Today I am going to show you the simplest way to get clients without cold calling or emailing prospects
If you’re not yet leveraging the power of word-of-mouth marketing, here are some referral marketing statistics that will change your mind and make you want to implement a refer a friend program tomorrow.
“One customer, well taken care of, could be more valuable than $10,000 worth of advertising“
Jim Rohn
Referral systems are a fantastic way to get leads without cold calling or even emailing. Every day, billions of recommendations happen just because someone likes a product or a service and tells someone, who then tells someone else, who in turn tells someone else–it’s human nature to talk about things we like.
If you want to jump on the bandwagon and get referrals easily there are 5 things you must do
Be referable – people only refer you when you are reliable and deliver positive results, so make sure you deliver.
Make a habit of asking for a referral, but only when a customer says you are fantastic. Make sure to ask your clients to set a time to do this with your customer for instance an exit meeting after you have delivered your product or service, but make sure that they are an advocate before you ask
Write down how your company will get referrals easily by creating a system around this. Be consistent and monitor your results.
Give a reward for a referral make it simple. If it’s complicated people will not do it, it’s that simple. An easy way to get a referral is to create a page on your website that is a reward for a referral. To make it simple, the referee receives X when the salesperson delivers an order that is referred
Monitor your activity, analyze and track your performance.
Chances are your satisfied customers are talking about your brand right now, but are you giving their advocacy the attention it deserves? These referral marketing statistics will help you evaluate where you stand.
Referral marketing statistics that are mind blowing
Forbes says referrals are the most valuable leads you can get. 78% of B2B marketers say that referrals are one of the most valuable leads you can get
The Word of Mouth Marketing Association reports that every day in the United States, there are approximately 2.4 billion brand-related conversations. People frequently talk about the products and services they enjoy, and the companies that offer them
77% of consumers are more likely to buy a new product when learning about it from friends or family. – Nielsen
81% of U.S. Online consumers’ purchase decisions are influenced by their friend’s social media posts versus 78% who are influenced by the posts of the brands they follow on social media. – Market Force
43% of consumers are more likely to buy a new product when learning about it from friends on social media. – Nielsen
84% of consumers say they either completely or somewhat trust recommendations from family, colleagues, and friends about products – making these recommendations the information source ranked highest for trustworthiness. – Nielsen
More simple referral statistics and strategies
74% of consumers identify word-of-mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decision. –
1 offline word of mouth impression drives sales at least 5x more than 1 paid, and much more (as much as 100 times more) for higher-consideration categories. – WOMMA
Word of mouth is the primary factor behind 20% to 50% of all purchasing decisions. McKinsey
49% of U.S. Consumers say friends and family are their top sources of brand awareness.
71% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase based on social media referrals.
On social media, 58% of consumers share their positive experiences with a company and ask family, colleagues, and friends for their opinions about brands. SDL
Consumers rely on word-of-mouth 2x to 10x more than paid media. – Boston Consulting Group
59% of Pinterest users have purchased an item they saw on the site, and 33% of Facebook users have purchased an item they saw on their news feed or a friend’s wall.
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
So, you got a face-to-face meeting with your client, you want this meeting to be successful and lead to a sale. What are some of the things that you could say to make this meeting magic? In short, what are the most powerful questions in sales?
Like all people, salespeople have habits, just like your morning routine or your exercise routine, you have habits. You do the same thing repeatedly. I bet you wake up and do 5 similar things each morning. If you do repeatable things they become a habit, and we do them innately. For instance, you brush your teeth with the same hand, the same toothpaste, and eat the same thing for breakfast etc.
The big problem with habits is we do them repeatably without awareness
The big problem in sales is that we do the same thing repeatedly and expect different results. So become aware of what you are doing, and record yourself on the phone. Record and review, then make a note of what you want to change and repeat the process. By doing this you will reach high performance and get more sales.
3 habits that salespeople do repeatedly that kill a sales meeting
Talk too much about themselves, their product, their company
They don’t listen
Sell and pitch far too early even before they understand the client’s problems.
Find out the Most Powerful Questions in Sales in my Video Below
Find out Their Pains and Gains
Today I’m going to teach you the three most powerful sales questions ever that you can use in your sales meeting. When we are client-facing multiple facets come into play for instance body language, how you present yourself, tonality etc but today we are going to focus on questioning.
