Cold Calling Training | Skills + Practice = Success

Cold Calling Training – Top question from Google

How do you Train for cold calling?

HERE’S THE SHORT ANSWER:

Thoroughly research your target audience and what’s important to them
Ensure you know exactly how your product or service impacts your customer and the value it delivers
Plan your day and make sure you have prepared your call lists in advance
Use a CRM or other tool to track every call you make
Use email and social media in combination to increase your success
Slow down – build rapport first and add value before you ask for anything
Embrace the NO’s, don’t take it personally and understand, success is following your process consistently
If you are not getting more No’s than Yeses then you are not talking to enough people
Test everything and keep testing everything, so you can learn and improve

Some sales people dread the thought of cold calling, and many customers hate receiving endless cold calls from various companies trying to sell them products or services that they don’t want.

In this changing world, many of us don’t even make a phone call in our personal lives, as we swap traditional phone calls for instant messaging and social media.

However, cold calling is a tried and tested sales channel which has been used for decades to secure new customers, and can still play an important part in your outbound sales strategy.

Whilst cold calling might not seem to be the in thing, most companies still have some form of cold calling operations. In fact, cold calling is considered to be the most used sales technique in the world.

1. Cold calling is dead, long live cold calling

The way in which modern buyers operate has changed. Many buyers are more savvy now, and don’t like to be sold to, but they do like to buy.

With this in mind, you might think that cold calling has had its day, and should be consigned to the bin. Whilst the world has moved on, cold calling can still be a really effective sales tool.

Salespeople do however need to adapt their practices to suit the modern buyer. Gone are the days of aimlessly working through a spreadsheet, today’s cold callers need to work in a much more targeted and smarter way.

If you’re considering using cold calling as a route to market it’s important your sales reps are properly trained and not simply “winging” it on every call. Our telephone cold calling course will help your sales reps develop a positive attitude, refine your cold calling process, improve their objection handling skills and sales techniques.

2. What is the definition of a cold call?

A cold call is simply when you telephone a stranger who is not expecting your call. At some stage it is highly likely that we have either cold called someone, or been cold called ourselves, either in a work capacity or in our personal lives.

If you have met the potential customer previously at a trade show or had some previous communication with them, then that is not a cold call.

Similarly, if you have corresponded with the prospective buyer before, maybe sent them some promotional material either via email or LinkedIn, this is not a cold call.

The latter examples are called “Warm Calling”, which typically has a much higher success rate, but as you would expect, lead in times and costs are more expensive for warm calling.

3. Cold Calling Training

Many sales people do not get sufficient cold calling training, either in terms of quantity or quality. This may be because companies they are reluctant to invest in their teams and assume that in cold calling the volume of calls is king.

However, this approach is counterproductive to creating and maintaning a good brand, securing new customers and increasing profits and revenue for your company.

One bad cold call could have ramifications for your business, as it could give a negative impression of your business and destroy your brand reputation.

Not only can this mean that the person being cold called will be very unlikely to order from your company, but they may tell their colleagues and business network of their poor experience, starting a chain of dissatisfaction. If this happens time and time again, it could become a major problem for your business.

Cold calling is a difficult job, there is no getting away from that. As you are jumping into the unknown you have no idea as to who is on the other side, they could be aggressive towards you, or just look to play with you and waste your time.

However, all of that anguish can be overcome by the feeling of success in pulling off a sale or booking a meeting, where originally there may have been little chance of success.

Like most things in life, you get out of cold calling what you put in. If you are willing to learn, and put in the hard graft of calling a seemingly endless array of people, you will get some success.

Making cold calls and repeating the cold calling process will help cement those practices into your sales pitch, but it may take thousands of calls for you to perfect it.

Unfortunately, somewhere along those thousands of calls, you are likely to encounter a troublesome customer and a lot of rejection. It is important that you don’t let this put you off.

Klozers offer specialist cold calling training courses, which can be a useful investment if your cold calling isn’t getting the right results, or you want to try to source new customers via cold calling techniques.

There are also a whole host of videos and books on sales training (and specifically telephone sales), which can give great tips and insights. However, for many, this is only a substitute for good sales training and experience.

Our cold calling training is popular with both new sales reps, and existing people who want to improve their cold calling techniques.

4. Marketing vs Telesales

Unsurprisingly, almost all marketing executives will tell you that telephone prospecting is a waste of time, and companies should focus their attention on marketing – resulting in greater budgets for their teams.

Marketing is hugely important, however, it is reactive and not pro-active, and that might not work for you.

As an example, if you have a proven niche software solution and are selling into a vertical such as Hotel Chains within the Hospitality sector, would you wait on all the Hotels seeing your marketing material and then contacting you, or simply get your business development team to contact them directly?

Yes, in an ideal world they will be familiar with your brand before the sales reps contact them, but the point is you would never advocate sitting around waiting on them to contact you.

Effective modern businesses should look to combine both of these techniques. Cold calling has its place, but marketing should always be viewed as the main lead generator for the business.

4. What makes a good Telesales Team?

* Preparation

When we think of cold calling, we might think of sales reps being in an endless rush, jumping from potential customer to potential customer without a thought. However, proper preparation is an important part of successful cold calling. In some instances, scripts can be a useful tool. If scripts are used then the sales rep should prepare and learn the script, so they can sound engaging on the phone, rather than robotic.

