember to subscribe to our channel and if you feel like we’ve delivered value please share this blog with ONE person. That’s right just one person as a token of your appreciation for the hard work we put into making content that educates and helps you on your mission of building your own fortune. Remember you can read blog after blog, but it isn’t until you actually take action that you’ll start to see results. See you soon!

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How Much Does a Bad Salesperson Cost Your Organization?

Hello, people. Welcome to the BBC Youtube channel. After you hired Jeff, things started to go bad. Six months after hiring him, you decided to let Jeff go. This problem is familiar because people waste a lot of time interviewing potential employees, like salespeople do.

This has happened multiple times in the past, but most companies don’t understand the true cost of time lost due to employees leaving. Let me walk you through this. If you want more of this content, subscribe to the BBC Youtube channel and hit the notification bell.

 

The six months’ worth of salaries and benefits doesn’t tell the whole story, either. Organizations have also lost sales opportunities, management time and administrative costs as well as training costs over that period of time.

I am going to go over hard and soft costs, as well as some hidden costs which you may not be considering. This includes vacancy costs, replacement costs, customer costs and employee morale. If you have salespeople, please sit down before you finish watching this video.

For the past years, I have heard business owners, sales managers, vice presidents of sales, chief revenue officers and chief sales officers making their argument that they believe the only company’s loss of a bad hire is the money spent on an employee. But what most people know about hiring the wrong person is not true. Let’s look at the actual costs.

Let’s say a salesperson makes $50,000 up front. Next, they will earn $500,000 in cash over the course of the year. The total cost of their salary and benefits for the first six months is over $34,000. It may have also cost you an additional $5,000 to bring on an individual (e.g., advertising costs during recruitment, human resources costs of bringing one on). Sales training would cost an additional $4,000, and materials such as ads or flyers would cost another $5,300.

 

If Jeff had been successful, how much revenue would he have generated? Let’s say that his quota would have cost $250,000.

Would you have been more productive with more revenue if you had invested in going out and hiring a weekly writer? The cost of hiring someone to generate $1,700/week would have been just 15% of your annual salary—$17,000.

 

There are two real intangibles that impact this equation, employee morale and customer cost. If you have a bad resource, or they make customers go elsewhere, it not only creates disharmony in your team, it makes them work harder as well. What’s the lifetime value of a customer?

In the worst-case scenario, it’s estimated that a bad hire could cost you about six months of work for about $308,000. Add to this the loss in morale and customer count due to poorly done work.

With the help of assessments, you can find out if a potential hire has the skill set that will allow them to be successful in your sales department. These assessments are unbiased and give you an early gauge to their sales aptitude without hiring a costly training program like other companies would do.

 

Get sales behavioral agreements to better manage client performance.

Most of the people who complain a lot are usually the people who got themselves into the undesirable position in the first place.

 

Bad salespeople are a result of hiring recruitment problems.

Bad hires for sales staffers, like bad recruitment, can cost as much as 30 to 125 times the basic salary that your company has been paying that person. Bad management hires can also be very costly in the long run.

Recruitment is often considered a “chore,” which takes time away from your more urgent work. Instead of just hiring anything they can, consider paying one recruiter to make sure you are getting the attention you need and the quality of job candidate that you deserve.

If the company had taken more action to hire a better employee in place of the one who was ‘causing’ all these problems, then they probably would not be facing so many issues today.

So, how did you decide what you were looking for when it came to your job ad? Did you just look up an old one? Or did you design it specifically? Did you outline beforehand what the predictors of success would be for this role?

Identifying the best predictors of success in a sales role:

• Ambition and drive
• Accepts personal responsibility
• Sales prospecting
• Takes action
• Control and close
• Coachability
• Work ethic
• Repeated, consistent prior success
• Curiosity
• Intelligence

 

Displaying the ideal candidate is crucial, as recognizable professionals increase your likelihood of landing a job.

Create template job applications, interview questions to ensure you have the best candidates who can adapt to changing market conditions and be resilient to the challenges they will face.

 

Create a hiring scorecard so that you can compare characteristics and assess your personal feelings, stopping you from hiring someone who may be great at the interview but not able to do the job! Let’s be honest, sales people are brilliant at presenting themselves in an interview. This doesn’t mean they will succeed on their job regardless of what role they are interviewing for.

