On an almost daily basis, I find myself talking to organizations who are looking for advice on how to increase sales, close deals faster and drive results for better sales growth. What blows my mind is that with very few exceptions, all of these organizations are doing the same things, using the same old traditional sales methods, chasing the same carrots at the end of the same sticks.
If you want to break the cycle of ineffective, inefficient sales efforts, you have to change up the game. I am going to give you three game-changing methods to amp up your sales. Based on my years of experience working with and managing salespeople, I feel like these three concepts are keys to driving sales growth:
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Key 1: Quality, not Quantity
If you are of the mindset (or are being told) that you should speak with anyone at anytime, you are wasting time. To sell better and faster, you have to maximize your time, and your time is not best used speaking with prospects that are not a good fit. Begin with developing an ideal buyer profile — a description of a fictitious account which can derive significant value from your product or service, and provides value to your company that is worthy of your attention. Find the common attributes of your happiest customers, e.g. revenue, number of employees, type of business, web technologies in use, geography or sales signals that occurred right before they became your customers. Once you have this framework built, go over your current pipeline and kick out all prospects that do not match your profile. Moving forward, focus all of your efforts only on prospects that fit your ideal buyer profile.
Key 2: Lights Out Messaging
The best sales reps know how to effectively tell their personal and company story, and communicate it with passion and confidence.Everyone loves a good story and if you want to engage your prospect and keep their attention, you must captivate them with an authentic, unique and meaningful message. Don’t take this lightly. If you can’t effectively communicate your story, stay away from prospects until you can. As salespeople we only get one shot! We have to make it count.
Building the story should be packaged in three categories: The Why (why do you do what you do: authentic), The How (how do you do it: unique) and The What (what is it that you do: meaningful). You will be tempted to place the what in front of the how, but don’t do it. Stick to this structure and you will develop a lights out message.
Key 3: Deliver Ideas and Knowledge
If you want to sell at a higher velocity, you must develop a framework for education. By education, I am referring to increasing your knowledge specific to your industry and the industries that you sell into and that fit your ideal buyer profile. Develop a daily habit of learning by subscribing to relevant blogs (like this one, of course), bookmarking websites and setting up alerts in your news feeds. Follow industry thought leaders and influencers on social media. In today’s selling environment, it is critical that you present yourself as someone whom is credible and competent. If you cannot do that, you will find yourself on a slippery slope. If you have knowledgeable staff that you can leverage, do it. Bring them with you on a call or have them on a conference call. The more knowledge and ideas that you can present, the higher the likelihood that you will win the business.