* Record Keeping

Keeping track of your progress as a cold caller is an important part of the cold calling process. It can be demoralising making call after call and getting making no progress, but if the company or sales person keeps an efficient log of call rates then this can motivate the sales reps. For example, if a cold calling sales team know they have a success rate of 1 in 50, and the sales person has made 15 calls without any success, they know that this can be a common occurrence and if they use their skills correctly a sale may be round the corner.

* Plan for the day ahead

Modern business is full of statistics, and every last detail can be logged somewhere. This can be useful in looking at the success rates of cold calling. Are there particular times of the day, days of the week, or parts of the month when telephone prospecting is more successful than others.

If clear patterns emerge then sales teams should double up their efforts to take advantage of the successful patterns. When cold calling is less successful then this time could be better spent on team training or meetings. It would be poor team planning if a weekly meeting was scheduled on the most successful time of the week!

If it takes you a couple of calls in the morning to full get into the swing of things, then you can always keep your best prospects back a couple of hours, or even keep them until the time/day when you know cold calls are more successful. You will however, need to work around the availability of the buyer.

* Follow Up

Following up with a cold call contact is vitally important. During the phone call you might think that the person isn’t interested, but even a short follow up email could bring them onto your side. The buyer may not have heard about your company before, and be sceptical of your business claims.

If they are provided with some material material and links to your website, they can corroborate your information themselves, which is a powerful tool. Emails which are sent after a cold call have a surprisingly high open rate.

* Practice makes permanent

If you want to be good at something you need to practice, practice and practice some more. It is thought that to become a cold calling expert you need to dedicate 10,000 hours to doing it.

You will need to guard against practice making bad habits permanent. It can be easy to rid ourselves or our sales teams of bad traits if they don’t do it too often or they have just started, but once they are embedded it can be much harder to get rid off.

Therefore, it is important that salespeople receive training prior to starting cold calling, and that regular sales training and review procedures are in place to avoid problems becoming permanent.

* Share ideas and experience across the team

Sales people are naturally competitive people, they will want to beat their colleagues in the number of sales or appointments secured. However, there is a lot to be said for teamwork. Debriefing at the end of the day can be used to refine sales pitches to what works and what doesn’t work. Sharing experiences both good cold calls and bad can also be reassuring to colleagues.

Cold calls don’t always go to plan, and it can be a good idea to expect the unexpected, and prepare as an individual or as a team for what response you should give in unexpected circumstances.

5. What makes cold calling so difficult?

As we said earlier cold calling is difficult, but don’t let that put you off making it an important part of your sales strategy. Modern buyers have become more adapt to fending of pushy salespeople, especially if it is via a cold call.

Cold calling has a low conversion rate, meaning that cold callers will need to make a significant number of calls to secure an appointment or order. It is thought the average conversion rate of securing an appointment via cold calls is between 1 – 3%.

Inevitably not everyone who agrees to an appointment will place an order, so its success can be low.

Securing a telephone number of a prospective client can be a difficult task in itself. Many major businesses do not advertise the relevant information, leaving salespeople to bounce between departments trying to find the right person.

6. Cold Calling Training Courses

Klozers offer specialist cold calling courses for any industry, which can help your sales team improve their cold calling skills and success rate. Courses are suitable for new salespeople and experienced salespeople who might need a refresher.

Sales Courses can be tailored to the needs of the attendees, so if there is an issues which is specific to a particular industry, it can be addressed in the training. Whilst not technically cold calling, our courses can also include how to convert incoming sales calls.

Cold calling training can include high paced boot camps which cram a lot of learning into one day. The fast-paced environment of a boot camp training session is well matched with the fast pace of cold calling.

As people learn through experience, many training sessions include live demonstrations of cold calling skills, and role play to improve learning outcomes.

Some companies limit the amount of participants from any one company attending a training session together. This ensures that the sessions aren’t dominated by the concerns of requirements of one single company. It also allows the sharing of ideas from different companies to benefit everyone.

Like many businesses cold calling providers have adapted their practices in response to the changing world of COVID-19. Online cold calling courses are now far more common than they would have been a few years ago. This can reduce the time and expense of travel.

Bespoke training packages are available, which includes ongoing 1-2-1 sales coaching, which can be useful to continuously motivate your sales team, keep their performance fresh and vibrant and ensure that bad habits don’t creep in.

7 razones por las que debería considerar la formación en ventas por Internet

by Iain Swanston

Formación en ventas a través de la web - La mejor pregunta de Google

¿Es eficaz la formación de ventas en línea?

La formación de ventas en línea es eficaz porque ayuda a las organizaciones a

Reducir el tiempo de desplazamiento a los eventos en vivo
Proporcionar un mejor equilibrio de la vida laboral reduciendo el tiempo que los vendedores pasan fuera de casa
Reducción de los costes de entrega de la formación en ventas
Comunicación y colaboración más rápidas
Refuerzo de las nuevas estrategias y tácticas de venta tras la formación inicial
Mejora de la responsabilidad para ayudar a los vendedores con nuevos comportamientos
Apoyo continuo a los vendedores actuales y nuevos

La formación de ventas en línea ha mejorado mucho y debería considerarse como parte de su formación general en ventas.

La formación en ventas a través de la web o la formación en ventas online se ha convertido en un aspecto esencial de la formación en ventas, desde la llegada de los cierres patronales y la consiguiente tendencia a trabajar desde casa.

El arte de la virtualidad se ha convertido en una ventaja para todos los sectores para trabajar o estudiar sin salir de casa.

