The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

We all have a choice to make. That choice is what we’re going to do for the next 20 weeks of the year. We can continue to worry, fret, blame, and sit on the couch (if you're not doing any of those things - hurrah for you!). But we can also take the opportunity to be the Comeback Kid. 

Twenty weeks is a long time. That's 100 working days, with a few holidays thrown in. We encourage you to continue the activity that got you where you were before this pandemic struck. And, while we always encourage you to visualize the win, it's the plays in between that are really important. How can you win each day? What activities should you do to get you to the finish line? And, are you doing those activities to the best of your ability?

Sales structures look different for all organizations depending on the industry, size of the team, product, and the sales process. As your company and people evolve or as things change in your business sector, your sales structure should change as well in order to maintain a competitive advantage.

Companies that identify the need to change sales structure continue to grow, while those who ignore it find themselves struggling to meet sales goals and stay competitive. According to the recent Media Sales report, 60% of sales managers don’t feel they have the right number of salespeople on their team. This leads to a couple important questions:

• Is it the number of people on your team that needs adjustment?
• Or is it the sales structure and expectations aren’t in line with sellers’ true talents?

The market's uncertainty has left many companies with an uncomfortable and frustrating bloated feeling in their sales pipeline.

Even before the pandemic, you could have easily convinced me that compensation plans changed radically and that people in sales were getting paid based on pending business. Every time I asked a salesperson how they were doing, I received the same response: "I’ve got a lot pending!”

Pre-pandemic, I reviewed over 500 proposals from various B2B sales organizations over the course of six months. These were all legitimate proposals, actually presented to a prospect or client. Based on those proposals, and the bloated pipeline many of you are experiencing today,  here's some valuable insight on how to close more business.

How fast does your team move when a lead comes in? A lead response study of 2,241 US companies showed that the average first response time of B2B companies to their leads was 42 hours.

A quality lead degrades over time. Every aspect, from the channel you select to the amount of time you take to respond, impacts your prospect’s decision. Whether you conduct your sales outreach by phone, email, or social media, timing is crucial — and here’s the data to back it up.

From being quarantined in our homes to keeping six feet apart and avoiding handshakes, the way we interact with other humans has drastically changed. In the business environment, the normal behaviors and tactics that salespeople have relied on to drive their success are no longer available. We can no longer drop by to see a client, meet a prospect for lunch, or fly to another city for a face-to-face meeting. More and more selling is now being conducted over the phone and via email.

And this isn’t a short-term trend. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports that “a new normal has developed for businesses of all sizes across nearly all industries, with changes likely to endure even after COVID-19 is a thing of the past.” We may have lost a few tools from our sales toolbox, but we’re going to replace them with new ones that we can use to build relationships and advance the sale.

Sales enablement. Is it a buzzword or just a misunderstood word?

DEFINITION OF SALES ENABLEMENT: Sales Enablement encompasses the technology, strategy, processes, and content that empower sales teams to sell smarter and faster. It’s about providing salespeople with what they need in order to successfully and strategically engage the buyer throughout the buying process. Why wouldn't you want it?

When dealing with severe levels of change, it’s natural to reign in and hyper-focus on the activity we feel is most essential to surviving and thriving in that environment. In sales, that core activity would include things like the need to continue identifying quality prospects, connecting with decision makers, and discovering their needs and desired business results.

Activity is important, but a knee jerk reaction to keep approaching those activities the way you always have will not be effective when business cycles are at their most volatile.

Grow, the sixth and final step in the Sales Accelerator Process is often-overlooked and underutilized—despite having hidden revenue-generating opportunities. Closing deals is the ultimate goal in sales, but it’s not where the work ends with clients. Salespeople should start to care about the renewal the moment they make the sale.

It costs five times more to attract a new customer than it does to retain an existing one. One of the biggest untapped opportunities for increasing sales and growing annual revenue is renewal and growing existing accounts. To do that, you set up regular meetings with clients to review campaign results and make adjustments along the way. You keep your promises, sell success, and grow the account.

As a sales manager, do you feel like some of your veteran sellers struggle with new business development? It’s no secret that the recent downturn in revenue has shifted the focus to new business sales initiatives. Unfortunately, many sellers are struggling in this area of new business development. They are showing signs of call reluctance—the fear of taking a step in the sales process, fear of rejection, and fear of the unknown.

Call reluctance is very common; in fact, studies show 40% of salespeople will experience episodes of call reluctance, despite their years of experience or product knowledge. And while this anxiety feels unbeatable, you can help sellers overcome it by determining its root case and building a strategy.

Having a strategic sales process goes far beyond knowing how to close a deal. If your goal is to drive sales performance and increase revenue, stay true to a repeatable sales process that leads to predictable sales.

The six steps of the Sales Accelerator lead salespeople from identifying a good prospect to developing a business relationship that results from the sale of your solution. Making it to step five—Close—means the finish line is in sight. But we’ve all heard the phrase, “the end depends on the beginning, and everything in between.”