Hiring and paying a wrong sales hire will result in the single highest hidden cost in any business.

Set expectations from the outset, clarity throughout an offer and notice period, onboarding process, and throughout tenure in the business. Ambiguity is what can result in a mismatch of expectations.

Make sure to provide a clear onboarding process of 120 days from the start of the hire to the end of their probation period. Without this, even top A-players may not be up for.

 

Please be aware of the red flags that would lead to terminating your new hire early, in case they make a mistake. If they do, it is better to terminate them and recover quickly than wait until the moment damage is rendered.

Are you spending enough time training, coaching and mentoring your sales team members to perform at their best? This is your job as a manager. You want them to meet or exceed their potential. Are you observing, helping them develop call plans and debriefing from each experience?

 

What salary did they pay you? What are their commissions? What forms of benefits does the nonprofit offer employees? How much did you pay them? (basic salary, commissions, pension, health and life insurance)

The cost to run 1 salesperson can come anywhere from 3x salary to 300x salary. One rule of thumb is that it typically costs 3x what you would pay your salesperson per hour. What does that cost?

How much do you pay a salesperson? If they don’t generate leads, they’re not doing their job as they should. Therefore, when you hire a sales person who lacks results, what happens to your company’s budget-wise?

What could you have done with that time spent in line management? Consider the opportunity cost of spending 10-30 hours on line management in a recruitment cycle. With that amount of time, you could do something much more valuable with your career.

 

How much management time, HR meetings, and interviewing are tied up with each position? (For senior positions, this can take anywhere from 8-24 hours). How much management time is at risk due to internal discussion relative to the hourly rate? What could be lost if those hours were invested into other areas of the business instead?

What are you spending on monthly fees? Are they 20%, 25%, 30% of your basic salary, or do they charge a total package? What does that cost?

 

What is the interview-to-hire ratio at your company? Do you typically have to do screening with 3, 5, 10, or more candidates before you make a hire? How many interviews does that entail, and what are those cost implications?

The average salesperson starts off making about $250,000 in their first year.

How long do you need to ramp-up? 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, a year or longer than that? During this period of ramp-up, are your expectations of what percentage of the pro-rated first-year annual target they will fall short by? 20%, 40%? How much does this cost in cash terms and what does it mean for your bottom line?

What percentage of the target are the salespeople actually bringing home? If they aren’t at 100% percent of their target, how much does this cost per person in your company?

What is the average time you keep underperforming salespeople before firing them? What do those costs per salesperson mean for your company?

 

When you’ve hired someone who doesn‘t bring in customers, it actually costs more to fire them and search for a new employee.

Have you ever lost any customers because you hired the wrong person? Were they able to compete with your business while they were under your employments or is it worse if they left to work for a competitor? The number of years that they had you locked out of an account can be multiplied by the annual income you lost due to them leaving and then added up. This number can be used to determine the financial losses in your business.

 

How was the financial impact of these demands? How many accounts did they close that cost your company? What’s the potential impact to your business?

How much money did your account leave on the table? Will it create opportunities for your competition? What are the potential losses you’re now facing, despite being fired by them? How many of your accounts that have equal or lesser potential for growth, will they grow now that they’ve been updated to avoid people like that bad salesperson associated with them?

What is the estimated yearly cost savings if you deduct the money that these customers have left on the table? Equating to cash value, what is the approximate yearly cost of customer renewal, maintenance and cross-sells, upsells, and referrals that use this technology?

Is the number of clients your prospect is buying from, and (1) the number they should have bought as soon as they signed up, and (2) the average lifetime value for a client who has just signed up worth worrying about?

LCV = AOV x AOF x CL + R

LCV = Lifetime Customer Value

AOV = Average Order Value

AOF = Average Order Frequency

R = Annual Referrals’ Value

If our AOV is £5,000 and their AOF costs four times a year, they stay a client for four years and we bring them twelve referrals. If they have lost us ($1,200) with an average lifetime customer value of $800 would it be fair to say that they have so far cost us ($960,000)? Is that correct?

 

Understand this depressing fact. Your company’s new hire’s salary and running costs, the recruitment fees, training costs, and other expenses barely matter when you factor in the hidden costs of a bad hire!

What percentage of your sales team is currently hitting the target?

How much time have you allowed underperformance in your sales team before making the decision to fire them and hire new ones?