A pesar de ello, muchas empresas se esfuerzan por ofrecer un argumento comercial completo para la formación en línea frente al enfoque presencial más tradicional.

Aunque la formación presencial sigue desempeñando un papel importante en la educación de ventas, a continuación se exponen algunas áreas que puede tener en cuenta al evaluar las diferentes opciones disponibles.

#formación de ventas en la web

1. Reducción del tiempo de viaje

Tradicionalmente, la formación presencial se ha impartido en eventos de uno o dos días. En la mayoría de los casos se celebraron en hoteles y centros de conferencias. Dado que cada vez hay más empresas que emplean a equipos de ventas que están geográficamente alejados, algunos asistentes podrían pasar un día viajando para asistir al evento y otro para volver a casa. Son tres días para un día de aprendizaje.

Con la formación a través de la web no tiene que conducir cientos de kilómetros para venir a trabajar. No tendrás que madrugar para evitar el tráfico de la hora punta y no necesitas un gran presupuesto para empezar.

2. Equilibrio de la vida laboral

Para muchas personas, encontrar tiempo para la familia se ha convertido en una parte importante de su trabajo. El trabajo híbrido ha permitido a muchas personas eliminar los largos desplazamientos al trabajo, lo que les permite pasar más tiempo de calidad con sus seres queridos.

La formación en ventas a través de la web es parte de esa solución, ya que ofrece formación a su propio ritmo o clases estructuradas en línea a las que los equipos de ventas pueden asistir desde casa.

3. Gastos de envío

Tradicionalmente, la formación presencial para cualquier equipo de ventas se ha impartido en aulas y salas de reuniones de hoteles. Si a esto le añadimos el coste de las pernoctaciones en los eventos de formación presencial, los costes pueden empezar a aumentar rápidamente, incluso para un equipo pequeño.

Muchos proveedores de formación repercutirán la reducción de los costes de entrega a los clientes, ya que ellos mismos se ahorran los costes de viaje y alojamiento de sus formadores de ventas.

4. Colaboración y comunicación más rápidas

La mayor parte de la formación tradicional se denominaría “formación de impacto”. Se trata de eventos únicos diseñados para poner en marcha el aprendizaje y el desarrollo.

Aunque este tipo de formación sigue teniendo cabida, muchas empresas han descubierto que los vendedores necesitan ayuda cuando la necesitan. No quieren guardar su pregunta para el próximo evento de formación de ventas dentro de tres meses. La formación en ventas a través de la web proporciona aprendizaje en el momento en que los vendedores más lo necesitan.

La formación en línea de Klozers ofrece apoyo en tiempo real a nuestros clientes tanto a través del chat en vivo como del correo electrónico. Nuestro equipo basado en la web proporciona apoyo a nuestros clientes “en el momento” para que puedan aprender mientras trabajan.

5. Refuerzo de la formación

Muchos estudios han demostrado que los participantes pueden olvidar hasta el 95% del contenido de los eventos de formación de uno y dos días sin ninguna forma de refuerzo.

Independientemente de la calidad del formador de ventas o del contenido del curso, los vendedores no pueden absorber toda la información que reciben en los cursos de ventas de uno o dos días. La formación en ventas se correlaciona directamente con el crecimiento en el desarrollo personal y esto no ocurre de la noche a la mañana.

Los cambios en la estrategia de ventas, las técnicas de venta, el proceso de venta y las habilidades de venta contribuyen al éxito de las ventas, pero deben abordarse con una visión a largo plazo. No existe una varita mágica en las ventas y el éxito en las ventas se consigue a través del trabajo duro y el desarrollo de su fuerza de ventas en términos de rendimiento general de las ventas.

La formación en ventas a través de la web suele extenderse a lo largo de periodos más largos y funciona mediante un efecto de goteo en el que el contenido se entrega en un formato “poco y frecuente” que es más fácil de asimilar.

6. Responsabilidad de las ventas

Una de las partes más importantes de los mejores cursos de formación en ventas es la aplicación y el apoyo después de la formación. No sólo sus representantes de ventas necesitarán apoyo, sino que su dirección de ventas también necesitará ayuda para implementar cambios en el proceso de venta, las habilidades de venta y los comportamientos del equipo de ventas.

Por desgracia, muchos profesionales de la venta asisten a la formación y luego vuelven a su trabajo y siguen haciendo lo que siempre han hecho. Esta no es una receta para el éxito.

El cambio para cualquier ser humano es difícil y la mayoría de nosotros necesitamos apoyo para hacerlo. Con la formación basada en la web, Klozers proporciona un apoyo de coaching continuo tanto a los participantes del curso como a sus directores de ventas para garantizar que se adopten plenamente los cambios en el proceso de ventas y las nuevas habilidades y comportamientos de venta.

7. Apoyo continuo

Muchas empresas siguen contratando nuevo personal después de cualquier evento de formación. Puede ser simplemente para sustituir a los vendedores que se han ido o como parte de sus planes de expansión.

A menudo no es económicamente viable contratar a un formador de ventas cada vez que se producen cambios en el equipo de ventas, por lo que la capacidad de impartir formación en línea a los nuevos empleados es muy importante.

La mayoría de los cursos de formación a través de la web se imparten a su ritmo y pueden grabarse. Esto puede utilizarse para crear una biblioteca a la que puedan acceder de forma continua tanto los profesionales de la venta existentes como los nuevos.

