Category: Sales Education

17 Critical Sales KPIs Every Business Should Consider

Posted on by vishal arora

Sales KPIs are vital for your business. If you can’t measure success, you can’t know whether you’re on track to achieve your strategic goals. To maximize sales, you must grasp the metrics that help monitor your progress towards a goal. Also, you need to gain insights into what you must improve to expand.

Read on to learn more about key performance indicators (KPIs) in sales and how they can help gauge and enhance your performance.

First, here’s a comprehensive list of the best B2B sales KPIs for sales managers and reps.

sales KPIs

Sales metrics vs. Sales KPI: What’s the difference?

Are sales metrics and KPIs the same? No. A sales KPI primarily measures performance against your overall objectives or targets. 

Because they’re “key,” you can see them as your roadmap to success. KPIs answer the question: Is your business on the right track to accomplish its strategic goals? For example, you could aim to boost your annual revenue by 5%. 

That becomes your sales growth KPI, indicating whether you’re steering your company toward that objective. Sales KPIs are strategic.

You also need a set of metrics to monitor your B2B sales KPIs. Sales metrics are data points that zero in on business processes and tactics to achieve your KPIs.

They’re tactical. For example, the lead conversion ratio is a perfect sales metric to monitor your annual sales growth.

 See more differences below.

KPI vs. Metrics
Source

In a nutshell, KPIs for sales can’t exist without sales metrics because you need some metrics to monitor your performance. You should also link them to strategic targets or goals.

But sales metrics can exist on their own. Finally, KPIs are metrics since they assess progress, but not all metrics are KPIs.

How does your business benefit from tracking sales KPIs or sales analytics?

Tracking KPIs in sales is critical to your business and team’s success. Here’s why?

  • Sales analytics gives you a clear picture of how the business is performing, where it’s headed, and what you need to do to double revenue. 
  • By tracking sales KPIs, you can identify problematic areas. As a result, you can make changes before they become chronic headaches. 
  • Measuring and tracking KPIs lets you gain insights into how your customers respond to your products/services. You can use the info to upgrade your solution to expand your business. 
  • Sales analytics can help you identify trends in your sales process that could be causing issues. 
  • KPIs can provide valuable insights into your team’s performance and your sales strategy’s effectiveness. 
  • Sales KPIs measure revenue and profitability. You start spotting patterns and determining areas for improvement.

17 Sales KPIs to take your sales performance to another level

Note that not all sales KPIs on this list are relevant for your company. You must pick a few that satisfy your goals. Later on, we’ll shed some light on how you can determine which KPIs to monitor.

1. Sales growth

sales growth

This sales KPI reflects how well your business is growing – its overall health. You can measure sales growth as a percentage increase in revenue, the number of new customers, or monthly orders.

A high sales growth rate shows you’re gaining traction and finding new buyers.

To achieve explosive sales growth, be specific about your growth targets over time. Clear goals will help your reps focus on what’s crucial while giving them something concrete to aim for.

Also, ensure your sales team has the right tools and resources to achieve its goals, such as CRM software.

Why it’s vital:

It shows how well you convert new customers into paying customers. In addition, sales growth indicates if your marketing efforts are working. Static sales growth is a sign that you need to adjust something in your marketing strategy.

You can use this feedback from your sales growth KPI to alter your products, strategies, or processes.

Who benefits:

Sales managers can use this sales KPI to see if their efforts bear positive results. They can use sales KPI dashboards to monitor reps’ performance, their sector, and targets. 

2. Pipeline value

Your pipeline value shows the expected revenue from active sales opportunities. When it increases, it means you have more sales opportunities. And it indicates there is more potential revenue.

Why it’s vital: 

You can predict sales revenue and visualize how much money you can expect from your team’s efforts. Any growth could represent newly added customers, deal status, or more time spent selling. 

Compare your growth against historical values to determine if your pipeline is growing at a pace you can sustain over time.

Who benefits: 

Sales leaders and their sellers can use this B2B sales KPI to assess their performance.

3. Lead conversion ratio

It’s a metric that measures how many leads you can convert into actual customers. And it’s calculated as the total number of leads divided by the number of sales made.

The ideal value for a company is 1:1, meaning that every lead generates one sale. Anything higher than 1:1 shows your team is generating more revenue than they’re losing to lead attrition.

A low value indicates that your team has trouble converting leads into sales. It could be because of poor targeting, high cost per lead, or a lack of quality leads. 

Whatever the case, it’s something you need to work on to start crushing more deals and growing your business.

Why it’s vital: 

Lead conversion is closely related to lead quality. Leads with high-quality scores tend to convert better than low-quality leads.

You can also optimize your website to improve lead acquisition and engagement.  Ensure your team actively rejects bad leads and focuses on nurturing quality leads to reach your desired lead conversion goal.

The more qualified leads that come through your website, the higher the lead conversion rate will be.

Who benefits: 

This sales KPI is an excellent resource for reps. It shows whether their pitches are effective in converting prospects into paying customers.

4. Customer lifetime value (CLV)

customer lifetime value

CLV measures how much you expect to make from a particular customer throughout their lifetime. Calculate CLV by subtracting acquisition costs from lifetime revenue per buyer. It provides an estimate of how much they’re worth to your business.

Why it’s vital: 

It helps you understand how much income you make from an individual customer. You can accurately project CLV when planning revenue streams. Marketing teams can also use this tool to grasp how much to spend on acquisition vs. retention.

Who benefits: 

Marketing teams and sales managers

5. Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

An acquisition cost is the cost you’re willing to pay for gaining a new customer. The sales KPI could include expenses such as sales proposal costs, research, and the rep’s hiring costs. It may also involve cold calling and sales campaign costs.

Why it’s vital:  

You can use CAC to create a baseline for growth. It can determine how much you have to spend to keep up with your expansion and maintain profitability.

Also, you can decide whether it’s worth investing in new strategies like marketing automation or CRM systems. Such software would help reduce overall costs and make it cheaper to acquire new buyers.

Who benefits: 

Marketing and sales department

6. Sales target

A sales target evaluates whether you’re on the path to hitting your goals. Look at the total dollar amount of sales to gauge whether you’re achieving this metric.

If it’s not where you’d like it to be, it means it needs attention. It could be that your sales team isn’t hitting their quotas.

You can also track the number of leads generated per month (or quarter) to see your progress in that area. Set benchmarks based on your past performance to see if you’re meeting your sales targets.

Why it’s vital: 

If you see a decline in sales, it’s time to re-evaluate your sales process and know what you need to adjust. Are you losing touch with your target customer? Is your message not strong enough? Are you reaching out to the right people?

Who benefits: 

Sales managers and marketing

7. Number of calls and emails

The number of calls and emails is a sales KPI that helps you see how active your rep is at creating new opportunities. Of course, the new leads must be in line with your buyer personas. It ensures that your salespeople pursue promising prospects.

Why it’s vital: 

You can see how many calls and emails your salespeople send out and whether that matches your sales goals. And it can help you pinpoint weak spots in your sales cycle and determine how you can fix them.

Who benefits:

Sales leaders and reps can benefit from this KPI. 

8. Sales cycle length

sales cycle length

The average sales cycle length is the amount of time from  your ‘initial contact’ with a prospect to ‘winning the deal’.This sales KPI tells you how long it takes sellers to convert prospects into buyers.

If your average sales cycle length is shorter, your reps can close more deals and crush their goals.

Buyers can “go cold” on your product/service – meaning they can lose interest if the sales cycle is longer. Establish a baseline and aim to reduce it over time to double sales within a short time.

Why it’s vital: 

You can keep tabs on the individual seller’s performance in the long run. Shorter average sales cycles encourage potential buyers to move quickly down the sales funnel.

Who benefits:

Reps and sales managers -leaders can determine training needs.

9. Sales by territory

One of the most important KPIs for a sales executive is sales by territory. It indicates which territories generate the most revenue for your business. Also, it shows which areas you need to focus more on to expand sales.

Measure your sales by region through sales volume. Sales volume tells you how much revenue your company generates from each location. 

To calculate this, simply divide your total income for a particular period (month, quarter, or year) by the number of territories.

Why it’s vital: 

You can understand your customer demographics and what makes them buy or reject your products.

Who benefits: 

Sales managers/directors/executives

10. Customer churn rate

Churn rate is a key sales indicator of customer loyalty. It evaluates how many customers leave in a given period, typically a month or two. 

A high churn rate means your business isn’t retaining its clients and is losing them to competitors. But a low churn rate shows you can keep your customers engaged and satisfied with your service.

Divide the total number of customers you had as the month began with the number of buyers lost to get your churn rate.

Why it’s vital: 

It’s critical to control the customer churn rate. It informs you about your ability to retain customers and your profitability. A higher churn rate will result in a loss of revenue.

Who benefits: 

Sales managers/executives & C-suite at SaaS businesses

11. Upsell and cross-sell rates

Upsell and cross-sell rates are sales KPIs that indicate how you increase the ROI and revenue. These metrics tell you how effectively you upsell and cross-sell existing products or services to your customers. 

Why it’s vital: 

It’s pretty simple. Increasing the sales of your existing products or services expands the customer’s investment value. The higher your upsell and cross-sell rates, the more income you’ll generate from each buyer.

Who benefits:

Reps can use this metric to see how well they use upsell and cross-selling strategies to grow revenue.

See the following example from Udemy:

Udemy
Source

Udemy uses an up-selling strategy by suggesting you add another product to your cart. It’s strategically positioned on your checkout page. They also cross-sell by showing you related topics to Python programming at the bottom.

12. Deals win-loss ratio

“A win/loss ratio compares your own opportunities against your lost opportunities to put wins and losses side-by-side.

Your win/loss ratio: # of won opportunities / # of lost opportunities

Why it’s vital: 

It reveals the potential customer’s experience with your sales process.

Who benefits: 

Reps can show value early on by developing customer relationships. Front-line staff can also build trust with prospects, listen to their needs, and implement solutions for them. They should also know how to refer them to other departments. 

13. Seller productivity

Seller productivity is a KPI in sales that measures how effective your reps are. You can use this KPI to monitor their performance. You can also track your activities and analyze them to see if you’re making progress.

Why it’s vital: 

It shows how productive your salesperson is overall. And it demonstrates how much work they’ve done and how much they can do in a day. By tracking your productivity levels, you can see where you need to put more effort to rock your sales.

Who benefits: 

Sales reps can assess their productivity, and sales leaders can gauge their team’s performance.

14. Average profit margin

A sales rep’s profit margin is the difference between the cost of sales (e.g., commissions, travel costs, etc.) and the revenue they generate from those sales.

You can use this sales metric to understand each seller’s profitability.

Why it’s vital: 

A high-profit margin seller can provide income for your company. Likewise, a low-profit margin rep can contribute to significant losses. 

Who benefits: 

Sales leaders and sellers

15. Sales rep revenue

This KPI for sales considers the total dollars the sales rep’s activities generate.

It allows your business to see how much revenue each salesperson contributes and reveals their efficiency. 

Why it’s vital: 

Revenue per rep also shows how much each rep contributes per client. It’s useful for indicating the overall impact of the seller’s activities.

Also, it shows how you perform against other reps in their area. And you can see if there are any trends that you need to address. 

Who benefits:

 Each seller and sales manager

16. New and expansion MRR

The “new and expansion” MRR KPI in sales breaks down your revenue sources. New MRR refers to extra revenue you add by increasing customer acquisition or reducing CAC. Expansion MRR is from existing buyers.

