Improving Sales Results

In today’s hypercompetitive sales environment, one of the most enduring sources of competitive advantage is a skilled, confident, and thoroughly professional sales team—with the knowledge, experience and processes to consistently add value to your customers’ high-level decision makers and develop long-term profitable customer relationships.

Change is often the hardest thing to accept and even more difficult to put into practice. Salespeople resist change and usually dislike doing many of the things necessary to create better results. The real "power" in selling rests in your understanding of how to effectively negotiate. Understanding the principles below will help you "change" for the better, with results you can be proud of.  

• People buy based on emotion, never on the technical aspects of your product or service. Technical information will be used to support the reasons behind the sale, but emotion is what triggers the buying process. Negotiating the sale relies upon your ability to "emotionally" create the imagery surrounding the customers needs, wants, and desires. The only way to this is by asking questions that get the customer to talk freely with you. Uncovering the emotional hot-buttons of your customer will increase the odds of making the sale.
  
• It's not enough to just ask questions, you've got to ask the "right kinds of questions." Anyone can ask a question, and most salespeople understand this part of the process. Very few, however, know how to position questions in such a way that not only provides information, but also a pleasant experience.

Analytical:

How does your sales force measure up?  

• profitability analysis.
• Analysis of conversion rates
• Identification of problems, and their cause

Consultative:

Knows customers and their needs well enough to discover unknown problems and create profit-improvement opportunities. Operates confidently at executive decision-making levels. These rare professionals may provide 80% of your profits.

Solution:

Can process a lot of information to solve known customer problems and manage complex customer relationships. Operates confidently at operational and technical decision-making levels.

Optimizing your Lead Management

In many companies, the acquisition and distribution of leads to sales or channel partners is marketing’s responsibility.

Leads come in from multiple sources:

sales, advertising, direct mail, trade shows, call centers, Web site, articles, referrals, and telemarketing.

Marketing develops campaigns, campaigns generate demand, and this demand generates sales opportunities. At the point of hand-off from marketing to sales, leads commonly get cold.

Marketing keeps sending over leads, but receives little or no feedback on their status.

The salesforce historically ignores leads from marketing for a variety of reasons.

Marketing creates the leads, but the sales department continually bemoans the lack of quality leads. The bottom line is that marketing efforts are generating low numbers of qualified leads. Even if the lead is good, enterprises might not be able to get the right lead to the right person at the right time in order to convert it into a sale.

Increase your close rate

Many companies spend a significant percentage of sales revenue on marketing campaigns. Most of that effort is dedicated to creating new business opportunities. Many companies struggle with the process of acquiring inquiries, turning them into solid prospects, and converting the prospects into orders.

Feature-Advantage-Benefit:

Sales is the growth engine of any company, so you're relied on by your company every day. Many companies have found the way to success - but the bar keeps getting raised.

Knowing the product extremely well with all positive and negative perspectives and beeing able to connect it exactly to customer requirements is an important issue for an optimized market merchandizing.

In a highly competitive market, you either compete on price, or you compete on added values and a pleasant buying experience.