La formación tradicional en persona siempre tendrá un lugar en la educación de ventas moderna, sin embargo, es importante considerar las alternativas. Aunque siempre hay que tener en cuenta los presupuestos y las circunstancias individuales, la formación a través de la web ha llegado para quedarse y es una parte importante de todo programa de formación en ventas.

Klozers ofrece una gama completa de cursos de formación en ventas, tanto presenciales como por Internet. Cada uno de ellos cuenta con una formación en directo en la que los participantes pueden interactuar.

Además de nuestra formación, proporcionamos un apoyo continuo a través del coaching de ventas. Si su equipo de ventas necesita ayuda para desarrollar su propuesta de valor, la prospección de ventas, la reducción del ciclo de ventas, las habilidades de venta, la obtención de negocios repetidos o las presentaciones de ventas, nos encantaría hablar con usted.

Nuestro objetivo es ayudarle a alcanzar sus objetivos comerciales, a reducir sus objetivos de venta y a lograr el éxito de ventas que busca.

Plantilla de revisión del rendimiento de las ventas

by Iain Swanston

There’s a new way to deliver sales growth…

Don’t buy Sales Training until you’ve watched this video…

Plantilla de evaluación del rendimiento de las ventas - Pregunta principal de Google

¿Cómo se redacta una evaluación del rendimiento de las ventas?

Para redactar una revisión del rendimiento de las ventas justa y equilibrada debes:

Realizar revisiones de rendimiento mensualmente
Utilice una plantilla de revisión del rendimiento de las ventas para garantizar la coherencia, registrar las acciones y asegurar la responsabilidad
Siempre que sea posible, basar la revisión en datos y no en opiniones
Vincular el rendimiento de las ventas a la formación, el salario y la progresión profesional
Vincular los resultados de las ventas para fomentar el desarrollo de nuevas habilidades de venta

Rellene el formulario de la derecha y descargue nuestra plantilla de revisión del rendimiento de las ventas.

Puede adaptarlo a su situación particular y empezar a impulsar el rendimiento de las ventas en una hora.

Por qué son importantes las evaluaciones del rendimiento de las ventas

Muchas empresas y directores de ventas pasan por alto la importancia de realizar revisiones periódicas y estructuradas del rendimiento de las ventas con sus representantes. A veces saben lo importantes que son estas reuniones, pero se escapan de la agenda debido a otras presiones dentro del negocio.

La mayoría de las veces, los empleados se ven reducidos a una revisión anual del rendimiento, que hace poco para evaluar el desempeño, y mucho menos para impulsar el crecimiento profesional.

Hay un sinfín de razones por las que debe dedicar tiempo a estas reuniones, probablemente ninguna más que la retención de los empleados. El coste de encontrar y contratar buenos vendedores está aumentando, así que seguramente tiene sentido hacer todo lo posible para retener a nuestra gente después de esta inversión.

La pandemia, los cierres y el trabajo desde casa han servido para que los vendedores se replanteen su estilo de vida y sus objetivos vitales. Las estadísticas muestran que en 2021, 48 millones de personas renunciarán a su trabajo, el 41% de la fuerza laboral mundial está considerando dejar su trabajo y el 46% está considerando trasladarse en los próximos 12 meses.

Las empresas y los directores de ventas que tardan en reajustar sus procesos de gestión y de trabajo seguramente tendrán dificultades para conservar a sus mejores vendedores.

Mejorar el rendimiento de las ventas

Las revisiones de rendimiento y los 121 son una parte crucial no sólo de la progresión de los empleados, sino también de su bienestar. La venta profesional puede ser estresante y el bienestar mental es muy importante.

Son una excelente manera de garantizar que se cumplen los objetivos de la empresa y los de la persona, y de asegurar que se reconoce la trayectoria profesional de los empleados.

Si un profesional de las ventas tiene algún problema en su trabajo o en su vida personal, la revisión del rendimiento es su oportunidad para hablar de ello con su jefe de ventas.

Una revisión del rendimiento debe ser un lugar seguro para que el representante de ventas hable de sus necesidades, de lo que es bueno y de lo que necesita trabajar. Lejos de ser una reunión con el jefe que les cause ansiedad y miedo, deben ser un lugar donde tengan a alguien con quien puedan hablar en confianza.

Como gerente, usted quiere saber que sus empleados son personas en las que puede confiar. A su vez, ellos necesitan sentir lo mismo de ti y los 121 son una gran manera de hacerlo.

Establecer objetivos de ventas, discutir lo que realmente quieren del trabajo y hacia dónde quieren ir, son una parte crucial de su posición. Si el empleado se siente reconocido y escuchado, estará más dispuesto a prosperar en su puesto y a trabajar lo mejor posible.

Los directores de ventas deben realizar revisiones de rendimiento al menos trimestralmente, pero lo ideal es que se realicen cada mes para que usted, como director de ventas, pueda gestionar el papel de los representantes de ventas, sus expectativas y sacar el máximo partido de ellos.

¿De qué debería hablar en una revisión del rendimiento de las ventas?

La venta moderna tiene ahora tantas funciones diferentes que es difícil ofrecer una fórmula única para todos los vendedores. Por ejemplo, la evaluación del rendimiento de un SDR será muy diferente a la de un gestor de cuentas. Le recomendamos encarecidamente que desarrolle revisiones específicas y métricas clave basadas en las diferentes funciones de las ventas.