If you grow your MRR from one source, you could miss out on many other opportunities to expand your business. 

Examples include

  • new customers (e.g., signups, app installs, etc.).
  • existing customers (i.e., purchases).
  • referral partners (i.e., leads).

Why it’s vital: 

By looking at MRR sources and tracking how each grows, you can see where you need to grow.

Who benefits: 

Sales and marketing and sales leaders

17. Number of sales opportunities

The number of sales opportunities your reps create is the lifeblood of your business. By grasping this sales KPI, you can ramp up your team’s efforts to close more deals.

Why it’s vital: 

You can identify roadblocks in your sales process early. And you can resolve teething problems, such as your marketing efforts, the quality of your leads, and the sales pitch.

Who benefits: 

Analyzing this metric can help evaluate your  pipeline’s health.

Let’s summarize the sales KPIs for each group in your organization.

sales KPIs

Sales KPI template and calculator

You can now effortlessly track your sales metrics thanks to online sales KPI calculators and templates. 

Here are some examples:

  • Sales Performance OKR Guide and KPI Calculator –TTEC
  • Free Sales Metrics Calculator- HubSpot
  • Sales KPI Dashboards- Datapine

 

What are the key performance indicators in sales?

KPIs in sales

The primary KPIs for sales should respond to your needs. That’s because not every B2B sales KPI is vital for your business.  Close.com suggests using the AQC (Activity, Quality, and Conversion) formula to track your KPIs.

Activity refers to your team’s daily activities to bring revenue to your company. And you can consider metrics, such as the seller’s performance, calls made, emails made, and revenue per rep.

Quality stands for the outcome of your salespeople’s activities. You can use metrics like the number of sales opportunities and open email rate.

Conversion assesses the final result of all your selling efforts. The conversion rate, quote to close ratio, etc., are some sales KPIs you can consider.

Also read: Sales dashboard definitive guide: Examples & templates

How-to guide: Solution-selling essentials for beginners

Posted on by vishal arora

Selling your ideas and products to customers has never been easier. With the rise of Digital Transformation, it’s harder than ever for e-commerce businesses to compete. 

But what if you cut through the noise, and make your product unique?

Today, you’ll dig deeper into one of the most critical sales skills – Solution Selling. Every business owner and sales rep requires this technique, regardless of whether they’re selling a new idea or an established brand.

Let’s explore the sales methodology in detail, and see how it can help you.

What is solution-based selling?

Solution selling is a sales strategy that focuses on offering solutions to customers’ problems.

You present the value of a product or service that resonates with your buyer’s needs and challenges. It’s about understanding exactly what your customer wants and offering a solution to fix their pain points.

For example, if you’re offering prospecting software to reps, you may frame your messaging on your landing page as below:

solution based selling example

Here are the key takeaways:

  • This is a benefit-driven approach blended with solutions, instead of a product-oriented pitch.
  • The focus here is not on why your solution is better than the competition. But on how it solves the prospect’s problem.
  • In short, solution-based selling is taking a step back and looking at things from your buyer’s perspective.

What does selling the solution look like?

By focusing on solution selling, salespeople position their products as the best solution for their customers. You appeal to your buyers’ desire for a “final answer” and need for certainty by offering the solution.

As a result, solution selling can be an effective way to close more sales by building trust and rapport with customers.

Solution selling vs. products: Which is which?

Solution selling is sometimes confused with product-based or feature-based selling.  For example, a product-based seller focuses on the product features and benefits without addressing the pain points.

But solution selling puts the customer’s needs and expectations at the forefront. And then demonstrates how the product benefits can improve the buyer’s life.

Solution selling pros and cons: What’s in it for you? 

Let’s discover how the solution selling methodology can benefit your salespeople, and the pitfalls they should note.

solution selling pros and cons

How to kickstart solution-based selling: 6 steps

solution selling steps

Follow these clear-cut steps to launch the sales method in your business.

Step 1: Look for prospects that fit your buyer personas.

Before anything else, you should have a clear idea of who you want to target.

Who are your ideal potential customers? What are their challenges or needs? What products or services are they currently using? Who are the key decision-makers?

How does their business operate? How do they presently solve their problems? Are there any gaps that your product or service can exploit?

These questions can help you create an ideal buyer persona, so you can deal with the right customers. Also, the more you know them, the easier it’ll be to offer a tailor-made solution.

Step 2: Determine the pain points.

Now that your buyer persona is as clear as day, dig deeper into the pain points. You want to be sure your product or service is the perfect fit.

Let’s use the earlier example of the Trailblazer tool for reps. You could ask yourself these questions concerning leads:

Are sellers wasting plenty of time looking for leads on the wrong platforms? Is the disqualifying process effective? What’s the impact of low-quality leads on revenue? How much sales does the company lose due to pursuing misfits? How can your software solve these challenges?

Your prospecting software will be a perfect fit if the potential buyer has the above problems. 

Step 3: Frame questions to demonstrate the product value.

You now understand your customer’s challenges. The next step in solution selling is preparing questions to identify the prospect’s needs, and build a win-win relationship.

You start with a pre-sale strategy to determine if there’s a potential business case for the product.  You need to ask open-ended questions to uncover their needs.

They get at the core of the customer’s problem and use a single word or phrase, such as “Why?” or “What’s your biggest challenge?”

The prospect answers with a statement like “I need to overcome XYZ obstacles so I can X.”

It’s a great question because it spells out why the buyer needs your product and their motivation for buying it.

Step 4:  Offer solutions to resolve the pain points.

You have unearthed the prospect’s challenges. Next, with laser focus, clarify how your product or service will enhance the buyer’s life. Consider the following matters:

  • Are there any time, money, or resource savings they would appreciate?
  • Dreams of customers: what do they want?
  • Is there anything that your customers wish to achieve, or would be a huge relief for them?
  • Can you lower the cost, invest less, reduce risk, or provide better quality for your customers?

Ensure you emphasize the following in your sales presentation:

  • Time savings
  • Cost savings
  • Lowered risks and convenience
  • The customer’s long term goals- their bottom line

Demonstrate to the potential buyer that your company’s solution is the best one in fixing their problems.  Also, spell out what can happen to their business if they choose or reject your offer.

Step 5: Customize the solution

It’s time to offer a custom solution to suit your customer’s needs. You have now identified your buyer’s challenges and highlighted the benefits of your product. Next, propose a complete solution that satisfies those wants.

Consider their budget. For example, if they’re prepared to pay less than your expectations, you can offer a solution with reduced features. A SaaS B2B can create different packages to cater to different budgets. 

See this example from MailChimp.

An example of a customized solution by MailChimp
Source

Step 6: Deliver a knockout pitch to close

The last step in solution selling involves crafting a killer pitch to close the sale. Your presentation should also address sales objections, and show the product as a worthwhile investment. 

Closing strategies include emphasizing scarcity, summarizing the product/service benefits, etc.

More solution-based selling questions to up your game

  • Could you do anything to get rid of this problem?
  • What would you save if you had the solution?
  • If this challenge didn’t exist, what could you achieve?
  • What is the frequency of this problem?
  • Would you change your vendor if a new tool allowed you to achieve 15% more sales? What is your average amount of time spent on Y?
  • What’s your budget for Y?
  • What amount of time might you save with a solution?
  • How would you describe your greatest challenge?

Do solution selling the Mckinsey way: How to avoid failure in solution selling

Solution selling has been around since the 1970s. And a lot of things have changed in technology and consumer preferences and knowledge. A Mckinsey study evaluated companies from across several industries that applied solution selling.  This is what Mckinsey recommends to avoid failure.

Respond to customer queries faster

Ensure there is a well-oiled customer support team working alongside your reps. They need to reply to buyers’ questions, and address their needs as soon as sellers have sent in orders.

The team must include specialists from different departments if you’re dealing with highly technical products. Customers will have loads of questions about product use, etc. Your team needs to be on standby to handle those matters.

Hone rep’s individual skills

To make sure that your sellers are up to the task in solution-based selling, sales leaders must focus on training and coaching.

Train your sellers on product/service knowledge, negotiation skills, closing strategies, and handling customer objections.

Related: Turn your sales coaching into a high performing machine

Evaluate how sellers spend their time

Mckinsey discovered that many reps spend more time in non-sale activities, such as postsale requests, admin tasks, etc. It impacted their sales performance.

It’s critical to assess how your salespeople use their time to ensure they maximize selling instead of admin work. One way is to use the correct tools like CRM, sales enablement software, etc.

Understand your customers to innovate

To stay relevant in solution selling, your business needs to upgrade its social listening skills. Listen to what your customers say about what they want, why they’re dissatisfied with the current products, etc.

Analyze and use the info to create groundbreaking products/services if the problems seem to be affecting lots of people.

Reps must emphasize product value in practical terms

“To close deals, reps must be able to translate each solution into value for the customer and profitability for the company throughout the solution’s lifetime.”- McKinsey

Show your buyer how your solution will minimize specific costs, such as labor, time, productivity, etc. This suggests that you need to research your prospect before your scheduled meeting or demo.

Is solution selling still relevant? Yes, here’s why?

Here are some industries that can benefit from the sales method:

Companies with diverse offerings: Some businesses require solutions they can implement across multiple products, platforms, or production centers. Such companies can capitalize on solution-based selling.

High-risk products/services: Certain solutions may carry a lot of risks for the buyer or even the supplier.  Solution selling facilitates risk management and extensive research in such situations.

Tailor-made products/services: Solution selling is ideal for customers who need customized solutions or packages.

Complex products/services: Some solutions are complex. As a result, they need reps who have an excellent grasp of their products and customers’ needs. 

Unknown pain points: At first, it may be unclear what solutions specific companies or industries need. That’s because uncovering their needs may take time, so solution selling becomes handy. 

Technical solutions: Products/services with lots of technical details require salespeople with tech know-how. In this situation, the solution selling sales methodology is relevant.

Teamwork: Solution-based selling is perfect for businesses that can use cross-functional collaboration to serve their clients.

Solution selling books to sharpen your knowledge

The following books can upgrade your skills to execute solution-based selling.

  • Solution Selling: Creating Buyers in Difficult Selling Markets – Michael Bosworth
  • The New Solution Selling: The Revolutionary Sales Process That is Changing the Way People Sell–  Keith M. Eades
  • Secrets of Question-Based Selling: How the Most Powerful Tool in Business Can Double Your Sales Results – Thomas Freese 

It’s now your turn to put solution selling to the test

To succeed at solution selling, remember these factors: 

  • Be ready with a list of questions tailored to the prospect’s needs. Be prepared to answer them.  
  • Frame your questions to demonstrate how your product/service benefits the potential customer. This will show them how it’ll enhance their life.
  • Know your prospect and their goals. When you know what they need, you can find the perfect solution.
  • Present the solution with a strong emotional connection. This will help them see why they’ll love it.

Don’t forget to share with your network!

Deciphering the classic conundrum: “Sell me this pen”

Posted on by vishal arora

“Sell me this pen!” Does this question automatically transport you to the scene from The Wolf of Wall Street with Leonardo DiCaprio holding up a pen to a room full of salespeople? Well, you are not alone!

Over the years, this phrase has been used by many sales honchos to test a salesperson’s mettle. So, it’s only natural that a movie centered around the dynamic world of sales would highlight this age-old riddle. 