What is the potential loss due to the sales team members leaving so quickly?

Bad sales hires can be expensive. Even experienced sales leaders may be surprised to learn just how expensive they can be, even with a background in sales.

The company has wasted money on recruitment costs and potential lost business when the person they hired failed to work out.

There isn’t a shortage of definitions that define what constitutes a bad hire, but there are some common signs:

The salesperson is consistently in the bottom 20% of all salespeople, even after the ramp-up period.

 

Salesperson error rates are at an all-time high.

While they don’t perform well on their first attempt, they bring in new revenue that is easy to monetize. The customers are low-value, and there isn’t much room for growth.

The salesperson is unwilling to dedicate time and effort into ongoing, personalized training.

 

Team members say that the person in question does not collaborate, which creates a negative work environment. Being on their team doesn’t appear to offer many benefits either, as the individuals do not contribute significantly to the group initiatives.

Their lack of engagement may impact others.

In a call to a customer or prospect, the salesperson’s behavior is not professional and hurts their organization.

If your new hire is a bad fit, he or she may be displaying these traits. A bad hire means that you have put in the time and money for someone who will likely not perform.

So, how much is replacing this bad employee really costing? The answer to that is complicated. According to a number of estimates, a bad sales hire costs between 50-75% of the annual salary of the hire. That means an employee who makes $50,000 annually costs between $25,000 and $37,500 to replace.

Bad employees usually stay on for a year, which can be a significant amount of money. Since no commission is earned by bad hires, your company will have no commission to lose, though the base salary alone can be beyond amazing.

 

A business incur a reduced cost by not paying for benefits each year. Insuring a person doesn’t mean that you are going to continue to pay for their health insurance, accessibility or disability. You can calculate your average cost in 2018 if none has been provided. Some companies spend $5,655 on this annually, with sales professionals costing $228 yearly and a single full-time employee on average spending $228 per year.

Hiring costs: Hiring a new person isn’t cheap. You’ll need to pay fees to recruitment companies and job ads, travel expenses for interviews, background checks, and the work from employees who participate in the recruitment process. Depending on your process, you might spend $25,000 or more for a single hire.

The cost of getting new employees office equipment varies. The cost of your employee’s personal laptop, chair, etc. can range from $500 to $1,500.

Companies might incur costs including but not specific to pay trainers, technology, and possible outside expenses when training a new sales hire. $10,000 is the ballpark figure.

Employees are given severance pay and HR expenses when they are fired from their job. The total cost is around $10,000.

With certain hires, companies can expect to lose a large amount of money because they don’t bring in the sales they expected. With an average SDR at your company generating $500,000 in revenue annually, this means a loss of $300,000 for lost business. This can have rippling effects in future years. The customer you didn’t land in year 1 means lost revenue in years 2 and beyond, even if the bad hire is gone.

 

That’s it for this video BBC Member, remember to subscribe to our channel and if you feel like we’ve delivered value please share this video with ONE person. That’s right just one person as a token of your appreciation for the hard work we put into making content that educates and helps you on your mission of building your own fortune. Remember you can watch video after video, but it isn’t until you actually take action that you’ll start to see results. See you soon!

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15 Ways to Make Sales Prospecting Fun

Hello, people. Welcome to the BBC Youtube channel. Modern sales agencies have a different set of criteria for generating leads; rather than rejecting in order to find success, they now want quality leads. The idea that it takes 10 “no’s” to get one “yes”, is no longer the case.

The only way to hit targets is to find new prospects, which can be tedious, intimidating, and outright discouraging. But in today’s competitive market, sales reps are still tasked with finding leads. If you want more of this content, subscribe to the BBC Youtube channel and hit the notification bell.

 

By practicing in sales prospecting games, you can overcome the intimidation and boredom of this activity. Here are a few to get you started:

Candy Jar

Every time a prospect says “no,” put a piece of candy in a jar. When you reach 10 pieces, the odds are on your side that you’ll reach someone who is interested in talking with you soon. This way, you can track the jar and watch it slowly fill up knowing that you’re getting closer to reaching someone who wants to talk with you. If pennies aren’t your thing, try putting chocolate chips into jars instead!

Whiteboard Willy

Create a fun whiteboard chart with columns for the days of the week and rows for sales reps’ names. Each day, insert the number of conversations and see who has the most interactions. Give daily prizes to the winners — whether it’s Dollar Store gag gifts or Starbucks gift cards.