El proceso de evaluación del rendimiento debe ser bastante informal: no se trata de una reunión disciplinaria, sino de un espacio seguro para que el empleado sea abierto y honesto. Su representante de ventas debe sentirse cómodo para hacer preguntas en un entorno privado y ventilar cualquier problema que pueda tener.

En Klozers, nuestra filosofía de gestión de ventas se basa en las cuatro áreas de alto valor de las ventas, a saber

Encontrar: ¿qué hacemos de forma constante y proactiva para encontrar nuevos prospectos y oportunidades de venta?

Klozing: cuando encontramos nuevas ofertas, ¿seguimos nuestro proceso de ventas y maximizamos la oportunidad?

Crecimiento: ¿estamos atrayendo activamente nuevas cuentas y aumentando los ingresos procedentes de ellas?

Desarrollarnos: ¿qué hacemos personalmente para estirarnos, crecer, aprender y esforzarnos?

Combínelos con su visión y sus valores fundamentales y, si se centra en estas cuatro áreas, es simplemente imposible no vender más.

Sus representantes de ventas deben salir motivados y con energía. Un 121 es una gran manera de construir y mantener relaciones sólidas con su equipo de ventas. Siempre debe proporcionarse retroalimentación, especialmente cuando el miembro del personal exprese problemas de rendimiento de cosas con las que pueda estar luchando.

La retroalimentación constructiva nunca es mala, pero el rendimiento de los empleados sólo aumenta con los elogios y el reconocimiento de todas las cosas buenas que han logrado.

Si han estado trabajando duro durante todo el mes y este es el único momento que tienes para ponerte al día con ellos, entonces esta es su única oportunidad de escuchar elogios y alabanzas que les harán sentirse bien y trabajar más duro.

Si el profesional de ventas nunca tiene noticias de su jefe y nunca se le dice cuando está haciendo un buen trabajo, a veces puede sentirse paranoico y no apreciado – nadie quiere que su equipo de ventas se sienta así.

Hoja de ruta y trayectoria profesional

Una parte crucial del proceso de revisión del rendimiento consiste en impulsar el crecimiento profesional, estableciendo objetivos de carrera dentro de la empresa: ¿a dónde quieren llegar en este trabajo? ¿Cómo pueden llegar hasta allí?

¿Pueden adquirir experiencia en diferentes departamentos? ¿Hay algún tipo de formación adicional que puedan hacer para que lleguen más rápido?

Disponer de itinerarios de aprendizaje claramente definidos es mucho más fácil de lo que la mayoría de las empresas creen, y proporcionar a cada empleado hitos sencillos que puedan seguir para progresar es esencial.

Un profesional de las ventas debe ser tratado como una persona que crece dentro de la empresa, no como un simple número. Por lo tanto, hablar de las diferentes trayectorias profesionales es una buena manera de mostrar al profesional de las ventas hasta dónde puede llegar.

121 para vendedores que trabajan a distancia

Si tiene preparadores de ventas que trabajan a distancia, entonces un 121 es tan importante como las revisiones de rendimiento. Aunque el trabajo desde casa ha mejorado el equilibrio de la vida laboral de muchos profesionales de las ventas y les ha ayudado a ser más productivos y rentables, para muchos puede ser aislante y solitario.

Muchos vendedores son “gente de pueblo”. Les encanta estar rodeados de otros seres humanos, lo cual es una de las razones por las que les gusta trabajar en las ventas. Trabajar desde casa ha supuesto para muchos un verdadero cambio de cultura y un choque para la mayoría de los vendedores.

Los representantes de ventas a veces son reacios a hablar y hacer preguntas en un entorno de grupo, o si no hay relación con el director de ventas. Todo profesional de las ventas necesita sentirse cómodo en el lugar de trabajo, aunque esté en casa.

Para los nuevos empleados, las reuniones de 121 y de equipo son también una buena manera de romper el hielo y de conocer a sus compañeros. De este modo, se sentirán más cómodos acudiendo a usted cuando necesiten ayuda o tengan un problema. Empieza con sesiones para conocerme.

Son muy informales en comparación con una revisión del rendimiento y una gran manera de que ambos se conozcan. Hable de lo que le gusta y no le gusta, de sus aficiones e intereses, de lo que le gusta hacer en su tiempo libre. Mantener un nivel personal para empezar hará que el miembro del personal se sienta muy a gusto y muy probablemente se sentirá apreciado por el hecho de que usted se haya tomado el tiempo de conocerlo.

Seguimiento de las revisiones del rendimiento de las ventas

Muchos gerentes de ventas son gerentes y no líderes. Los mejores directores de ventas trabajan duro para apoyar a sus equipos de ventas, frente a los que dirigen a sus vendedores y siguen hojas de cálculo.

A menudo, la diferencia entre un gerente y un líder es simplemente las cosas que hacen por los vendedores. Lo que puede parecer insignificante y sin importancia para el gerente puede ser todo lo contrario para los vendedores. Los mejores directivos se centran primero en las personas y luego en el trabajo.

Dicho esto, no cabe duda de lo difícil que puede ser con la presión constante de cumplir o superar los objetivos de ventas.

Como director de ventas, debes asegurarte de que haces un seguimiento de las acciones que has discutido en la Evaluación del Desempeño. Siempre se debe documentar un registro de la reunión para que los representantes de ventas tengan constancia de todo lo que se ha tratado.

Esto también proporciona una hoja de ruta de lo que van a trabajar, hasta la próxima revisión del rendimiento y ayuda a que ellos y el gerente de ventas sean responsables.