But how does it assess your selling skills? And what is the best way to answer “sell me this pen”? This blog will help you address these critical queries so you can confidently tackle this brain teaser in your next sales interview.

Let’s get started!

Why is it a recruiter’s favorite?

Many sales leaders believe this question can help them separate the wheat from the chaff.  And it’s not always a pen they want you to sell. The pen is merely a metaphor. Your recruiter might pick up any object in the room and frame the same question.

But why is it essential for you to sell that pen? Keep reading.

Test sales skills

For most interviewers, this is a sure-shot method to test a candidate’s critical selling skills. A sales rep that approaches this question undeterred displays a high degree of self-confidence. It also demonstrates salespeople’s ability to think on their feet which is crucial in sales. 

Moreover, answering this question by discovering the prospect’s pain points will require a superior level of active listening, relationship building, and critical thinking skills. Hence, if you are able to come up with a tailored solution to sell the pen, it exemplifies your ability to create urgency and close the sale.

Also read: 26 non-negotiable sales skills every salesperson should have

Gauge selling styles

According to HubSpot, your response to “sell me this pen” reveals your selling style. You can take a three-pronged approach to address this question, each reflecting a particular form of selling.

  1. Some sales reps use the feature-based method wherein they highlight what their product/service can do for the prospect. This is called the value-added technique. However, this route often lacks discovery as you will have limited knowledge of what’s important to your buyer.
  2. The next option is to leverage solution selling, one of the most popular methods. This approach suggests you ask questions that elucidate what your interviewer wants in a pen and uncover issues with their current pen. If your buyer wants precisely what you are selling, you have hit gold! But there are chances of it backfiring if there is a vast disconnect between what you offer and what addresses the buyer’s needs.
  3. HubSpot claims that the problem-creation technique might be the best method to answer this. You ask questions that make the buyer aware of problems they never knew existed. However, this is one of the most complex methods to follow as it needs extensive prospect research and sometimes years of experience mastering this technique.

Related: Master provocative selling with the Challenger sales method

Now, let’s get to the main objective of this blog. The following sections will explore how to answer “sell me this pen” in an interview.

How do you sell a pen in an interview?

how do you sell a pen

Getting back to the scene from The Wolf of Wallstreet, Leo did find his sales superstar who nailed that question. As illustrated below, the character Brad used the “supply and demand” angle to answer this question. It follows the “problem-creation technique” discussed above.

wolf of wallstreet sell me this pen
Source

Although this might not always be the best response in real-life situations. Hence, the blog will now focus on some tried and tested strategies to answer “sell me this pen”. I will leave it to your discretion to pick the ones that fit your selling style and generate the best results for you.

There is no right answer

Remember that recruiters are not expecting the correct answer to “sell me this pen”. They want to test your sales approach. So instead of struggling to brainstorm the perfect solution, put on your problem-solving hat and lay out a strategy to tackle this question like you would in an actual sale.

Don’t try to sell the pen

This might seem counterintuitive, but the first rule of selling the pen is “not to sell the pen.” Why? Because generally, consumers don’t like to be sold to, but they like to buy. So instead of pushing your product/service, get to know your customer, assess their needs, and discover their pain points. Here are a few sample questions you can ask.

“What do you use a pen for?”

“What exactly do you look for in a pen?”

“How often do you use a pen?”

“Are you happy with your current pen? Does it serve its purpose?”

Learn more ways to unravel your prospect’s business needs in our blog: 19 Best sales discovery questions to close more deals.

Highlight your value proposition

Be mindful to use this step only after you have gone through the first two. Once you know what they are looking for, demonstrate the key attributes of your pen. Also show, how your pen is better than the one they have, or (if they don’t have one) highlight how owning this pen can make their life easier.

A little confidence goes a long way

As mentioned earlier, this question can tell a recruiter a lot about your sales skills. The cut-throat sales environment requires you to have the right mindset to face objections on a regular basis. Recruiters are looking for confident sales superstars with undying resilience to crack deals consistently. And most importantly, they want salespeople who don’t surrender at the slightest sign of discomfort.

When faced with situations like this, calm your racing mind, and resist the urge to blurt out the first thing that comes to your mind. Maintain composure and follow the steps mentioned above. Finally, harness your closing skills to land the deal/interview once you have discovered your buyer’s needs.

Bonus tip: Check out The 9 most effective sales closing techniques.

Practice objection handling

You can not always expect the interviewer to willingly accept your response to “sell me this pen”. Some of them may throw a few curve balls along your way. So it is important to hone your objection handling skills.

Make it your goal to unearth the reason behind their objection. Listen intently to their concerns, make them feel heard, and come up with a fitting solution to their concerns. Also if the deal does not seem mutually beneficial or sustainable, be prepared to walk away from the sale.

To learn more about mastering sales objections, read our blog, 22 Most daunting sales objections and how to overcome them

Now that we have gone through the strategies to answer this question, let’s look at some examples.

Sample responses 

It is difficult to narrow down the best answer to “sell me this pen”. Nevertheless, you can draw inspiration from the samples below to come up with your own personalized version. 

Here are some favorites shared by top sales pros.

Dailius Wilson example
Source
Neely Raffellini example
Source

Now let’s look at some popular responses based on various selling styles. You can customize them to your needs and liking.

Qualifying the lead

Lead qualification example
Source

Discovery approach

discovery call example
Source

Making an emotional connect

making an emotional connect example
Source

 Highlighting benefits

highlighting benefits example
Source

Demonstrating value with a freebie

Offering freebie example
Source

Handling a curveball

handling a curveball
Source

How not to sell a pen

When you come across this question or a similar version of “Can you sell me this pen?”, you might feel it is not relatable to your job description. For instance, why should you demonstrate selling a pen when you are interviewing for an enterprise sales position?

First, know that not answering the question is not an option. It is a salient part of the sales interview. Additionally, as mentioned earlier in the blog, your ability to sell a pen highlights your expertise to sell anything under the sun and reflects your improvisation skills which is cardinal in sales.

Now, go ahead and sell that pen!

To sum up, do not be flustered when faced with the phrase “sell me this pen”. There is no right or wrong way to decode this golden riddle. What the interviewer really wants is to know if you are confident enough to think on your feet and analyze your sales approach. Keep calm, maintain a positive attitude and try one of the many techniques illustrated in this blog.

Inside sales vs. Outside sales: Your questions answered

Posted on by vishal arora

On the surface, inside sales and outside sales seem to follow similar principles. Both need a motivated, driven salesperson that can interact with customers over the phone or by email.

However, there are some key differences between inside and outside sales. Understanding these distinctions can help you make better decisions that’ll benefit your business in the long term. 

Read on to find out more…

What is inside sales?

Inside sales is selling a product or a service through digital means from the office or at home through an email or over the phone, etc.  There’s no face-to-face interaction with the potential customer.

 An inside sales rep uses multiple communication tools to engage with prospects, such as:

Inside sales communication tools
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Several industries, like tech products, or SaaS use inside sales as their primary sales model. For example, you can explain prospecting software or any SaaS product via video conferencing. 

Inside sales reps for SaaS products can use Zoom and other tech-savvy tools to prospect, close, and follow-up. SaaS clients can test drive the software by signing up for a free trial. Alternatively, they can watch a tutorial.

What is outside sales?

Outside sales is selling products or services in person. It’s also called field sales because the outside sales rep interacts with potential buyers at their offices or homes.

The sales model is primarily off-site as reps need to travel. A good example is a real estate agent who needs to view or show their buyers property for sale.

Such reps heavily rely on field trips to market their business.

However, they can also use email, social media, or the phone to schedule appointments.  Outside sales reps can also attend industry events, trade shows, or conferences to meet up with prospective clients.

What are the key differences between inside sales and outside sales? 

Inside vs. Outside sales

Specific industries seem to favor inside sales. As Zippia.com notes, “46% of fast-growing tech companies use inside sales and 21% use outside sales.”

Now, let’s explore the key responsibilities of inside and outside sales reps.  

Inside sales and outside reps: What kind of work do they do?

Inside rep’s responsibilities

Inside sales reps work alongside sales teams. They handle everything from cold calling to emailing, building rapport with potential leads and scheduling online meetings. 

Here are more tasks:

  • They’re also responsible for generating new leads, qualifying them, and following up with them when they’re ready to buy. 
  • Inside sales reps manage the relationship between their company and the customer during the sale process.
  • They also focus on generating revenue from existing customers and winning new business, as well as closing deals.
  • Inside salespeople help improve the bottom line by growing the number of clients that they work with. 
  • As part of their responsibilities, they help manage client relationships and coordinate all account-related activities.

One of the biggest challenges is converting  leads into sales. Inside sales reps need to learn how to engage with prospects to show value that’ll make them buy. 

To achieve that, you need to zero in on the buyer’s pain points and know your product inside and out. And you should also empathize with your customers at every step of the process.

What are the inside sales rep’s vital skills?

Here are some of the skills your inside sales reps need to have. They must be able to:

  • Build trust with prospects.
  • Craft compelling sales pitches and remote presentations via video.
  • Communicate product benefits clearly and confidently.
  • Demonstrate empathy for customers’ needs and challenges.
  • Create reports on sales data.

Bonus: An Amazon Inside Sales Representative is responsible for:

  • “Exercising large account management and acquisition skills in a remote sales motion.
  • Helping to grow consumption of current and new AWS services across priority prospects and customers.”

Outside sales rep’s activities

Field sales reps focus more on traveling to meet up with their potential buyers. 

  • They prospect, follow-up, and nurture customer relationships to close more deals.
  • Outside reps visit conferences, industry events, and trade shows to scout for prospects, generate leads, or even sell their products.
  • In addition, they can use CRM software, social media etc., to build and manage relations with their customers. 

Zippia.com says outside sales reps sell remotely 89% more than they did in 2013.  It shows that field sellers now use more digital tools than before.

What are the outside sales rep’s critical skills?

Selling face-to-face needs an individual who’s good at managing their schedules. You’re in charge of the whole sales process. Other relevant skills include:

  • Time management
  • Communication
  • Interpersonal
  • Digital
  • Customer service
  • Negotiation

How to structure your sales team: Inside sales vs. Outside sales

Inside vs. Outside sales team structure

Let’s explore how you can organize your teams for each sales model.

Inside sales team

Typically, the inside sales team concentrates on lead gen, nurturing, and closing deals. Here’s the inside sales team structure:

Sales development rep (SDR): They generate, qualify, and even disqualify leads. Before they pursue prospects, SDRs need to determine if they fit their customer profile. 

Account executive: They deal with the vetted or qualified leads to build rapport, warm the prospect, engage them, and make a sale.

Account manager: Working together with the account exec, they’re in charge of customer relationships. They ensure the company satisfies the buyer’s needs.

Customer service manager: They make sure the customer has a good experience with your product or service. And they respond to their questions, offer support, show buyers how to use your solution, etc. 

Outside sales team

You can categorize outside sales reps according to territory, and the outside sales team could look like this:

Field sales reps: Outside sales reps travel to interact with their potential customers in person and attend events. Also, the prospect, close deals, and nurture customer relations. They develop robust relationships with buyers, unlike inside reps.

Sales manager: They’re in charge of supervising a group of outside salespeople in a specific territory. And they can attend demo meetings to support their reps. Also, they’re accountable to senior management on sales performance.

Sales support staff: They play a supportive role to the sales team. Some of their activities include managing orders, responding to customer queries, etc.

Inside sales vs. Outside sales: How to structure your quota attainment

Outside account executives achieve quota at a rate of 65%, 10% more than inside representatives – Zippia.com.

Your business growth hinges on your sales team crushing their goals. And you can achieve this by setting data-driven goals. For example, you can use past performance or industry benchmarks to create goals for your team to be realistic.

Also, you can rely on the overall business objectives to develop specific, measurable, and attainable inside sales goals. What’s your company’s monthly, quarterly, or yearly sales goal?

Based on that number, you can set a revenue goal for each inside sales rep. For example, an average inside salesperson has a quota of $985,000 – Zippia.com.

Establishing a quota for the outside salespeople could be challenging. That’s because sales territories have different deal sizes, etc. Some field sales reps could have higher targets in specific regions.

Zippia.com also says: “The average yearly quota for an outside sales rep is $2.7 million.”

Inside sales vs. Outside sales: What are the salary structures? 

According to indeed.com, the average salary of an inside sales representative in the United States is $62,056 per year. And they could get $12000 as annual commission.

Salary.com reports that field sales reps earn an average salary of $61,032. But it can range between $52,228 and $70,570. It says factors, such as experience, education, skills, etc., can influence how much you get.

Another fascinating stat is that outside sales pros make an average of 14% more than inside sales pros.

Inside sales vs. Outside sales: Is the sales cycle different?

Selling products or services via inside sales has a shorter sales cycle compared to outside sales. While both approaches use the same sales process, an inside sales rep can conclude a sale within a few hours.

That’s because inside selling deals with less expensive products/services than field sales. Customers don’t take longer to decide to buy or subscribe to a service. 

As a result, inside sales tends to focus more on volume to make up for the slim profit margin.

But outside sales take a longer sales cycle because buyers have to consider several factors, including cost. So the annual contract value (ACV) is higher.

Also, because of travel expenses, the customer acquisition value ( CAC) tends to be higher for outside salespeople. 

For example, the cost of an outside sales call is $308, while the cost of an inside sales call is $50.

Typically, you can expect between 6 and 9 months to close a sale in outside sales if you’re dealing with enormous deals. Nearly three months or less could be enough to close a deal in inside sales.

However, the type of the customer, deal size, what you’re offering, etc., determine your sales cycle. 

Pros of inside sales

Enhances teamwork: Inside sales reps can collaborate to win customers. For example, the SDR can specialize in qualifying or disqualifying prospects. The account executive can take over after the vetting process.

Outside sales heavily relies on a single individual to do everything from prospecting to closing deals.

Versatility: It’s easy to switch the roles or activities in inside sales because it doesn’t need territorial attachment. On the other hand, moving field sales from one region to another could be an issue for some salespeople.

They can develop personal relations with some customers. So adjusting their regions poses a challenge.

More selling time: Reps can concentrate more on prospecting and concluding deals because they don’t travel.

Slashes costs: Sending emails or conducting discovery calls is cheaper compared to meeting customers in person. “Inside sales teams pay 40%–90% less to acquire new customers.,”- Zippia.com

Lightning-fast response time: An inside sales rep can use digital methods to respond to customers faster. But an outside salesperson like a real estate agent needs to travel to view or showcase property.

Inside vs Outside sales benefits

Pros of outside sales

Establishes robust and long-term relations: Face-to-face meetings with clients can develop win-win relationships. Reps can provide tailor-made solutions.

Improves closing ratio: Research says outside sales pros close 40% more deals than inside sales pros.It means this sales methodology is perfect if you’re dealing with gigantic deals that take a longer time to close.

Boosts morale: Field sales reps receive a commission in addition to their base salary. So a commission-based payment structure can motivate them to work harder to achieve their goals.

Inside sales vs. Outside sales: How are the sales models different?

Here’s what you should expect if you choose either inside sales or outside sales.

Inside sales model

Check out the following essential features of this sales approach:

  • Reps use digital communication tools to engage with potential customers.
  • It zeros in on lead gen and volume of sales.
  • The sales method has a shorter sales cycle (less than 3 months).
  • CAC is lower compared to field sales.
  • Popular with SaaS and tech companies or businesses selling least expensive products or services.

Also read: Upgrade your virtual selling strategy with these 7 practical tips

Outside sales model

Here are the distinctive features of this sales method:

  • It relies on face-to-face interactions as the reps have to travel to meet up with clients. But field reps also use digital channels.
  • Rep is in control of the entire sales process.
  • Its sales cycle is longer – over three months to close a deal.
  • It’s most appropriate for premium products or services due to high CAC.

Over to you: How can inside sales and outside sales work together?

It’s easy to see why many companies employ inside sales reps. They can respond to customers faster over the phone or via email. So a swift lead response time wins more buyers and boosts sales.

Outside sales reps are more flexible to meet up with potential customers. That’s because they don’t have restrictions like mandatory hours or days off. 

You can benefit from having a remote inside sales team and an outside sales team – a hybrid system. Both teams have different skills and target different types of buyers. 

It’s crucial to remember that inside and outside sales reps need to engage their prospects with the right sales tools. And the type of business, products, customers, and your needs determine which sales model is perfect for you.

Also read: Inside sales strategies for beginners

How to build an impeccable sales outreach strategy

Posted on by vishal arora

The sales profession requires you to reach out and engage your potential buyers consistently.  With altered buyer perceptions and a dynamic economy, it bodes well for you to update your sales outreach plans constantly. This blog will outline a step-by-step process to creating a winning sales outreach strategy.

But first, let’s understand what exactly sales outreach is.

What is sales outreach?

Sales outreach is a systematized and ongoing process of reaching out to your potential or existing customers to generate business. It includes all forms of communication – from the initial conversation with your ICP to the follow-ups that lead to closure. Sales outreach also refers to your engagement with current clients to generate a steady revenue stream. 

The term ‘sales outreach’ may strike you as an outgoing method, but it’s not always the case. An ideal sales outreach strategy is an amalgamation of carefully executed inbound and outbound approaches that can be carried out through multiple channels. 

Two types of sales outreach methods

In Inbound sales outreach, the potential buyer turns to you for a particular need or to address specific pain points. Hence, getting their requirements and delivering customized solutions becomes much more straightforward. Inbound sales outreach programs are usually the result of brand promotion driven by activities like SEO optimization, content marketing, etc. 

Outbound sales outreach illustrates your efforts as a seller to gain your target’s business. In this case, your prospect is not yet interested or aware of your business.

Sales outreach channels

Automation and digitization have led to the evolution of multiple channels that you can use effectively in your sales outreach program. Let’s look at some of these practical tools.

Phone

Salespeople often dread cold calls due to the negative press associated with them. However, of all outreach methods, the phone is usually the fastest way to get your message across if you can get hold of your prospect. Here are some stats that will reaffirm your faith in the merits of cold calling.

cold calling stats
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Bonus tip: Check out our blog- Analyzing the efficacy of cold calling in 2022

Email

That’s right, the humble email is still the most preferred method for sales outreach. It’s less intrusive than a cold call and, if done right, is a proven tactic to deliver the highest lead rates. As illustrated below, a study conducted by sales engagement platform Sopro indicates that email is the top revenue driver for marketers.

Sopro study
Source

Chatbots

AI-powered live chats have become an essential asset for companies to engage their online visitors. You can utilize chatbots to assist buyers during various stages of their journey by offering additional information or helping with their queries. 61% of buyers claim they are more likely to buy after interacting with a live chat. So it has become an effective tool to nudge buyers into making decisions.

Social selling

The onset of the global pandemic compelled sales to go digital, so your ability to sell online became crucial. Social selling is the art of leveraging your social media platforms to connect with and nurture your ICP. Though it’s a relatively slower channel than cold calls or emails, its effects get compounded over the long term.

Want to know how to use social selling to boost sales? Read our blog: The “whats”, “whys”, and “hows” of social selling

Why is sales outreach important?

Outperforms conventional prospecting methods

Banking solely on traditional lead generation strategies, like cold calling and email blasts, will not suffice to survive the digital revolution. The modern buyer is well-informed and technically savvy. You will need an intelligent approach to get their attention amidst a sea of unread emails and ignored voicemails. 

An ideal sales outreach strategy allows you to utilize various digital channels/mediums like video, live chats, and social media along with tried and tested assets like cold calling and emails to convert your targets into paying customers.

Helps explore untapped markets

Instead of waiting for the right customer to reach you or focusing on an exhausted market with limited potential, a sales outreach strategy offers you a multipronged approach for hitting your quota. You can boost sales by utilizing the proper outreach tools in your arsenal and offering solutions your customers never knew they required.

Tips for creating a stellar sales outreach strategy

sales outreach tips

The availability of multiple channels and mediums has made getting your message across to your target audience even more challenging. To cut through the constant noise and engage your ICP at the right time, you need a customizable sale outreach program that is regularly refreshed. Following are some techniques to develop or boost your sales outreach strategy.

Discover your ICP

Following a sales outreach plan without knowing your ideal customer profile is like shooting in the dark. Review your existing clients and won deal cases to determine your target persona. This may be time-consuming but will help you achieve long-term gains. Some of the factors to consider while ideating your ICP are –

  • Company revenue (Can they afford you/your solution?)
  • Employee count/team structure (Do they have enough employees to need your service?)
  • Product or services they offer (Do they need what you offer?)
  • Decision maker/Influencer (Are you speaking to the person who makes decisions or will use your product/service)

Chose the ideal outreach channels

sales outreach channels

Although having access to multiple outreach channels can be advantageous, you need to be cautious while choosing the right one. Here are a few ground rules to consider.

  • While choosing your outreach channel, remember your objective. For instance, getting your prospect on the phone is always to fastest way to generate a response. So if you think cold calling is dead, think again! 
  • Tailored emails are still the best way for reaching out to your prospects. According to HubSpot, 80% of buyers prefer to be contacted by email. Also, 31% of sellers have found that sending 1-to-1 customized emails based on detailed research is highly effective.
  • Observe where your prospects are most active. If your target is a frequent LinkedIn user (comments, shares, or posts on the platform regularly), send a connection request with a personalized note. Your odds of getting a response are higher this way than by bombarding them with generic cold emails. On the other hand, if your prospect regularly engages with your email content, it clearly indicates they prefer email.
  • The channels that work best for you also depend on your industry. For instance, LinkedIn is your go-to platform to engage the B2B audience, followed by Twitter and Facebook. Additionally, 82% of buyers research vendors on LinkedIn before responding to their sales outreach efforts.

Nail your 4Ps (Proactiveness, Planning, Personalization, and Persistence)

Take a proactive approach

Outbound sales outreach requires you to make the first move. But you do not have to take the backseat with inbound sales outreach. By understanding your ICP based on the information provided earlier, you can tailor your branding efforts to attract the right prospects through your inbound strategy.

Have a plan of action

When it comes to your sales outreach efforts, just winging it will not do. Have a sales cadence to structure your channels and plan when and how you will use them. A Sales cadence enables a smooth flow of touchpoints leading to an engagement with your potential buyer.  

Make it personal

In a customer-centric economy, personalizing your sales outreach strategy is paramount for sales success. Moreover, your prospects are already bombarded with a massive influx of emails every day. So how do you stand out?