Connections

Monitor how many prospecting calls different employees made and determine who connected with the most people, set appointments, or had the most calls happen to them. The loser buys some drinks or lunch for the team. If a set number of calls occurred in a given week, the manager can buy for the team!

Luck of the Draw

With a deck of cards, you write the number of prospects you want to make calls to. Mix up the cards, then place them face down and have everyone draw one. Now call until that number is reached. When you reach your goal, receive a reward.

Ring That Bell!

Ringing a bell can help increase employee efficiency by increasing motivation to work harder and persevere in the face of challenges. We suggest using an old-school bell around the office.

Prospect Take Down

Great role-playing technique. Vocally imitate the toughest prospects you can imagine so that other reps know what it’s like when handling a tough customer.

Improve Acting

Break up the monotony of selling by improv acting for one hour! By distributing a bunch of different feelings and descriptors on index cards, have sales reps choose one. They’ll talk themselves into their chosen feelings throughout the call.

These ideas are just the tip of the iceberg. You can get creative with these games in any way that you’d like. Just keep in mind that you want to increase appointment rates.

More Prospecting Games to Play

If you’re consistently hunting, you’re cold calling every week. Here are 3 other prospecting games to keep it interesting.

Partner Up

Create partnerships with one or two reps, either virtually or in person. Make sure to set up appointments for 2-hour blocks of time. If someone sets more appointments, they win small prizes and bragging rights.

Improv Club

Bored with your list? Get a partner and play improv. Share a new list, switch opening statements, and call on prospects. Once you’re done, compare stories.

LinkedIn Cribbage

Grab a cribbage board with pegs and a score sheet for the game board. Divide up the phone prospecting in two ways: calls set during the first hour and LinkedIn messages made during the second hour. Use one side of the board to track appointments from each of these tasks, making sure to alternate over time.

How Sales Prospecting Games Increase Your Success Rate

Your message resonates with your audience, and makes you interesting to talk to. Without careful consideration, you could sound too scripted and lose your edge.

With your daily schedule set in stone, you may not be able to find the best opportunities when engaging with prospects. Just like driving the same route day in and day out, you may overlook key openings on a call.

Prospect games help you stay focused and engaged by keeping your mind on the game at all times. It tightens your attention when other things could sabotage calls, helping you to avoid closing difficult gatekeepers. These attributes are important in a call, as they get past difficult gatekeepers and close more appointments.

Schedule a Cold Call Blitz Day

First, you create plans for your product development and sales teams so you can both develop a marketing strategy. Then, we choose a game for the team to play in order to market your products.

Each blitz day begins with a motivational kickoff, breaks past barriers and is more successful than the last.

At the end of a training call, we will share our observations and extension plans with you to share the success.

Sales success largely depends on routines. There are only so many hours in a day to sell– The more practiced salespeople are at completing everyday tasks, the more time they can allocate to high-value activities like meeting with prospects or learning new skills.

Sticking to the same method of prospecting will not always have an advantage, because buyers may never be discovered through traditional methods. However, if you are considering new innovative ways to prospect for new clients, you’ll miss out on some significant opportunities.

 

These commenters may not interact with you for being an unknown business or for not being experienced in the field. They might be unaware of their problem, so they’re unlikely to download your content or speak to a salesperson.

Creative prospecting techniques will help you find quality prospects to add to your network. Here are ideas that can spark your imagination:

Create a Website for Referrals

For businesses, it’s important to have a website customers and contacts can use to forward referrals. Bill Cates, a sales referral expert, suggests creating this simple website.

If a salesperson is calling and marketing their product as an investment, the headline might read something like: “With [main value of salesperson’s product], your business can thrive” or “Putting [main value of salesperson’s product] in your company will make you more profitable.”

For those who want to take their branding strategy to the next level, Cate suggests a video introduction. Introducing yourself and explaining why you are passionate about your product can introduce new customers to your brand and thank them for their time.

Ask yourself these questions:

Why am I in this business?

Why do I believe in the work I do?

Why am I with the company I’m with now?

Why am I excited about the company I’m with?

Why am I more excited about this work than I’ve ever been before in my career?

You will want to remind your prospects what to do next. Give them valuable content in exchange for their name and email address, or schedule a meeting with them through a tool like Meetings.