Esta es una buena manera de controlar el progreso, ya que da al director de ventas y al profesional de las ventas la oportunidad de revisar los objetivos anteriores y discutir dónde se encuentran en relación con los objetivos acordados y en qué hay que trabajar.

Los directores de ventas son sin duda la parte más importante de cualquier equipo de ventas. Establecen el listón en cuanto al rendimiento de los empleados y lo que es aceptable, y lo que no lo es. Los grandes equipos de ventas necesitan grandes directores de ventas: invierta ahora en su gestión de ventas.

SDR Sales Training Courses that Work

by Iain Swanston

There’s a new way to deliver sales growth…

Don’t buy Sales Training until you’ve watched this video…

SDR Sales Training Courses – Top question from Google

How do you train an SDR?

Most SDR training courses highlight the following steps, or similar to help train your SDR team:

Use a sales training template.
Provide clear learning paths aligned with progression
Set expectations.
Build a culture of collaboration.
No-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question policy.
Create a template for SDR/Account Executive meetings.
Teach your Sales Development Team to be curious.
Constantly provide actionable feedback
Give your team time.

We think you can do much more than this.

Training your team of Sales Development Reps may start in the classroom (virtual or otherwise) however, this is just the start of the learning journey. In order to build a successful sales organization there are many other areas you should consider. We believe we have the best sdr training program called Legends Club.

Here’s the short answer – Run a 1 Day Sales Bootcamp

Session 1 – Sales Psychology. Build the mindset, goals and activities of a Sales Winner. Discover the psychology behind every sale and how you can use this to your advantage.
Session 2 – Discovery and Qualifying. In order to sell, you need to be in front of the right people, at the right time, with the right message. Get this right and sales becomes a lot easier.
Session 3 – Mastering the complex Sale. How to identify different decision makers with different and often competing priorities.
Session 4 – Filling your Sales Funnel. Discover short and long term strategies for driving new sales enquiries whilst maximising your productivity. This session includes our omnichannel lead generation approach and will demonstrate how to use the telephone, cold email and LinkedIn in combination to fill your sales funnel.

Whilst there is no doubt that ongoing learning via the “little and often” philosophy is important in terms of sales development, Sales Bootcamps are a great way to kick start the learning process.

SaaS Sales Training Bootcamps are typically 1 or 2 day sales courses. They are intensive by nature and provide SDR’s with a vast amount of information from which they can refer back to. Sales Bootcamps work best when they are used in conjunction with an existing sales campaign and ongoing sales coaching.

The bootcamps provide the training which is the knowledge, and the sales coaching helps the sdrs with the practical application of the knowledge.

In addition to SDR training, Bootcamps are popular for training topics such as Sales Fundamentals training which is designed for people who are completely new to sales and need a lot of information quickly, as part of their onboarding process.

SDR Sales Training

The job of a sales development representative (SDR) is a challenging and valued position within any business. It is important to ensure your SDRs are aware of their impact within the business and how their performance will help the business grow.

Unfortunately most Sales Development Reps tend to leave after a year. Most business owners will tell you the SDRs weren’t cut out for the position or that their SDRs left to climb the sales ladder elsewhere.

At Klozers, although we believe that could be partly true, it’s often a more complex situation.

People typically leave because they fall out of love with their sales manager and the company. Part of sales management is providing the best training possible and then continuing to build upon existing sales skills to help SDRs hit targets regularly.

Modern sales management includes providing professional development linked to a career path even if that means that the sales representative has to leave the company to develop their sales career. The more you invest in them the longer they will stay.

No sales professional wants to miss sales targets, nobody wants to work in a business where selling is like wading through treacle. People want to win, they want to sell, and a big part of sales management is making your team successful.

An SDR training course is a prerequisite for this and will help your sales team improve cold calling, social selling, communication skills and other sales skills unique to your service.

A Sales Professionals job never ends, there will always be prospects to serve! It only makes sense to establish a sales training program to help SDRs keep up-to-date on new sales trends, competitors, new product releases, new training tools and so on.

Not only will this help improve the efficiency of your business, this will enhance employee retention and job satisfaction.

The key to any successful SDR sales training program is to keep it simple and set clear expectations of what you expect from your Sales Team and what they can expect from you. This means building a strong culture of communication and collaboration within the team.

In addition to sales training we would encourage you to consider developing a comprehensive learning programme for your sales teams that include:

1. Company

History, people

Sales Vision & Values

2. What we sell

Products and services,

3. What problems we solve

Pain points, value proposition,

4. Who we sell to

Ideal client profile, Perfect Prospect Profile

5. How we sell

Sales Process

6. Sales Competencies

For a list of our 21 recommended sales competencies download our SaaS Sales Playbook here.

Sales Training Topics

Most SDR training plans will include topics such as setting targets, training, mentoring, culture, rejection, and customer personas. Topics such as customer personas for example are key to ongoing marketing success.

Understanding customer personas helps your SDR’s learn what drives prospects to purchase your product or service. This also helps your SDR’s to understand the customer profile that your business draws in, and helps your SDR team to narrow down what the prospect wants out of your company.

This is also a great way for your Sales Reps to have a natural yet targeted conversation whether that be by phone, email, or in person.

At Klozers we use two different models for customer personas. The first is the ideal client profile or ICP which refers to the actual businesses that fit our criteria and secondly the perfect prospect profile. This profile is specific to the different buyers within and organisation and the differing pain pints they may have.