The most important thing to do is find out all the information at the early stages of the sales process, sit and listen, and gather up as many details as you can, especially if the customer is a right fit for you and should you spend your valuable time with them.
The best salespeople sit like a cat, they take in all the information, why because the information is power especially when you use it.
So just think of it, what are you selling? A nail sells a hole, what problems do your products or services fix. That’s what you ask questions about.
Note I said ask, and ask again, then listen and write down what keeps this customer up at night. What is nerve-striking with your client?
Most salespeople make this mistake, they let their guards down and consequently think this is a done deal. Do not just feed data to a client, make sure to dig deep and find out their pains and gains, and what is important to them.
The 3 Most Powerful Sales Questions
1. So, what motivated you to have this meeting with us today? Or why did you agree to set aside the time to meet today?
Then keep quiet, let the prospect do all the talking and you take notes. Let them talk and show interest by nodding and saying yes. Do not interrupt.
2. So, Name XXX, in relation to XXX (their problem or need) what exactly are we trying to accomplish here today?
That’s a very powerful question. It is very goal-oriented and outcome-driven. What are we trying to accomplish here today? Make sure to let them talk 75% of the time and you pipe in 25% of the time.
For consultative and discovery calls you can askwhere are you today with this situation? and where would you like to be?
Now that question is so powerful because it tells me exactly, what’s the status of the company, right? Where they are, what are their frustrations, and what are the pain points? And then where do they want to be? Where do they want to be a year from now?
You must present your product and service as a bridge from where they are (pain) to where they want to be (solution). Use your product as the bridge, or system to the problem to fix it. Ask them how long they have had this problem and go into the details of what this is costing them
Remember, as salespeople, we are problem-solvers.
If it’s a good fit, we go for it. If it’s not a good fit it’s okay to say no. Hone in on their frustrations and what keeps them up at night, but remember if they are not a fit you need to move on. Remember, if there’s no pain, there is no sale!
Another good question is how long have you had this problem? At this point, you must get them to own the problem, so XXX with this XXX (problem) what would you like to happen?
Let them say…
We need to solve this problem
We tried XXX before and it did not work
We have tried to get a solution
We have tried many vendors but never followed through
This problem has been ongoing
We couldn’t solve the problem
The next question to ask is this:
3. If this meeting accomplished everything you could hope for, in terms of a solution to your problem XXX what would that look like?
Listen, as they will give you exactly what they want. Make sure you feed this back to them in your pitch, matching all the major pains with solutions. Make sure to take notes at meetings as you will forget relevant points.
This tells you how you need to sell … now start your high-level pitch!
Simple Questions are So Powerful
So next time when you’re in a face-to-face meeting talk less, ask questions and listen.
Simple questions are so powerful they are designed for one thing and one thing only, to get a deep understanding of what your prospect is looking for.
Use what, when, why, and where.
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?
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
Do you want more sales? Do you know the fundamentals that underpin a top-performing sales team?
Ok, I will say this adage once – “There is no quick fix,” no 48-hour diet that works so why on earth do you think you can grow sales without putting in the framework and processes that create a successful sales area?
I am often asked by people what I do for a living. I am a Sales Consultant. The answer I get is “Oh, you do sales training?”
Most people think sales training will sort out a sales area and this is far from the truth. I have trained many sales teams in Dublin and abroad. My ethos is to underpin sales success by looking at the complete picture.
1. Sales Process to Help you Win More Business
If you have a formalized process it helps the sales team focus on activities and tasks that win more sales, as a result, building a high performing sales team. It is essential to break down the sales tasks in a sales process using small steps. Think about how your salespeople are in front of customers. i.e. What does the first meeting entail, what questions need to be answered, what qualification questions do you need to ask? When do you present? What does the presentation look like? If you have 6 salespeople and no sales process, they will all do it differently. How do you know what your salespeople say in front of customers?
Salespeople can achieve a higher performance by using a sales process that works time and time again.
2. Create A Solid Plan with KPI’s and Goals
If you fail to plan you plan to fail.
