According to HubSpot 41% of salespeople find prospecting the most difficult part of sales”
There are 3 things in sales that need focus, if you spend 50% of your time doing them you will get more revenue. It is that simple, but people like to avoid complicated tasks or ones that do not give instant gratification. Prospecting falls under this category.
The 3 things to focus on for Sales Professionals:
Prospecting
Sales conversations
Closing
I have done timesheets with sales professionals and it is the same story repeatedly. Sales professionals spend less than 35% of their time on sales tasks. Look at the statistics around this.
Sometimes it is not the salesperson’s fault it is the companies wanting too much paperwork / internal meetings / unnecessary reporting that is too complicated. From my own experience, I worked with a PLC and spent most of my time having internal meetings and doing presentations for this manager and that manager. At the end of the day, management is going to look at your sales figures and all other tasks do not reap rewards.
“According to Salesforce todays sales professionals spend on average spend 34 % of their time selling”
Inevitably, most people will avoid tasks they do not like doing, for instance, prospecting. One of my top tips for sales professionals, therefore, is to assign a task and keep the process simple. This way your sales team are more likely to do it.
If you give anything focus you get results. Let me say that again, focus is the key to achieving any goal. Sales are about performance and focus increase performance.
Leads Generation Process for Sales professionals
My mission with Elevate Sales is to help companies achieve sales growth. However, there is one problem that keeps coming up repeatedly. Leads, yes lack of leads. Leads are not followed up or simply there is no process around lead generation and prospecting.
There are 24 ways to get leads and it gets complicated what to focus on. What is your strategy around this and who will take charge of the work? This big problem between sales and marketing is called Marketing and Sales Misalignment. For this reason misalignment of sales and marketing costs companies Trillions per year.
Although sales and marketing have a vast number of common goals and objectives, the two have always found it tough to work together. This is bad news for businesses. The inability of sales and marketing to collaborate and work together towards common goals can harm and hurt growth and performance: it has been estimated that lost sales productivity and wasted marketing budget cost companies AT LEAST $1 trillion a year. (101 B2B Marketing and Sales Tips from The B2B Lead)
To keep things simple, I often suggest a simple one-page strategy. This gives you much greater focus and keeps clutter away.
Below are 5 Tips for Sales Professionals to help you get leads:
Where does your customer sit on social media, master these platforms
Revise how you get your top ten leads last year? existing customer base first.
Set outline plan and goals with outside help -see one-page strategy
Assign someone responsible for these tasks
Manage and Measure the tasks /actions /results weekly.
Adrienne is a Business Growth Advisor. On a mission to elevate your company’s growth, through building sales and leads blueprints that work time and time again. Do you want to find out how to build your own sales blueprint, to get more leads and sales for your company?
Ok, so you want to get Digital Strategies to get leads but you are struggling and feeling overwhelmed because there are so many ways to work with content and the online market is very crowded. So what route do you choose?
Email
Ebooks
Blogs
Polls/Quizzes
Infographics
Video
Podcasts
Webinars
Case studies
WhitePapers
Another decision is, what Digital Marketing platform is best for your business? For example, Websites, Social Media platforms, and Service-oriented platforms.
All these decisions get confusing, so what really works for you and your customers? Complexity stifles any change. Let me show you a simple way to get leads for your business.
No business survives without leads and sales.
Create a Simple Blueprint to strengthen your Digital Strategy
Now, before I go any further, I want you to understand one thing. The real key for you is to focus on one of the strategies from your Leads Mastery and implement it in your business instead of trying a scattergun approach. We need to nail one strategy and keep it simple, that is it.
There has never been more noise in the marketplace than ever before. There are thousands of people that are battling for the attention of your ideal prospects at the same time as you. Two key things that we found to help with getting leads is establishing the need for your product or service, by using case studies and testimonials to back it up.
That helps you cut through the noise. Testimonials prove that you have the authority in the marketplace. If you do not have any, I will really ask you to get them before you move to the next step.
All right. So, without further ado,
Lead Generation with LinkedIn
For B2B my favourite lead generation tool is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is, honestly, the best thing since sliced bread.
Firstly, make sure you have a high-quality LinkedIn profile and build your connections with your target audience. There is a saying in some of the circles I hang around with, if you want more sales, you need a plan (blueprint) fail to plan, plan to fail. message that resonates with your target market.
Your Leads Mastery Blueprint
I am going to tell you about my Leads Mastery Program. This is where we go high level and talk about four main strategies that are proven to get leads, then we pull the one that resonates with your business, and we create your blueprint. We nail this blueprint to work repeatedly.
Go online, to go offline to have a conversation! It is that simple.
So, there you have it. I just gave you the keys to printing money with your business. Now it is time to set up a machine where you are putting in one dollar and you are getting back three to five dollars.
Business Growth Advisor
Adrienne is a Business Growth Advisor. On a mission to elevate your company’s growth, through building sales and leads blueprints that work time and time again. Do you want to find out how to build your own sales blueprint, to get more leads and sales for your company?
If this resonates with you and you want to talk more, please
Below are some interesting customer service, satisfaction and experience stats that demonstrate how times are changing.
More than ever we want a great buying experience.
Currently, I am creating a booklet for a PLC to create a Wow customer CX experience. It has been an incredible journey. I immersed myself in the customer’s shoes and examined every piece of the buying journey from online to offline to real-life name it, I examined it.
I love the example of coffee, and buying experience and how you create value in it. Look at Nespresso it nearly charges 4 times the amount of regular coffee but it is the experience we love. The look the feel the image of George Clooney sipping coffee in his cool grey suit. Brand ambassadors really do endorse products and help sell more. Nespresso leads the way with capsule coffee and now has a sustainable option.
See below all the statistics which really demonstrate how we love great customer service. Companies need to pay attention to this and more importantly their customers’ viewpoint as customers will share the buying experience online with the press of a button.
Customer Service CX Statistics
54% of customers have higher expectations for customer service today compared to one year ago.
This percentage jumps to 66% for consumers aged from 18 to 34 years old. Microsoft
Gartner predicts that 89% of businesses are expected to compete mainly on customer experience. Gartner
They (Gartner) have also predicted that by 2019 more than 50% of organizations will redirect their investments to customer experience innovations. Gartner
Worldwide, 67% of people believe that customer service is improving. Microsoft
In 2017, 64% of Americans contacted some form of customer service. Statista
52% of people around the globe believe that companies need to act on feedback provided by their customers. Microsoft
Around the globe, 96% of consumers say customer service is an important factor in their choice of loyalty to a brand. Microsoft
When asking consumers what impacts their level of trust with a company, offering excellent customer service is ranked number one. Zendesk
A customer experience promoter has a lifetime value to a company that is 600 to 1,400% that of a detractor. Bain
34% of companies are implementing “customer journey mapping” into their customer service. Salesforce
70% of consumers say they have already made a choice to support a company that delivers great customer service. American Express
Great Customer Service is Ranked Number 1
Service insight and knowledge are also key to a good experience according to 62% of consumers. American Express
Americans will pay 17% more to do business with firms with great reputations when it comes to customer service. American Express
52% of consumers say they have made an additional purchase from a company after a positive customer service experience. Zendesk
90% of customers are influenced by positive reviews when buying a product. Zendesk
More people read positive reviews of customer service online than negative ones by 6%. Zendesk
Gartner predicts that by 2019, more than 50% of organizations will redirect their investments to customer experience innovations. Gartner
With 89% of businesses soon to be expected to compete mainly on customer experience, organizations that take customer experience seriously will stand out from the noise and win loyal customers. Gartner
99% of Customer Experience and Success leaders believe Customer Experience Management has a positive impact on their business. Lumoa
In 2019, customer experience will continue as a major factor in how companies do business. Forrester
87% of organizations agree to traditional experiences no longer satisfy customers. Accenture.
A moderate improvement in CX would impact the revenue of a typical $1 billion company an average of $775 million over three years. Temkin Group
67% of consumers and 74% of business buyers say they will pay more for a great experience. Salesforce
By 2020, more than 40% of all data analytics projects will relate to an aspect of customer experience. Gartner
65% of companies measure NPS compared with 44% that measure CSAT and 14% that measure CES. Lumoa
84% of organizations working to improve CX report an increase in revenue. Dimension Data
Attracting a new customer is 6-7 times more expensive than retaining a current one Salesforce
Increasing customer retention rates by 5% increase in profits by 25% to 95%. Harvard Business School
In conclusion, I think this list says one thing. The customer is king and has got to be the focus of your organisation. Also, customer retention is key. I would love some comments on your customer service experience!
Adrienne is a business growth strategist, founder of Elevate Sales with 20 years of international sales experience growing companies from Zero to 6 and 7 figures.