A really important topic to cover in your SDR training is rejection and mindset. We all experience rejection day to day, so why is it so discouraging when it happens when speaking to potential customers?

Most SDR’s are new to the role and want to prove their worth. Sales prospecting can be disheartening for them and quickly demotivate them. In sales, if you are not getting told no more than yes, then you are not talking to enough people. The first ‘No’ an SDR receives will be the first of many.

A great way to learn from this experience would be to ask your prospect why they declined. Take a look at reviewing your SDR’s sales strategy and practice listening skills and responses.

Being told ‘No’ is common practice in the sales, how your Sales Rep handles that conversation is key to their progression within the sales world.

Sales Training Exercises

Before any Sales Professional makes a sales prospecting call, they should always be ready to answer the four most basic questions any potential customers may ask on the call such as:

Why is the SDR contacting the prospect?
Why should the prospect talk with the SDR?
What information does the SDR need from the prospect?
What questions or doubts might the prospect have?

A great way for your Sales team to prepare for these questions is to role play with their colleagues. Ask your SDR’s to put themselves in your prospect’s shoes.

An interesting way to include the team with this is to pick one SDR as the caller, and the other SDR’s to role play as the potential new prospect.

Ask each SDR role playing as the prospect to ask these questions in a quick fire round. This exercise allows your SDR playing the role of the caller to be quick on their feet when answering questions.

Another great exercise would be to ask each SDR in your team to give a brief talk on their favourite subject to the rest of the team. Challenge the other SDR’s in your team to take notes of how many filler words the speaker uses such as like, um, uh, well, so, okay etc.

The aim of this exercise is for the speaker to use as little filler words as they can. This will help your SDR’s appear more professional, confident and push their value proposition to their prospects

Free SDR Training Courses

With so much free sales training available we are sometimes not the first choice everyone. A quick search on the internet will show that there are lots of free SDR training courses and materials all available online, picking the best one for you and your business is the tricky part.

A lot of the free online courses available are pre recorded and offer no chance to ask questions or interact with the sales trainer. This is not a great learning environment.

In addition to the importance of Live Training, we also understand that everyone learns differently, which is why it’s important to follow 4 key and easy steps, Consistency, assistance, practice, and progression.

1. Consistency

Ensure that your training for your SDR team is consistent. Scheduling in the training for your team shows your commitment to your team to help them become the best Sales Reps they can be.

It’s important to stick to your training schedule to show your team that you value them and their development. This is a great way to help keep your SDR’s within your business.

2. Assistance

Assist your team with their learning. Everyone learns differently and at their own pace. By researching different learning styles such as role playing, cold call games, and live call feedback you will help all the Sales Reps in your team. This is a great way to also include every SDR in the training program by running through different mock examples.

3. Practice

Here at Klozers, we firmly believe practice makes perfect. It’s important to remember that most SDR’s have little to no prior experience in sales development. A great way to get your SDR team started could be to set a task to complete.

For example, record your SDR’s cold calls and play them back. Ask your SDR team to provide 3 things they think they could’ve done to improve that call. Encourage your SDR’s to think of their tone of voice and the language they use during the call. This can help them understand what they are doing successfully, and what they can improve on.

4. Progression

Progression is what all SDR’s want to achieve, this is a reason why a lot of Sales Reps leave the business to pursue a career elsewhere. Creating a training plan which incorporates the SDR’s progression within the business is a great way to keep them on track, and understand the value they add to your business.

All Inside Sales Professionals wants to prove their worth and show they can do the job at hand, but make sure not to let your SDR’s run before they can walk!

A simple tip would be to include scheduled 1-1 meetings with the sales manager to discuss their progress, their sales pipeline, offer feedback and work out a development plan together for each SDR.

Formación avanzada en ventas | De lo bueno a lo bueno

by Iain Swanston

Coaching Sales Behaviours | Bringing out the Best

by Iain Swanston

Coaching Sales Behaviours – Top question from Google

How do you coach a sales person?

Unfortunately like sales there is no one way to coach a sales person that works every time. After all sales people are all individuals and therefore different so what works with one, may not work with the next.

With that said there are many commonalities and examples of best practice that will get you started on the path to success.

Mindset. Success in sales like many other areas in life is hugely dependant on mindset. Confidence, self belief, imposter syndrome, phone fear and self sabotage are all to common in sales people. With the right support these problems can be overcome, however, there is one area of mindset that many ignore – hunger. The best sales people are all hungry. Hungry to learn, hungry to help others and hungry for their own success. Whilst Vision Boards and Goal setting undoubtedly have a positive impact if the sales person you are coaching is not hungry for their own success you have a major problem. Many sales people ended up in sales by accident and many sales people are simply stuck in their current role and find it easier to stay than move on. Research from the Objective Management Group shows that between Sales Management & HR, 77% of sales hires are the wrong people. You can teach strategy, you can teach skills, but you can’t teach hunger.

Planning. Many companies and sales managers lack the time to implement personal development plans to their sales teams. Coaching often then becomes ad hoc, unstructured which in turn is reflected in the outcomes. In order for sales coaching to be successful and deliver an ROI, some simple planning needs to take place. In our experience it’s always best to work backwards from the objectives and tasks that the business need to happen. From there managers should document the skills required to successfully complete the tasks, followed by a GAP analysis, highlighting where the sales people are now, versus where they need to be. Lastly, this should all be documented and progress tracked to show the benefit for both the business and the coachee.

Focus. When coaching sales people it’s important to find a balance between what should be done and what can be done. Rather than giving sales people 3-4 different objectives after the coaching, we have always found it best to only give the coachee one objective to complete before the next session. This allows the sales rep to focus on one skill and perfect it before moving on to the next. A laundry list of objectives is rarely completed to any level of competency that the business would desire.

Data. It’s important for sales coaching to be both objective and fair in order for it to be successful. Where possible we therefore always advocate a data led approach. Data demonstrating the success and best practice of others is difficult for sales reps to deny. This in turn leads to the importance of CRM in any sales organisation, as this is where the majority of data resides.

Coaches. For obvious reasons coaching is different to management, so a sales coach cannot force a sales rep to do anything in terms of the outcomes of each session. Conversely, if Sales Managers are doing the coaching then they can instruct the sales people to do things, however, if the manager has to “tell” the coachee what to do, then there is typically a problem with the mindset and any success will be limited.

At Klozers our Sales Performance coaching uses Sales Scorecards, which ensure accountability for the students. This is first used to identify a baseline, which is used to kick start and structure the sales coaching. To be effective, sales coaching should look at sales in a holistic manner. This will include addressing the all the key components of sales success, which are Mindset, Sales Craft, Activity and Development.

All successful sales people have the right mindset for success. Throughout a sales career, it is impossible to achieve success on every call or presentation. As such, salespeople need to be resilient and bounce back from rejection. Controlling our mind is a hugely important part of a successful career in sales.

We can use simple Vision Boards to identify personal and business goals. Once these have been identified it’s important to draw a correlation between the two which helps ensure sales people are focussed on the goals of the business not just their own.

Craft covers the key sales skills and competencies required to be a successful sales professional. Most modern sales roles require a huge variety of sales skills, some of which are forever changing given the fast paced nature of sales and marketing.

Activity covers the important aspects of preparation, goals, sales planning and sales actions. Development covers an ongoing commitment to improving sales learning. Reflecting on past performance is an important aspect of this section. At regular intervals it is important that salespeople reflect on their performance and use this to adapt their techniques or seek additional coaching or training.

Often when reflecting, salespeople and most sales managers tend to focus on the negative aspects of performance (e.g. the bits that didn’t quite work), but it is equally as important to reflect on the positives. If a certain sales pitch has been successful, then salespeople should reflect on what went well, and how that can be implemented in other sales pitches.

Sales coaching can be conducted online or in person, in a group setting or on a 1-2-1 basis. Regardless of the delivery method, the same coaching models are used.

How do you coach an underperforming sales person?

Sales coaching can motivate and enthuse an underperforming sales professional or team more widely. People are hard wired to resist change, and as such sales coaches need to be mindful of this and adapt their coaching methods to suit.

With that said, if you have an underperforming sales person you should follow this process (dependant on the HR laws in your country of residence).

Via a one to one meeting have an open and honest conversation with the sales rep around why the business thinks they are underperforming and what will happen if it continues. In most cases this does not necessarily mean they will lose their job. It could mean they have to retake initial training or have additional coaching. Every situation will vary but it’s important to have this conversation.

Work with the sales rep to understand the root cause of the problem and once you have done this work with them to develop an action plan that will help them overcome their current performance gap. It’s important to include the sales rep in the planning to get their buy in. The plan should detail the responsibilities of the sales rep and the level of performance required.

Lastly, the company and the sales manager should do all they possibly can to help and support the sales rep throughout the coaching period. This includes reviewing their own management and leadership style.

In some cases the sales rep may have already mentally checked out as no one wants to stay in a role that they are not performing in. In some cases, however, it is possible to turn results around and it’s always worth the investment in time and training given how much it costs to replace a sales person.

What is the key to coaching a successful sales team?

The key to coaching a successful sales team is ensuring that there is a culture of learning and growing throughout the team. In order to feed that culture you will require a continuous programme of training and coaching in place. There is no quick fix to achieving the best results.

As identified earlier, one-off sales training courses may have a short-term impact, but after only 30 days its success will ware off. As such, a continuous programme of professional development needs to be in place.

Employees want to feel valued by their employers, and now expect employers to contribute towards their professional development.

Without this in place, there is a concern that your best salespeople will look for other jobs. Recruiting new staff is a resource heavy and expensive process, and you still may end up with the wrong sales staff.

Hiring the wrong sales staff can have direct (lost sales) and indirect (damage to your brand) consequences for your company, so retaining the best staff is vital.

Sales coaching techniques

Sales coaches can use a range of techniques, and some coaches prefer certain techniques more than others. Whichever technique is used, sales coaching should be driven by data and be as factual as possible.

To be effective sales coaching should question the students, and a mixture of directive, non directive and collaborative style questioning can be used.

After sales coaching has been conducted it is important to measure the effectiveness of the coaching to see if it has delivered a suitable ROI.

If the sales coaching isn’t providing to be effective, then amendments will need to be made to it, either in the form of its content, delivery or programme.

Sales coaching models

There is a wide range of sales coaching models available, however, at Klozers we use either the PEDAL model which is Directive Coaching or the GROW model. The easiest way to explain the differences are:

PEDAL – Directive in style. Solving someone’s problem for them.

GROW – Non Directive in style. Helping someone solve their own problem.

In the PEDAL model the process is:

P = Position. The coach positions the reasoning/need for a new sales skill or sales process.

E = Explain. The coach explains how the new skills work.

D = Demonstrates. The coach demonstrates how to execute the new sales skills.

A = