Do You Know Your Sales Process Cold?

Jake Sanders - How many prospects do you have right now that you have had your initial discovery call with but haven’t closed? My guess is 98%! Well, it’s not really a guess because according to FollowUpSuccess, only 2% of sales are made on the first contact.

So 2% of the time, a prospect is going to lay a deal right on your lap. Fantastic. Congrats. Btw...that is NOT sales my friend. That’s order taking.

Ok, well then how do you close the other 98%?

Following up is a great start, but the previous article also points out that 80% of all sales are made between the fifth and twelfth contact, meaning the first, second or even third follow-up just isn’t enough.

If you don’t know your sales process like the back of your hand, then today is the day to learn! Stop whatever you are doing right now, get out a piece of paper, and write down your company’s successful sales process. Keep in mind that your company may have multiple sales processes based on the different products/services it sells.

Once you have it written down in front of you, take a look at your pipeline and figure out where each deal is in the process and exactly what your next step needs to be. Call and follow-up to make sure the prospect received additional info, examples, proposals or proposal reviews. Finally, ask for the close and collect the money. There you have it.

Now that you know the true next step, you can handle it with confidence and get each deal moving in a positive direction. The key here is knowing exactly why you are following up and having that plan ready before you pick up the phone or draft the email. It sounds really simple and obvious, but the reality is that almost 75% of all salespeople will never make more than two attempts to follow-up with a prospect.

This means that simply knowing your sales process and executing the right steps at the right time already puts you ahead of the average joe salesman. That little bit of extra effort is what will propel you to close more deals!

Jake Sanders is the Vice President of Sales at Richter10.2 Media Group. For more information about Richter10.2, check out our introduction video here.

Are You Recruiting Your Prospects to Close?

Jake Sanders- If you follow the world of college athletics (specifically NCAA Division 1 Basketball, give me a break I'm from Kentucky!), there was an interesting article published on ESPN today.

The article pertains to a rule change allowing coaches to contact recruits via phone calls, text messages, Facebook, Twitter messages, etc. There will be many schools, families and recruits that will embrace this opportunity to use today’s more contemporary (and preferred) communication methods to connect with recruiters and college programs.

After all, coaches are trying to do the exact same thing you are as a salesperson: CLOSE the deal. After reading the article, I asked myself, “Do I know how my prospects and clients prefer to be communicated with? Could this be the reason I am having a hard time reaching certain prospects?” Ask yourself the same question.

Your prospects are always giving you signs and signals on how to find and communicate effectively with them. They’re practically giving you an electronic roadmap. If a prospect puts their cell-phone and LinkedIn profile on their email signature, they are telling you it is okay to connect with them using these methods.

Listen to them and take advantage of this opportunity. Don’t ignore these tips from them and continue to pound their desk phone line and leave the same follow up message. Call their cell or send them an invitation to connect on LinkedIn (once they have accepted, don’t forget to send them a direct message asking for what it is you need!). You may find that a prospect who seems impossible to catch at their office is quick to respond to a call on their cell or a text.

Now with all this being said, remember to be professional and not a stalker. If a prospect doesn’t give you their cell-phone, don’t try to get it from someone else at their office. Odds are it won’t sit well with them. Be smart and use today’s available technology to communicate more effectively with your target.

It will help you close more deals.

Jake Sanders is the Vice President of Sales at Richter10.2 Media Group. For more information about Richter10.2, check out our introduction video here. You can find more content from Jake on his website, Sales Snacks, here. 

Effort to Effortless

Robert Cornish: I'm sure it's real to you that sometimes things take a little more effort than planned for. If you were to push a car that was out of gas, it would take some effort to get the thing rolling, but once you gained some momentum, it would practically roll itself.
 
In any situation in business, you can handle or overcome obstacles with sheer effort. In other words, if you were trying to make one sale, had three prospects and all three cycles were not closing - you could go get 30 prospects and take a huge amount of effort to work all 30 and some would close - agreed?

And so it goes with your prospecting activities, sales and revenue. While you can read business book after book on the topic, the funny thing is, some problems are so simple that we overlook them. Just sheer effort can change your entire company.

You've seen the person on the basketball court who just works harder. Just hustles more and takes more effort than the others. That person seems to eventually get all the balls and score the points.

Well, this applies to business as well. If you're not completely satisfied with your current growth rate, sales results or revenue numbers - I'd suggest taking a lot more effort. Perhaps you're not doing enough now?

If you were pummeling your sales team with new reaches (sales leads) each week one after the next so much so that they needed to get an assistant to help organize them - or if you created an assault of new videos for every product, service and value proposition for your company and then posted them on every square inch of the web as well as emailed every prospect about it - you would impact your numbers positively.

At first, this would seem like a lot of effort because it's well above what you're doing now, but after doing it consistently, you would start to see new business calling and emailing you almost effortlessly.

So think in terms of effort. Push yourself to take far too much effort and the result will be in line with what you're looking for.

With all that said, our team can help carry the burden for some of the effort. In fact, we love it! So bring it on. Let us help drive your sales with our strategic relations program and videos. We'll make effort look good.

Robert Cornish is the CEO and Cofounder of Richter10.2 Media Group. For more information about Richter10.2, or if you want use our agency's services, check out our introduction video here.