Form Strategic Alliances

Instead of selling to your audience on your own, partner with another company with a similar audience to sell to their buyers too. You’ll each get qualified leads, and in addition to that, you’ll also be able to learn valuable insights on buying trends. Use this technique as a form of co-marketing; both companies will increase sales as they gain information.

If you’re not sure who to target, try identifying the other products your target audience uses before discovering which companies provide those products. Once you have your list of top providers, take a look at their website to identify which subsidiaries they offer.

Suppose you sell accounting services to start-ups. By asking your customers about other purchases they make in the same price range, you could find that they outsource their legal needs. Then, you might reach out to legal service providers and agree to send each other a certain number of referrals a quarter.

 

With your input, you can help them leave behind up to two months of time and get their legal needs done in only two weeks.

In case you are sure which non-competing companies your customers purchase from, ask these questions:

“Are you considering anything else as a potential purchase?”

“What’s the last product you bought?”

“Where do you plan to invest next?”

“What other challenges are you experiencing?”

“What other needs do you plan on addressing?”

Attend Your Customers’ Events

People interested in your products are more likely to be looking for related products, and events will provide them this information. That’s why events hosted by your customers are naturally a great place to find prospects.

It’s worthwhile to stay in touch with customers after they’ve signed the contract. Reach out to them every 3 months and ask how they’re doing, ask about their experience, offer them your expert opinion, show you care about their company, or connect them with someone that would benefit from knowing them.

With strong connections and consistent value provided, customers are more likely to want to invite you to events. Monitor their website and/or subscribe to their newsletter for event updates. Ask your customer “Is there an event coming up?” If they respond positively, you can grab tickets yourself.

Send Them a Book

Sending someone a book can generally go very well. Corporations, employees, and even CEOs appreciate receiving packages, and many people are only willing to get off their butt to call or email you back if they receive one as well. Lastly, you’re able to demonstrate your expertise by choosing a book that reflects the needs of your prospect.

To use this technique with an individual prospect, identify one to three topics she would likely be interested in. The person might be the director of human resources at a mid-sized software company. According to information we have obtained from similar prospects, she will most likely be focused on shrinking average time-to-hire, improving two-year retention and creating more professional development opportunities. Use these priorities to find a book with relevant advice or case studies. (If you’re struggling finding something, ask similar prospects for their favorite work-related reads or search “[pain point] best books” and “best books for [prospect’s industry].

 

Send the book to your prospect and include an email telling them why they may be interested in reading it.

Here is a sample template:

Dear [prospect name],

 

Are you struggling with X, looking to capitalize on Y, or concerned with the Z trend? This book could be helpful to you in this area. I found the specific tip/section/explanation of chapter X especially useful.

 

Best,

[Your name]

 

Most mail carriers allow you to request a signature upon delivery for an additional fee. Take advantage of this option by calling or emailing your prospect as soon as you find out the package has been received.

Say something similar, like, “Hi [prospect name], I wanted to schedule a time to discuss the concepts in your book. What are your thoughts on [date and time]?”

If you seem like a pleasant person and they have time, you have a good chance of getting a meeting.

Offer Complimentary Consulting Sessions

When time is one of the most precious resources for salespeople, getting nothing in return might seem unethical. However, it can be a great way to find good-fit prospects.

First, define your ideal customers: The industry they work in, the market they’re located in, and their role. Then you can identify either an issue that’s relevant to many of these companies or one that is unique to them.

In this case, the bio-pharmaceutical salesperson might cover how difficult it can be for research companies to get funding for their projects.

These workshops offer help every step of the way, from setting up a presentation to helping with packaging and more. The time you set for your workshop depends on the size of the issue and what your customers desire from you. If you have few clients, make your sessions longer. For those who are looking for quick solutions, a shorter amount of time works best.

 

These consultations will let you be seen as an expert in space. When prospects are looking for solutions to their problems, you’ll naturally be one of their first choices.

You can also use this technique to connect with referrals. Tell your current customers you’re providing free consultations on a specific challenge, then ask if they know anyone dealing with that challenge.

Become a Matchmaker

You should try asking prospects if they’re looking to hire new workers or buy more (goods).

Pose the question, “Can you describe your ideal [supplier, employee, partner, customer]?”