The image below illustrates some personalization ideas that can help you land more meetings.

sale outreach content
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Be persistent with follow-ups

Resilience is a crucial skill required of salespeople. Your prospects are generally busy, and it might take more than one attempt to capture their attention.  However, avoid being pushy by sending multiple rounds of generic emails. Try to find the sweet spot for the ideal number of follow-ups you can send a prospect.

 Here’s a study that indicates the success rates of structured follow-ups and clarifies how many rounds of emails can be too many.

Sopro study on email prospecting
Source

Sales engagement platform Sopro reviewed 40,000 prospecting emails, including a series of follow-ups. The results were as follows.

  • Follow up emails generated 77% responses from prospecting email campaigns.
  • The response rate increased significantly with the first and second round of chaser emails.
  • The rates started to decline after the third round.

Use personalized videos

According to leading animated explainer video company Wyzowl’s latest State of Video Marketing Report, 81% of marketers feel that video directly impacts sales and significantly improves their company’s bottom line. Short, customized, and witty videos are an effective way to deliver your pitch to prospects. They can also be used as visual customer testimonials to highlight your success stories.  Thus, you can leverage videos throughout the sales cycle to boost your outreach efforts.

Demonstrate empathy

Empathy is an essential sales skill and can help humanize your sales outreach. Today’s B2B buyers are knowledgeable; hence, conservative hard sells might not cut it anymore. Here are a few things you can do to approach your sales outreach strategy empathetically.

  • Demonstrate your brand mission through storytelling. It will help your prospects connect with your brand at a human level. 
  • Avoid getting disappointed with radio silences or irritated with numerous queries from your prospect. Your buyers are busy people, and their time matters. Show that you respect their time and demonstrate patience in addressing their concerns. 
  • Also, know when it’s the right time to step back and let them go. However, do it with grace without burning bridges. Handling such cases elegantly will help build better relationships and enhance your market reputation.

Affiliate with the marketing team

Most of your sales outreach activities align with that of the marketing team. Hence, collaborating with them can only strengthen your outreach agenda. Make it a point to level your messaging with marketing. Regular review sessions can break down silos and offer added insights for better client engagement. Moreover, when you share prospect queries and interactions with the marketing team, they can enhance their own outreach efforts.

Automate your approach with sales outreach tools

Majority of your sales outreach activities, though important, can be time-consuming. Let’s face it, as a busy salesperson, you hardly have the time to gather prospect insights manually and draft tailored emails for each potential buyer. Sales outreach tools can automate such tasks, so you have more time for what matters, i.e., selling! It also makes you more productive and reduces overall stress levels.

Here are some ways you can automate your sales outreach.

  • Use AI-powered CRMs to manage prospect data, track your interactions and sales activities and set up standardized workflows to connect with more buyers.
  • Utilize email automation/sequencing tools to craft compelling messages based on prospect behavior like emails opened, content engaged with, web visits, buying decisions, etc. You can also tailor these campaigns based on industry, the product sold, buyer persona, etc.
  • VOIP diallers can auto-dial the right prospect at the right time in addition to logging call data.
  • You can automate your social engagement activities using intelligent outreach platforms.
  • Connect with LinkedIn prospects found via sales navigator by using a chrome extension.
  • Automation tools are capable of lead scoring, scheduling meetings, tracking buyer behavior, and notifying you to take specific actions.
  • Track your outreach results, like engagement rates, CTA’s impact, etc.

However, be wary not to lose your personal touch while automating sales outreach. The ideal way is to balance personalization and automation, reducing the additional burden of repetitive tasks.

Now that you know how automation can enhance your sales outreach efforts, let’s look at some sales outreach platforms.

Here are some top-rated sales outreach platforms in no particular order.

Statflo – A one-to-one business messaging platform that delivers personalized sales outreach and two-way text conversations. It can be integrated with your CRM and helps you engage, retain, and expand your client base.

SalesBlink – It is an end-to-end full-stack cold outreach platform. It features solutions like LinkedIn email extractor, Email finder, B2B website data enrichment, Cold email sequencing, and much more.

GMass – A Gmail plugin for email marketing and automation campaigns. It offers auto email personalization, bulk email scheduling, email list building, automated follow-ups and creates detailed analytics reports.

Mailshake – It’s a popular tool for multi-channel outreach campaigns. It offers prospect search, campaign planning, personalized automated emails, and also tracks bounce rates, clickthroughs, open rates, and responses.

Salesgear – A multi-channel sales outreach platform that works well with popular CRMs like Hubspot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, and Zoho. It creates outreach sequences across email, phone, LinkedIn, and text messages.

Outreach.io – It is a sales outreach tool along with a sales engagement feature. It helps you personalize your outreach campaigns and includes an AI-enabled Always-On-Assistant for smart follow-ups.

Reply.io – Schedules emails and follow-up sequences and also detects certified emails on professional networking sites (like LinkedIn) through its chrome extension. It helps monitor your activities through its dashboard and track campaigns on multiple outreach channels.

Salesloft – Enables you to set a cadence of communications that help you close deals. It offers real-time email tracking, an integrated sales dialler, and social communications platform.

AutoKlose –  Email outreach tool with an easy-to-use interface. It gives you access to a vast database of verified leads along with the added feature of customized email sequences.

Snov.io – It’s an all-in-one sales outreach tool that saves time and increases sales productivity. It offers prospecting, email messaging, and campaign analytics tools.

Key takeaways

Salespeople have been harnessing the power of sales outreach channels like cold calling, direct mail, and emails for decades. However, the digital revolution dramatically increased the efficacy of these existing channels and also gave you more intelligent options.  Choose a balance of inbound and outbound sales outreach methods for a strategy that delivers consistent results. Also, ensure your automated outreach tools do not take away the human touch from sales outreach, which is key to attracting and retaining customers.

Super easy steps to create high-performing sales reports

Posted on by vishal arora

Have you ever wondered what goes into producing a top-class sales analysis report? A report is only as useful as the information it conveys.  Reports must be clear, accessible, and easy to read because they make your data easier to understand.

In this article, we’ll explore types of sales reports and demonstrate how you can build them for your team through simple steps. 

What is a sales report, and why is it critical for your business? 

A sales report is a document that summarizes the performance of sales activities. Sales managers must review sales analysis reports regularly. It allows you to keep track of current operations, make strategic decisions, and discuss trends with your team.

Without sales reports, you’re flying blind. Here are more compelling reasons why you need them.

  • Sales reports help you understand how well your organization is performing against its goals. 
  • They also let you identify any problems before they become serious issues. For instance, you might see your sales figures drop compared to previous periods. This could indicate market changes, weak closing strategies, or customer dissatisfaction with your solution. 
  • Sales analysis reports help you make decisions about your sales team, marketing strategy, and future revenue goals. 
  •  They can also help you identify trends in consumer behavior and predict their future buying habits.
  •  A sales report tells you whether or not your business is profitable and how much revenue it makes at different times during the year.

What should you include in a sales report? 

You can show the following KPIs in your sales reports:

  • Gross sales
  • Net sales
  • Revenue
  • Average order size
  • Leads
  • Sales volume
  • New accounts
  • Costs per unit
  • Conversion rate

A written explanation should accompany each metric to be meaningful. For example, if sales dropped by 10%, you need to clarify possible reasons for that. It helps your team grasp the push and pull factors and what they must do to improve. 

Types of sales reports

sales report types

The following is a list of sales analysis reports you can prepare. Let’s kick off with daily reports which focus on sales operations. 

Sales opportunity report by the rep

This document demonstrates how well your sellers convert an opportunity into a qualified lead.  It can also show their success in moving that qualified prospect into the next step- a demo, a scheduled meeting, etc.  

A low opportunity score could mean that the rep has substandard leads due to poor alignment with the marketing staff. 

Lead response time sales report

How much time do your sellers take to follow up on a lead? The lead response time report lets you see whether their response is sluggish or ideal. However, you need to create a benchmark for your team on the expected response time. 

At what point should they pursue a potential customer after they have signed up for a newsletter or downloaded an eBook? For example, reps need to urgently contact a prospect who has requested a demo. 

Closed deals sales analysis report

You should also know the deals that have sailed through, ones that are stalling or have hit a brick wall. Successful deals reveal your expected revenue and that your closing strategies are working. 

But a string of unsuccessful sales from a huge number of salespeople should worry you. You need to investigate the root causes to nip the problem in the bud. Perhaps your sellers have uninspiring sales presentation techniques.

Weekly reports are also vital for decision-making. Some examples include the following:

Lead conversion ratio

It’s a crucial metric that demonstrates your salespeople’s prowess to turn leads into paying customers. Your sales team can use this KPI to determine the number of leads they need to hit company goals.  A low lead-to-conversion ratio could mean a fragile sales pipeline.

Outbound calls sales report

The number of outbound calls indicates the perfect weekdays for making those calls. For example, some studies have shown that days like Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays have high response rates. 

But through A/B testing and setting your benchmarks, you can determine the most promising call times and days. 

Customer lifetime sales analysis report

How much do you expect to earn per customer? The customer lifetime sales analysis report provides you with the details. It reveals whether the average is skyrocketing or falling – your goal is to maintain a stable lifetime value.

Finally, let’s zoom in on the monthly reports you need. 

Average sales cycle length report

Want to know the amount of time it takes for each seller to close a sale? You need to prepare the sales cycle length report. Also, it demonstrates your reps’ performance and your sales process’ effectiveness. 

However, establish a standard for your team to help you evaluate their progress. Review your training, sales process, sales methodology, etc., if your sellers struggle with meeting the set guidelines.

 Sales KPI report

This monthly report or sales dashboard is handy for sales managers because it contains primary metrics. Examples include the number of sales, revenue, profit, costs, churn ratio, up/cross selling rate, etc. They give executives, sales VPs, and leaders an overview of the company’s performance.

It influences your sales strategy- a persistent revenue drop calls for a radical approach to rescue the situation.

Sales performance report

Use this sales analysis report to visualize current opportunities, purchase value, win ratio, average purchase value, etc. It enables you to compare your present performance with your past month. And you can tell if your sales efforts are bearing positive results.  

Churned customer sales report

Churn is defined as the percentage of customers who leave in a given period. The higher the churn rate, the greater risk to your company’s survival.  Churned customers are a huge problem for your business because they represent lost revenue and potential referrals.

A churned customer sales analysis report can be helpful:

  • It identifies trends in your customer base. You get insight into what types of customers are leaving and how often they’re doing so.
  • It helps you understand what’s driving the attrition rate for each business segment. You can focus on the areas that need improvement.
  • It offers insight into any additional products or services that you need to keep buyers from leaving.

Also read: Why ignoring key sales metrics will cost you time and sales

5 steps to creating top-notch sales reports

steps to create sales reports

If your sales reports aren’t up to snuff, they won’t be very useful. Here are five steps for creating top-notch sales reports that’ll  help you make better business decisions:

Step 1: Identify the purpose of your report. 

Sales analysis reports provide details on the sales process and its results. They help you determine future sales activities and keep management aware of business performance. For these reasons, decide on the report’s objectives. 

Do you want to enhance sales performance? Is it about motivating your team? Are you interested in identifying consumer trends? 

Do you want to improve customer service? Are you trying to identify the most popular products? Or do you just want general info about how well things are going?

For example, you need to include revenue details if you want to convince your sales manager to invest more in digital marketing. Show how much each digital channel will bring in relative to its cost. It’ll enable your boss to determine which ones are cost-effective.

Once you know what you want to achieve, it’ll be easier to select the data you need and the best way to present it in your report.

 Step 2: Define your target audience.

Who is your target audience? What are their needs and what do they expect to see in a sales report? It can be an individual, sales team, or a group of employees, such as the board of directors.  For example, if you’re writing a report for the CEO, they may want more details about market trends and competition. 

When will they read it? Your readers will need enough time to digest monthly reports before you send out the next one. Weekly reports should include only those relevant items in that week’s sales cycle.

Step 3: Get the facts

The third step to writing a sales analysis report is to gather all of your facts. What do you want to know about your sales?  Based on previous events, do you need any details before making any decisions?

What core metrics do you want to include? Consider KPIs like number of sales, revenue, customer acquisition costs, new opportunities, etc.

Step 4. Choose a format for presenting your results. 

Different formats for presenting sales reports include tables with numbers, graphs, charts, and narrative text (a written description). You may want to use more than one presentation type to emphasize critical trends or patterns. 

For example, if some months show higher sales than others, you can include tables that show the totals for each month.  Blend them with graphs to indicate quarterly totals to see short-term fluctuations and long-term trends more clearly.

More importantly, use colorful visuals. They make it easy to grasp and digest the info.

Step 5: Analyze the results.

It’s time to analyze the data and see what conclusions you can draw from it. When analyzing data, don’t just look at averages — look at individual KPIs, and trends over time or between different categories. It helps you get an accurate picture of how things are going overall.

Add a context to the numbers to enable your audience to understand what’s happening. For example, explain why sales went down in one week or month. 

Tips to enhance your sales reports

sales reports tips

Summarize the data

Once you have organized your data, it’s time to summarize it into one document. Highlight the key takeaways and explain to your readers what they can expect to learn. 

 Include the following details:

– A clear overview of the company’s performance in terms of revenue, profit margins, cost of goods sold, etc.

– A detailed analysis of the company’s performance in different markets/regions with a comparison to last year’s results.

– The profitability of each product line, including the market share and growth rates.

– The company’s market position with a comparison to its competitors and its own history.

A concise report helps top management get all the info they need quickly when they’re pressed for time. 

Use sales report templates

Consider using sales report templates because they offer an excellent structure. Check out the following examples.

Generate reports using a CRM tool

CRM software can help you produce colorful and visual reports in no time. 

Clarify the next course  of action

After compiling your sales analysis report,  describe the next steps to deal with the challenges you noted.  For example, outline your action plan to fix falling revenue, weak closing techniques,  high churn rate, etc.

 Make the report short and sweet. 

Don’t overcomplicate it—keep it brief.  Ensure the information you’re presenting is clear and easy to understand at a glance.

Keep the focus on the key metrics.

Your goal should be actionable items—you need to know what’s working. Numbers give you the exact picture of your sellers’ and company’s performance.  

Ask yourself these questions:

  • What makes you so sure that you’re right on target?
  • Is there any way to remedy this situation? How?
  • Explain the increases and the decreases.
  • How can you deal with those challenges?

Continue to improve a successful outcome and minimize the damage.

Create world-class sales analysis reports

Ultimately, it’s the sales managers who gain the most from sales analysis reports. You can use this information to retool your sales strategy for maximum effectiveness. 

Sales reps will need to change with the times to put the right strategy into practice. And executives can use this data to make better business decisions, even if they’re indirectly involved in the sales process.

Also read: Sales dashboard definitive guide: Examples & templates

Don’t forget to share!

Sales enablement: Your guiding framework to sales success

Posted on by vishal arora

In a fast-paced profession like sales, you must be consistently on your toes to maintain your winning streak. With the ever-increasing pressures for meeting your KPIs and sales quotas in today’s customer-centric economy, wouldn’t it be great to have a team you can bank on? Would you like a support system that does all the groundwork and provides the resources for engaging your clients, upskilling, and excelling as a salesperson? If you answered yes, you need a sales enablement strategy/team. 

This blog will emphasize decoding sales enablement and how you can harness this superpower to outpace the competition. 

What is sales enablement?

sales enablement definition

Sales enablement is a blanket term for the information (resources, guidance, and training) offered to you as a salesperson to engage buyers. It helps you better manage your busy schedule and offer relevant content and personalized solutions to your potential customers. Additionally, sales enablement guides you to acquire the skills needed to be an outstanding sales rep.

According to Gartner, this information is grouped into two categories.

i) Content that you will offer prospective buyers.

ii) Best practices, research, and tools you will consume as a salesperson.

Brainshark’s Fifth Annual Sales Enablement study indicates that companies with a defined sales enablement strategy have 15% better win rates than those without it. It also found that sales enablement was more relevant for larger organizations. 

What is the role of sales enablement teams?

Here are a sales enablement team’s chief roles and responsibilities, courtesy of Brainshark. Although, these may vary based on company size, industry, sales enablement team structure, and the sales team’s requirements.

  • Onboarding sales teams
  • Owning and executing recurrent learning programs and sales coaching strategy
  • Creating the content, resources, and training material used in sales enablement programs.
  • Sales and cross-functional communications
  • Managing sales tools and implementing best practices
  • Tracking and reporting performance of sales enablement programs

Why is sales enablement important?

benefits of sales enablement

Listed below are some primary reasons you need a sales enablement strategy.

Contributes to sales success

A well-defined sales enablement strategy increases your sales revenue, shortens the sales cycle, and creates up-sell and cross-sell opportunities with existing clients. Here are some encouraging stats shared by Oracle. 

sales enablement stats

Makes pertinent sales content accessible

As sales went digital, sales content also moved online – mostly scattered between various web pages and portals. Hunting for relevant content amidst busy schedules can become overwhelming for salespeople. Moreover, the inability to access the right content at the right time compels sales reps to create content in haste and stick with outdated or flaccid content to save time. 

An effective sales enablement strategy helps you manage and organize sales content under one platform. It also consolidates information shared between the various internal teams.

Helps engage well-informed buyers

Modern buyers are increasingly becoming more independent and well-informed due to the unlimited resources and choices at their disposal. Research indicates that an average B2B customer consumes 13 pieces of content before making a buying decision. Also, 74% of buyers choose sellers who proactively offer value and insights. Hence, conventional sales and marketing tactics do not suffice in a digitally connected ecosystem. Sales enablement provides the most current and fitting content to engage your potential customers and address their pain points.

Brings parity to the entire team’s sales performance

If applied to sales performance, the 80/20 rule claims that 20% of top-performing sales reps bring in 80% of the revenue. An effective sales enablement strategy helps scale the sales organization beyond a few high-performers. It makes the knowledge, resources, tools, and best practices accessible to the entire salesforce giving every sales rep a fighting chance and opportunity to achieve their quotas. Gartner suggests designating sales overachievers as leaders of such programs.

Streamlines sales training 

Instead of being forced to attend unplanned training sessions or, worst, sell with no training or resources, sales enablement helps align your learning goals with the sales training agenda. By analyzing sales performance and based on research-backed data, sales enablement teams can ensure regular trainings, certifications, product updates or tutorials, etc., can fit into your busy schedule.

What does a sales enablement framework look like?

sales enablement framework

This section will focus on the essential components of a winning sales enablement framework.

Team structure

sales enablement team structure
Source

As a discipline, sales enablement is cross-functional and varies across organizations. At its inception, it was assigned to business functions like sales, marketing, and customer service. But with time, it has emerged as an independent domain. 

Here are some foundational rules on the structure of the sales enablement team, as directed by Gartner.

  • Sales and Marketing should jointly own sales enablement based on the resources (usually content, conversation guides, and sales training) needed for individual programs. 
  • Marketing is responsible for creating the majority of these resources and training the sales organization. 
  • Sales operations administers the information that sales receives as a part of the program.
  • Sales management is generally the one to implement the program.

Content development

Building and optimizing relevant content for various stages of the sale process is a crucial component of your sales enablement strategy. This task weighs collectively on both sales and marketing. Take a look at these key principles for optimizing your sales content.

  • Sometimes, instead of creating new sales content, the best approach can be to organize your existing content gallery. Conduct a thorough analysis of your in-house content and centralize the relevant information in one location, so it is easily accessible and ready to be shared with your targets.
  • Some top content categories to look out for are blogs, case studies, whitepapers, e-books, demo decks, pricing charts, competitive analysis, webinars, etc. Pay special attention to customer case studies highlighting success stories as it helps affirm your target’s confidence in your product/service.
  • Sales enablement teams should also invest in creating customizable sales email templates. As emails are your predominant mode of communication in sales, having a few templates handly could save you a lot of time and energy.

Versatility

Ease of use is a fundamental feature of your sales enablement strategy. The resources built/collated should be accessible and applicable across the sales organization. It is also essential to measure its usability to improve future sales enablement efforts.

Data analysis and reporting

The ability to make data-driven decisions is cardinal for high-performing salespeople. However, managing the massive influx of data in our sales systems can be overwhelming for the average sales rep. This is where sales enablement comes in. 

  • By analyzing heaps of raw data, sales enablement tracks important metrics which help measure sales success. Some of these metrics are-
    • Sales activities logged
    • Leads generated
    • Product demos delivered
    • Deals won and lost
    • Average size of deals
    • Average length of the sales cycle
    • Number of reps who achieve/exceed quota, etc.
  • Sales enablement teams conduct an in-depth analysis of sales reports and highlight any possible disconnect. Such audits help emphasize areas of improvement.
  • It can also augment your lead qualification process. They can implement intelligent lead scoring systems by analyzing historical data and determine if a lead is qualified to enter your sales funnel.

Pro tip: Read our comprehensive blog on sales lead qualification.

Collaboration and communication

Sales enablement is a broad domain and requires collaboration between sales, marketing, and other important lines of business. In order to maintain consistent brand messaging and avoid conflicts among prospective buyers, it is crucial to adopt company-wide communication systems that auto-sync all employees on new workflow updates, resources, etc. Also, develop a practice of frequent and proactive communication between various related departments within sales enablement.

Training and development

Any standard sales enablement program includes ongoing learning for sales teams through training programs. This enables salespeople to use the resources allocated as part of the program effectively. 

Gartner claims that the biggest mistake companies make while designing training programs is conducting them only once a year. Formal training sessions should be held monthly to ensure salespeople retain and revisit training content, resources, and tools. Introducing newsletters and collaboration platforms will make sales enablement more accessible for sales teams.

Customer-centricity

The ultimate goal of sales enablement is to help you engage your buyers. Hence your sales enablement efforts should prioritize buyer experience. Know your prospective customers, and study and analyze their buying journey. Then build your resources, content, and training around this information to optimize the buying experience.

Tech stack

The introduction of artificial intelligence in sales processes has automated tedious but critical operational tasks.

  • AI-powered sales enablement process can cut down countless manual hours spent in demand generation. By analyzing your existing client profiles, artificial intelligence can pinpoint new prospect markets, optimize target territory based on geographic account and prospect data, and even propose potential clients within your social network.
  • You can automate your prospecting efforts by adding direct calendar links to your prospecting emails. This enables sales-ready prospects to schedule meetings on your calendar based on their convenience.
  • Artificial intelligence has taken the guesswork out of lead qualification by compiling and coordinating data across several platforms. Automating your sales enablement process can help determine your ICP by analyzing intelligent insights like client profiles on social media, records of your client interactions from emails, messages, etc.
  • You can set up preset email follow-up sequences that get triggered when a prospect hasn’t responded within a set time frame.
  • AI can streamline and automate your routine customer conversations. You can set up live chats on your website to interact with inbound leads by leveraging AI assistants. It can also filter out unqualified leads and direct only the interested ones to you which saves you a lot of time in dead-end chases.

For more information on how to utilize AI to optimize your sales enablement process, read The compelling impact of artificial intelligence in sales.

Best practices in sales enablement

best practices in sales enablement

As practical as a solid sales enablement strategy can be, there are specific ground rules to leverage its full potential. Poor sales enablement like unstructured training, outdated content, or the wrong approach can be a waste of resources and result in poor sales performance. Let’s look at some of the best practices to implement sales enablement.

Design your enablement program to fit your needs

Your sales enablement needs might differ based on your company size and industry. For example, if you are into enterprise sales, you need to engage decision-makers on the buying side, which may not be the case with smaller companies.

Your needs will change based on your overall goals. For instance, if your sales teams have been consistently unable to meet their quota, you might try to find out why and then focus your enablement efforts accordingly. It can be training new hires or focusing on demand generation.

Devise a strategy

Once you know what your goals and where your gaps are, create your sales enablement strategy to address those components. It’s best to put it in writing and get a sign-off from management. Your plan or charter should focus on the program’s overall goals, team structure, target audience, critical investments, and success metrics. 

CSO Insights states that charter-based sales enablement programs have 19% higher win rates than the average approach.

Get buy-in from leadership, sales staff, and front-line managers

To successfully implement your sales enablement strategy, you need support from various internal parties. Speaking their language while illustrating your agenda and incorporating their feedback is essential.

Leadership

Once you have defined your charter, the next step is to get it approved by the leadership team. Understand your management’s priorities, and align your program’s objectives to their goals. For instance, if your CEO focuses on higher sales, explain how your program can help achieve that goal. Similarly, focus on the program’s financial impact while pitching your CFO.

Sales reps

The main agenda for salespeople is usually to reach their quota. Explain to them how your sales enablement program can help them get there. If possible, share case studies for added motivation.

Sales managers

It is vital for your sales managers to clearly understand what your program aims to achieve. They are driving the sales team, so they should have faith in your strategy.

Take a buyer-centric approach

As stated earlier in the blog, enhancing your buying experience should be the focus of your enablement program. Start with understanding what your ICP wants, align your efforts with the buyer’s journey, and aim to deliver an optimal buying experience.

Create a collaborative culture

For your program to be successful, focus on building a culture based on collaboration. Ensure there is a cooperative spirit between the various sub-functions of sales enablement. Allocate dedicated resources to incorporate cross-functional training on new solutions or product launches.

Review and reassess

Make sure your sales enablement efforts and goals are quantifiable. As it is an evolving domain, be open to technological developments that strengthen your existing program. Regular review and restructuring of sales enablement plans are crucial for overall success.

Select the right sales enablement tool

A sales enablement tool or platform is a technology that streamlines the sales process and helps the sales function achieve its corporate milestones. According to sales enablement platform Highspot, modern sales enablement tools have evolved beyond a centralized sales portal into a closed-loop system that gives visibility across the entire sales content lifecycle.

sales enablement tool
Source

Since sales enablement is multifaceted, its supporting categories can be grouped into several types. Let’s take a look at a few of the major groups along with their functions and examples.

Customer Relationship Management

CRM statistics
Source

In a data-driven world, CRMs are the bare necessity for sales teams to manage and track contact data, sales activity, and client interactions. It also helps with sales forecasting by generating intelligent and customized reports. Most CRMs can be integrated with other sales enablement tools.

Examples: Salesforce, Zoho CRM, Microsoft Dynamics 365, etc.

Content Management

Sales content management systems help you create, organize and promote the most relevant content for your target audience. An ideal content management system helps you analyze your content performance and track content engagement rates.

Examples: Oracle content management, Highspot, Seismic, etc.

Sales Intelligence

These tools collect data insights from multiple sources to help you discover your ICP, analyze their behavior, and tailor your offerings to address their pain points. Sales intelligence tools offer you innovative information on your prospects like their digital footprint, business goals, purchase records, current contracts, and much more.

Examples: LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Hubspot Sales Hub, 6Sense, etc.

Also read:  Unlock your B2B growth potential with sales intelligence

Sales engagement

Hubspot data indicates that salespeople spend  21% of their day drafting emails, 17% on updating data, and another 17% prospecting and researching leads. This takes a heavy toll on sales productivity. Sales engagement tools help you manage, track and optimize customer interactions by streamlining all communication methods like emails, phone calls, social media interactions, etc.

Examples: Salesloft, Autoklose, Outreach, etc.

Conclusion

By now you should realize the criticality of including a sales enablement program in your sales strategy. In a dynamic corporate environment, sales enablement can be your north star- guiding you towards higher client satisfaction and better conversions.

14 Clever sales follow-up tactics to up your game

Posted on by vishal arora

Have you ever gone on a date and then never heard from the person again? It’s not a good feeling. It’s especially bad when the date has been going really, really well. I mean everything was clicking, you were vibing together but… silence. Or maybe they just buzzed you and said “taking time to think about it” or “not sure it’s right for me.” 

Those are classic symptoms of an unclosed deal!

Sending a follow-up message to potential clients is a great way to remind them that you’re there. Even if they ignored your previous message, perhaps they were busy or forgot, a sales follow-up email will make them think again about your offer.

Let’s jump into elite techniques to take your sales follow-up to another level.

What is follow-up in selling?

A sales follow-up is pursuing leads or potential customers by phone, email, or even in person. It helps you build a relationship with the prospect, uncover their pain points, and doubles your chances of making the sale.

Anna Scheller is a hospitality expert and the host of USABizParty. She says: “Follow up, follow up, follow up. That’s a major part of #sales. If you find it tedious, make a game out of it – how many follow-up calls can you make in a day?”

To be a sales rockstar, Nico James- a leadership expert-says you need nine qualities and one of them is sales follow-up skills.  

Sales stats seem to agree with this fact. That’s because 42 % percent of customers are more ready to purchase from a salesperson if they followed up at a specific and agreed time – Invespcro.com.

What does it mean for reps? You should relentlessly pursue your prospect until they say yes or no. Without a clear-cut follow-up strategy, you’ll miss sales opportunities. 

14 Sales follow-up strategies

sales follow up strategies

A sales follow-up is a phone call or email to a potential customer to get them to take action. But what determines the channel of communication you should use? It depends on what kind of response you want.

A follow-up sales call is ideal if you want a quick response. But the prospect may disappear from y0ur radar if they think you’ve made too many calls. 

On the other hand, a sales email follow-up is handy if you’re looking to achieve a positive result. You can create a sales cadence or several touchpoints to warm up your potential customers and establish a relationship. For example, you can blend calls, emails, social media, etc.

Let’s jump into some clever ways for following up on your potential customer to crush your sales goals.

1. Sales follow-up email

One great thing about emails is that they’re visual – you can be creative to grab the reader’s attention.  The potential buyer can bookmark them or label them as “important” or “follow up later.” They can even share the emails with others if they provide value. 

But you need to remember you’re not the only one seeking the prospect’s attention. Emails may remain unread or unopened or land in the trash folder.  As a result, you may be unsuccessful in your first attempts. So keep it at until one is read. 

Here are some follow-up sales email templates to spark your creativity and give you a springboard. Note that your emails must satisfy KISS (Keep it Short & Sweet/Simple) but also be professional. 

Email 1. Subject line: You said you’d think about it… have you yet?

sales follow up email

Email 2. Subject line: Yes, I’d love to learn more about your product/services

sales follow up email

Email 3.  Subject line:  It’s good news. Here is the information you asked for.

sales follow up email

Email 4. Subject line: Questions?  Have more questions?

It’s a follow-up sales email after no response.

sales follow up email

Email 5. An example by Close.com

sales follow up email

Email 6. Subject line: You made a promise…

sales follow up email

Email 7: Subject lines: Charlie, if you don’t want to read this email, I completely understand/I’m sorry to hear that you don’t want to work with us./Hey! I get it. You’re busy. It’s always a pleasure…

Use these follow-up sales emails to inform the prospect that you’re prepared to disengage due to their lack of response.

sales follow up email

Or 

sales follow up email

2. Follow-up sales calls

Phone calls are also excellent ways to get instant feedback and build a personal relationship with y0ur prospect. However, countless calls within a short space of time can irritate the receiver. Instead, leave a voicemail after three calls. 

Anything more than that can be invasive and the potential buyer may think you’re desperate. Be prepared to abort your mission if there’s no response. 

Also read: Cold calling scripts: 13 steps and 4 script templates to close more deals

3. Sales follow-up via social media

You can engage prospects on social media by liking, sharing their posts, sending LinkedIn invites, etc. Avoid overdoing it as someone may think you’re stalking them.

Your own blogs or articles can be another way of building connections. 

4. Sales follow-up through face-to-face meetings

It’s simple. Show up at the customer’s office to pitch your proposal or try to schedule a meeting with them at their convenient time. It shows you’re sincere, but some people may think you’re intruding into their space. 

5. Sales follow-up via handwritten notes

Ever thought of using a handwritten note to follow up on a sales lead? It could be an effective weapon to elicit a response because the short message looks personal. Zapier.com says handwritten cards can “convert leads, show appreciation, and strengthen relationships.”

6. Sales follow-up by fax

In this digital age, the use of fax devices to check on your potential buyer looks old-fashioned. But for reasons, such as some businesses still using fax, integration with the internet, faster than letter email, etc., makes the fax machine quite a good tool. 

You can use it once in a while – it’s least cluttered and can surprise the prospect. However,  it’s not your primary medium. 

7. Sales follow-up via personalized videos

Emails and calls are brilliant ways of pursuing potential buyers. But sometimes, they receive a low response rate. Instead, be creative and send your prospect personalized short videos.  You don’t need to have sophisticated tools to do that – you can find software on the internet. 

Best tips on how to effectively follow up in sales

With the above communication channels in mind, let’s dive into more tactics to sharpen your sales follow-up skills.

8. Provide value

Before you send out your emails, have first-hand info about the challenges your prospects face. It’ll enable you to provide something relevant, such as links, articles, etc., to make their lives better. But, also avoid offering resources for the sake of it – instead, consider your objectives. 

Giving helpful assets away like eBooks isn’t selling. Your chief aim is to help your potential customer fix their pain points and build a relationship that’ll lead to a sale. 

9.  Keep it short & sweet

Time is a scarce commodity as people are always busy. Because of this, ensure your calls, texts, and emails are concise. Long-winding statements with lots of pleasantries risk landing in the trash folder or being ignored. Just cut to the chase.

10. Give the potential buyer enough room to breathe

Each product has a different sales cycle and every customer has their buying timeline. So it makes sense to allow the prospect as much time as they want. For example, if they say you need to ping them after a week, do so. 

Also, define the next steps. Instead of saying, “I’ll have a chat with you the following Thursday, say, I’ll buzz you on Thursday at 9 am.” It’s more specific. 

11. Enticing subject lines

We gave you examples of subject lines you could use in sales email follow-ups. Your subject lines should create curiosity to boost the open and reply rates. 