Establish Goals with KPIs to Evaluate Your Sucess
You must have a plan with goals and KPIs. This is not just a target and a number, it is a breakdown of the activity behind the goals. Weigh up the daily, weekly, and monthly activities that must be met to achieve the goal.
With a clear game plan in place at the outset, the chance of achieving success is 80% higher. Those who set goals for themselves achieve higher rates of success in their careers. Knowing how we plan to accomplish those goals – i.e. Having a plan is pivotal to enabling high performance.
3. Use CRM Sales Software that Helps You Win More Sales
If you are more organized and systematic you will win more sales. It’s that simple. A CRM tracks your progress, shows your pipeline, what needs to be done and what to focus on. It needs to be easy to use and not take all day to input information so use a versatile CRM App that’s a good fit for your business.
Choosing the right CRM for your business is key. Good analytics are needed to know where you are and what needs to be done. A CRM tells you what to do, the key is how you do it and that it is performance-related.
4. High Performing Sales People
You must have a process to enable you to search for great talent. Questions to ask yourself: Firstly, what do I expect the new hire to do in their first month, and the months that follow? Secondly, what can I reasonably expect them to achieve, how quickly, and what can I do to help them? Thirdly, what core skills and attributes are absolute necessities? And finally, what new services could this new person offer clients or customers?
5. Sales Training and Coaching is a Must for a High Performing Sales Team
Continuous growth is essential because, like sports sales is a performance, consistency is key. Sales have changed more dramatically in the last 20 years than in the previous 50, so keep up with your customers and focus on how they buy, then build your sales process around this. Salespeople are a direct reflection of your company. Continued education is critical to the success of your sales team and should be provided as often as possible.
Continued Education is Critical to Your Sales Team Success
6. Want to Win More Sales? Have a Winning Mindset
There is no second in sales, there is first and last! Go after each sale with the winning mentality. This is a must! If you do every step of the sales with a winning mindset you are more likely to win the sale.
7. Best Practice Sales Management
Create ownership of activities and tasks for your team. Be generous with your time. Give credit where credit is due and focus on your sales process. Set clear goals and clarity of tasks, people like to know how to create success and rely on the know-how of managing. If they believe in you, they will follow. Teach your salespeople how to do the tasks for themselves. The saying is true, ” give a fish to a person they will last a day, teach them to fish and they will last a lifetime”
Use coaching questions to really drill down with problem areas salespeople are having. On a scale of 1-10 where are you with this task? If you had no limits or constraints with this problem, what would you do?
Sales meetings must be scheduled in the diary, and salespeople must know where you are in relation to their plan, and what activities need to be done within a time frame.
8. Value Proposition
Understanding your value proposition is vital for salespeople. I commonly find this is a big block for lots of companies and thus salespeople are not equipped with the right messaging. Salespeople often talk about their company, and their products, they focus on features and benefits, this is a problem. Salespeople must talk about what the features and benefits mean to the customer. Use your wording like this: “we help companies to XXX giving them more XXX (result for the customer)”
Content is still king, so work on your value proposition and nail it. If you want help with this book a strategy call with me.
9.Lead Generation – Online to Offline Selling
Constant prospecting is the role of a salesperson and with social media, prospecting has never been easier. LinkedIn is an essential tool for B2B salespeople to extend their business network or tribe and get more sales conversations. Find out where your customers sit on social media and engage with them.
It’s also widely known that the marketing team is often responsible for executing and managing email campaigns, and are therefore well versed in communicating and writing compelling content that engages with customers. Find out what works to create leads, this is the end result you want.
10.Praise and Reward
Hire, Train, Coach and Reward Great Salespeople.
Really work on getting good, hard-working people and reward them, praise them and make them feel valued. This is really key to high performing sales teams and as a result, you will keep your team longer and get better results.
If you manage to do all the above… GREAT! But if you don’t hire a coach or business strategist to help you!
Do you want to take action? Do you want to grow your business to get more leads and sales?
Want to reach your goals? Without fail, This works every time? Watch this video
If you want to find success and achieve your business goals this is key.
This video explains the key strategies on how to reach your business goals in 2022. By breaking down goals into weekly steps we raise the activity levels and completion of tasks. If you want to learn why a business fails over and over again watch this video.
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.