Utilize the criteria provided by your prospect to find potential candidates. This will help you build a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship with a customer that seems like they were made just for you.

Start or Join a Niche Group

Associating with groups helps prospects find you. For example, if you sell building supplies to local contractors, research groups for local real-estate investors, realtors, contractors, and architects.

If in-person meetings are where you want to attend, make and attend meetings regularly, get to know attendees, and even get a chance to speak at any one of these events. You’ll make important connections with quality prospects that will be more likely to remember you when the time comes for them to cooperate with you, such as when it’s time for you to order some supplies or need recommendations from their business partners.

Online groups are a good way to grow your customer base. First, start with something referred to as a cold outreach. This involves contacting potential customers and not immediately pitching something related to you or your company. Begin by getting to know the people in the group, adding value by answering questions and sharing useful information.

 

In cases where you are engaged in a customer-to-customer exchange and asking for further information, communicating privately rather than publicly makes the sale more likely. Proactively sharing your message with potential customers is spamming or annoying when it does not produce desired results.

If you have any questions regarding what they clicked “Like” on, choose to wait before sending a message. Make sure what they liked is still relevant, and match the answer to their knowledge level. If not, then just send it as a follow-up without needing to ask what they clicked “Like” on.

That’s it for this blog BBC Member, remember to subscribe to our channel and if you feel like we’ve delivered value please share this blog with ONE person. That’s right just one person as a token of your appreciation for the hard work we put into making content that educates and helps you on your mission of building your own fortune.  Remember you can read blog after blog, but it isn’t until you actually take action that you’ll start to see results. See you soon!

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How to Stop Other Companies From Stealing Your Best Salespeople

Hello, people. Welcome to the BBC Youtube channel. COVID-19 has made it harder to experience poaching, but in good times and bad, talented salespeople are always in demand.

BBC member, after your next sales meeting, you might want to start thinking about what you can do in order to avoid losing your salespeople. If you want more of this content, subscribe to the BBC Youtube channel and hit the notification bell.

Incentivize them with more than money

Let me go on record and explain that the money incentives don’t work if you are grossly underpaying your employees. Sure, it is important to pay them enough so they can support themselves and their families, but there is more to maintaining an employee than just money. Rewarding your employees with meaningful rewards is a good idea if they like what they do, which will keep them around.

If you do not know how to properly motivate your salespeople, you need to learn what motivates them. Different people have different preferences. Some like tangible rewards; others prefer intangible ones.

As an employee, I once won an award that was particular to me because he recognized me with a special reward – a beautiful sculpture. While the second and third placers each received lesser sculptures, mine was significantly larger, more wonderful and will always be remembered because of its special treatment. Merely winning the prize wasn’t enough though; I also received my dream trip and will never forget how much I like this boss so dearly.

 

Have you told a top performer to take a one-day leave from work because they deserve it? Work is always appreciated. A note from the CEO or higher-ranking manager can be great motivation for someone to stick around and do their job well. Sometimes paying an employee better isn’t enough of an incentive to make them want to stay with a company long-term.

It is not worth it to change how your salespeople are paid when they’re making so much money.

 

Unless your salespeople are working with a multi-million dollar company, they should be making at least $100 a day. Salespeople in service and retail positions should make between $100 to $200 a day according to the owner of Grow Financial Services who made it his priority to create a high-earning environment for his team of financial advisors.

Some employers view offering their salespeople high compensation as incentive to work harder. However, there is a different company owner which differs in opinion. The company says they are motivated by their fear of having workers too confident and thus costly.

If you want to keep your best salespeople, the answer is not necessarily more money. If you can help them get better deals and close more business, then you increase your chances of winning by a significant margin.

 

The role of a coach is to facilitate goals through encouragement, so that their clients or employees will be able to perform at their peak. Managers work on increasing team performance primarily by giving feedback.

You can maximize performance when you provide positive and constructive criticism from the perspective of the behaviors that are the most effective. Appropriate negative criticism is helpful in that it might help stop behaviors that are causing lost sales instead.

 

One way to offer negative feedback is to point out a behavior you noticed, and then ask the salesperson what they thought about it. If the salesperson still thinks this unsuccessful behavior is working, you can then ask: “Why didn’t your customer do (the behavior that you expected)? In a non-threatening way, you are challenging specific behaviors that should produce sales successes.