Some more examples include: 

  • “Putting in work on your biz?
  • “Let’s Talk!” 
  • “It’s Time to Make Your Move” 
  • “Still unsure?” 
  • “Take a look! To see something you weren’t meant to see!’
  • “Looks like Hilton is ready to make a deal with you again.”
  •   “See it. Feel it. Love it.”

12. Use data and analytics

Back up your claims about your product with industry experts, case studies, and testimonials to add more credibility. Again, measure and analyze the effectiveness of your sales email follow-up templates. Do the subject lines work? 

13. Inject some personality 

While it’s great to use the sales email templates we’ve provided, be yourself. Remember people do business with people they respect and like. Fuse y0ur unique style, beliefs, and personality with the emails, calls, etc. For example, you may be more informal and conversational in your messages.  It’s fine as long as you’re professional. 

14. Be ready to abort your mission 

After trying all the tricks in the sales book, you may still hit a brick wall. It’s a sign to back off and move on. No hard feelings. 

How often should you follow up on your leads and potential customers?

The basic idea of a sales follow-up is that you want the likely buyer to respond- whether they give you a sale or not. It entails making as many calls, emails, texts, etc., as necessary. For example, if the prospect says they’re tied up, find out the best time to contact them again.

So even if the customer tells you to get back to them after seven days, calendar the event and ping them at the right time. In other words, follow-up, follow-up. Remember no retreat, no surrender. 

Avoid being one of the 48% of reps who don’t attempt to make one sales follow-up, according to Invespcro.com . You need to bust the myth.

Steli Efti, the author of the Follow-up Formula, suggests chasing after your customer a maximum of six times. Only do this if you’ve never contacted the prospect before and you’re relying on cold prospecting.

But follow up on the lead as many times as you can if you’ve some relationship with them and they’ve never said no. Here’s a specific frequency that he recommends.

sales follow up frequency

You’ll need a CRM tool to help create the above sequence and schedule automated emails.

The time is now. Follow up, Follow up

Sales follow-up is a crucial part of your sales process. It helps create a relationship with your potential customer and ensures that you don’t lose the sale. Successful sales follow-up requires personalized and timely messages. They should provide value and tell the prospect what they need to do next.

Also read: 7 Best cold email templates to increase your response rate

SPIN selling – Lessons learned from the pros

Posted on by vishal arora

SPIN Selling is a portent technique that sales professionals use to help create urgency within their prospects and close the deal. There is a certain psychology behind it that anyone can learn. 

Let’s explore this strategy along with the different elements and processes to implement it.

What is SPIN selling?

SPIN selling is a sales methodology that focuses on understanding customers’ buying behaviors, unearthing pain points, and helping them understand their own needs. 

Developed by Neil Rackham in his book “ SPIN Selling”, the sales strategy emphasizes building trust with your customers. As a rep, you know how crucial it is to grasp your buyer’s needs before you can propose solutions, right! 

But how do you do that? The key lies in uncovering the prospect’s hidden pain points while they get all hyped up on benefits.

In the standard selling method, you might be asking these questions: “What do you need? What do you want? What don’t you like?” Instead, in SPIN Selling, sellers ensure that they’re listening to customers and gaining their insights by asking a lot of questions.

SPIN Selling is an acronym that stands for Situation, Problem, Implication, and Need-payoff. 

SPIN selling

Situation: What’s the buyer’s present situation? Needs or Goals?

Problem: What challenges or difficulties are they facing? Stated or inferred opportunities?

Implication: What are the effects of the problems on the buyer? How can you help them fix the pain points?

Need-payoff: Why the customer needs to solve the problems urgently. Benefits and next course of action? 

SPIN selling summary

Here are the key points of the SPIN selling book by Neil Rackham, the founder of Huthwaite International.

  • Customers buy on emotion and justify it with logic.
  • People want to feel confident when they buy.
  • Buyers need to know what’s in it before buying.
  • People don’t like to be sold, but they love to purchase.
  • The 4 stages of a buying decision/SPIN selling
  • What the customer needs from you at each stage of a decision.
  • You need to zero in on your customer’s interests, not yours.
  • Sellers should create a story around their product or service.
  • Reps need to use questions instead of statements when communicating with their customers.

The SPIN Selling book is a classic that is popular in the sales world. We recommend you dig deeper into the material to sharpen your selling techniques to crush your goals.

Meanwhile, read on to discover more juicy sales strategies.

The four stages of SPIN selling

4 stages of SPIN selling

Typically, the SPIN Selling sales methodology outlines four essential steps to closing a deal. They include opening, investigating, demonstrating capability, and obtaining commitment. What does each process mean for you?

1. Opening

One of the mistakes that sellers do is to shove their products in their customers’ faces. Yes, literally-reps brag about how their solution is a game changer and can fix the prospect’s challenges.  That’s not the way you should sell, according to the SPIN Selling approach.

Instead, aim to build trust and rapport by asking questions about the buyer’s challenges. Be like a doctor-gather as much info as you can about the lead. Avoid seeing them as a source of revenue, but rather show that you want to help. 

2. Investigating

Now you’ve got a general idea about what your potential customer wants. The next step involves asking specific questions about their frustrations. Your goal is to grasp how your product can solve those problems. 

You also want the buyer to self-diagnose through your inquiries. In this way, you can establish yourself as a credible source interested in their welfare. For example, you may say: What are the biggest problems your business faces with closing deals? 

3. Demonstrating capability

At this stage, you have a complete picture of the customer’s exact difficulties. Next, show them how your product is the ideal solution by presenting its value, features, and benefits. 

How can your solution change their life? In what way is it better than other products? 

4. Obtaining commitment

It’s the final stage of the SPIN Selling method. You should be able to get a commitment from the prospect to purchase the product or subscribe to a service. If the deal sails through, you can laugh all the way to the bank. 

But the potential buyer may raise some objections. Be prepared to handle them and propose to schedule a meeting with other key stakeholders for a demo.

SPIN selling questions 

The SPIN Selling strategy is built around questions. Rackham and his counterparts at Huthwaite International burrowed into over 3o,000 sales interviews and discovered critical things to advance sales performance.

Let’s dive into some of these examples under each of the four stages of the SPIN Selling sales approach. 

Situation questions

SPIN Selling situation questions help you understand the customer’s needs and guide the conversation toward a sale.

  • What is your primary goal? In what ways does your current solution fall short in meeting that goal?
  • How long have you been using this system/process? What do you like about it, and what don’t you like? What would make it better? Would you change anything about it? If so, what would those changes be?
  • Why did you choose this product/service instead of another one like it? What was important to you when making this decision? Why did that matter more than other factors related to the purchase decision (e.g., price)?
  • How did you get started in this business?
  • What is the most successful marketing campaign you have ever run?
  • Tell me about your most recent customer service experience. What did you like about it, and what could have been done better?
  • What do you like most about your current vendor/service provider? What would you change if you could?
  • What do you hope to accomplish by meeting with us today and understanding our product/service better?

Situation questions are open-ended questions that encourage the customer to tell you about their business. You become aware of their needs and how you can help them. The questions hinge on the idea that every sales call involves a problem, and the solution to that challenge is your product or service.

Problem questions

These questions get your prospect talking about their difficulties and how they see things. You want to find out what’s really going on and what their concerns are. The more info you can get from them, the better prepared you’ll be when you make your sales pitch.

  • What are the biggest challenges you’ve been facing recently?
  • What results are you looking for?
  • How do you think this solution will help with those challenges?  
  •  What would be the benefits of having this solution in place?  
  • How do you currently approach these challenges in your business?
  • Can I ask who else works on this project with you?
  • What are your top three problems?
  • How do you define success in this area?
  • At what point do you want to be successful? What would that look like to you? How would you know if you were successful or not? (This is a great question because it helps reps understand the customer’s definition of success.)
  • What do you do now to solve this problem? How does it work for you? Does it work well enough for your needs and budget? 
  • Is there anything else available that might work better for you and your team? What would that look like? 
  • Do any of these options have an impact on other parts of your business, departments, or people? 
  • What would they think about using these solutions or products instead of solving the problem themselves?

Implication questions

They’re the higher order questions that enable you to uncover the buyer’s real needs. It’s the critical part of SPIN Selling. You should ask these implication questions to ensure that you’re selling the right thing, at the right time, and at the right price.

  • If we were able to solve the [x] issue, would that change your mind?
  • If we could help you achieve [y], would that make a difference in your decision?
  • What happens if you don’t solve this problem right away?  What are the potential consequences if you don’t address this situation today/soon/as soon as possible/immediately etc.? 
  • Do you have any goals that you’d like to achieve, but can’t do due to [problem]?
  • What effect does [problem] have on your work?
  • What’s the impact of this issue on your team’s performance?
  • How does [problem] affect your buyers?
  • Are there any chances of advancing your career by resolving [problem]?

Need payoff questions

Need payoff questions are the last step in the SPIN Selling process. They help you clarify the customer’s needs to determine if your company’s product or service is a good fit. And they also encourage the prospect to explain how your solution can resolve their problems.

  • Are there any ways to make [insert process] easier to accomplish?
  • Is it worthwhile to perform [insert process]?
  • In your opinion, would it benefit your company to resolve the issue with [insert process or resource]?
  • Is it important for your organization to be able to perform [insert process or operation]?
  • Do you have any thoughts on how [insert process or resource] would benefit your staff?

How do I practice SPIN selling?

practicing SPIN selling

Here are some tips on how to successfully use the above sales methodology in selling.

Building rapport

When you build rapport with someone, it makes it easier for them to trust what you say. That’s because they feel like they already know you as a person — even if they’ve never met you before today! 

Rapport building doesn’t require a lot of work or effort. Pay attention and make small talk about non-work related topics with the customer before diving into business-related matters.

Asking open-ended questions

Ask open-ended questions that let the prospect tell you their story in their own words. It helps you get more info about what they need before making recommendations on products or services. 

Ensure that your questions don’t sound like you’re just trying to get details from them. Your goal should be to help them grasp their situation better to make an informed decision about purchasing. 

Also read: 19 Best sales discovery questions to close more deals

Personalization

Personalization is key in a world where people have an aversion to being sold things they don’t need or want. Personalize your pitch by addressing specific problems your prospect has. 

They’ll feel you’re more interested in meeting their needs than trying to sell them something they don’t need. It makes them more receptive to what you’re saying. And they become more likely to take action on your advice after the sales call ends.

Researching the customer

Make sure you have all your facts straight before walking into an appointment. When you’re armed with information, it shows you’re an expert, confident and prepared. It’ll help build trust with your buyer.

Does SPIN selling still work?

While there are many sales strategies, SPIN Selling is one of the most widely used because it works. Here are five reasons why this approach is still relevant today:

1. It’s based on research.

2. It provides a structure for communicating with prospects and customers.

3. It helps you avoid common mistakes when selling to people.

4. It’s easy to learn and apply in real time.

5. It allows you to tailor your message based on what your prospect or customer needs at any given moment.  

Also, the following video gives you more irresistible benefits on why you need to use the sales methodology.

Bonus: You can also enroll in a SPIN selling training course to hone your sales techniques.

Start applying this sales strategy today!

SPIN Selling is based on the concept that customers buy solutions to their problems, not products or services. It involves asking questions to uncover the customer’s situation, problems, implications, and needs. A good SPIN question should be open-ended and not lead the customer towards a particular answer. 

Also read: 9 Sales methodologies: How to win buyers and influence sales

Have you used SPIN Selling before? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.