Another way to ensure the best performance from your sales team is for managers to remove obstacles that prevent them from being successful. Ask your salespeople what might cause them problems and change a process here or there so they can be more productive. You might find that a simple process change helps a salesperson to be more productive with their work.

For example, one manager found that a simplification of an order taker’s job function made it easier for the salesperson to get more customers with which to schedule appointments. The order taker’s job was expanded so that they would confirm the appointment of the salesperson. This resulted in the salesperson having more time to set up more appointments and fewer customers canceling or missing appointments because all appointments were now confirmed.

 

To earn their paycheck, good salespeople remain with the company when competitors ask them to leave. Your customers trust that your sales reps are committed, so can you?

In a tough competitive market, nobody wants to lose their best salesperson. A truly great salesperson is a rare find, only making up 10-15% of the workforce– so when you have them, it’s important you hold onto them. Not only can the loss of a salesperson cost an organization in efficiency, morale and the bottom line, but you’ll also lose an invaluable source of expertise and cause disruption within your team– if that person’s territory is left unattended for too long you may miss out on key sales deals and revenue.

Younger people in the workforce tend to be more productive and have better skills. As a result, retention is greater among younger people than it is for older employees.

Pay the right salaries

Though job satisfaction isn’t all about money, one of the biggest factors that influence whether a sales representative leaves a company is whether they feel like they are being adequately compensated for their work. Salespeople are ambitious and expect to be paid the right amount; if not, they may well leave.

Pay attention to the salary and bonus packages you’re offered. Are they high enough to be competitive in the market? What are competitors offering? Trends in the industry and consumer expectations are changing all the time.

Incentivize and reward well

People are more likely to work harder if they feel respected. With this in mind, your company can do what it takes to reward and recognize hard work by implementing a rewards and recognition program.

Recognizing your top performers is not only rewarding but it pays off tenfold with employee satisfaction. Recognizing your people is more than just a thank you, but it keeps morale high and manages to motivate them.

Offer promotion opportunities

Sales professionals want more than a job – they want a career, and are motivated by the potential for promotion. The demand for increased advancement and compensation is what leads most sales types to leave their current positions.

With 51% of workers leaving their job due to better opportunities coming along, it is necessary that you don’t make the same mistake: you need to help your top salespeople advance in their careers either through internal promotions or through allowing them to take on more responsibilities in their current role or they will likely leave.

Offer development opportunities

According to a study, 68% of employees value in-house training, and the most important workplace benefit is Organizing a number of different training sessions. Lead by setting up conferences and training days for these top performers. As one out of three employees say that uninspiring training was a major hurdle in their work day, making learning more fun will result in less barriers. Investing your time into getting it right will provide for a more engaged workforce.

Coach your top performers

If your top performers aren’t receiving the coaching they need to advance in their career, then how have they been getting better at their job? 84% of sales training is lost after 90 days – that means you waste $450K each and every year. Benchmark surveys examining the importance of coaching in improving performance show that it can help people get promoted, outperform expectations, and increase persistence. It would be a great investment if you did anything other than having your top performers come into meetings with you or listen to calls with them.

Make sure they have all the tools they need

The transition from an in-person sales operation to a remote one is leaving many sales representatives in the dust and, as a result, they’re feeling unaccomplished and unmotivated. From chatbots to video conferencing equipment, it’s important for companies to equip their employees with the right tools so they can be efficient.

Source the best talent with BMS performance

Whether you are looking to retain your sales staff or source new star hires, our team of expert recruitment consultants can advise you. Let’s talk about how we can kickstart your recruitment process; get in touch with us, or browse our blog for more insights on recruitment.

If you have great talent in your team, their talents can be quickly lost. It’s just the nature of the beast. To keep top talents while retaining them, it is important to offer satisfactory work and a sense of personal fulfillment.

These are some of the best paying sales jobs:

Real estate agent

Insurance sales

Financial services sales agent

Wholesale sales representative

Advertising sales representative

Medical sales

Travel agents

Pharmaceutical sales representative

Software sales rep

That’s it for this blog BBC Member, remember to subscribe to our channel and if you feel like we’ve delivered value please share this blog with ONE person. That’s right just one person as a token of your appreciation for the hard work we put into making content that educates and helps you on your mission of building your own fortune.  Remember you can read blog after blog, but it isn’t until you actually take action that you’ll start to see results. See you soon!

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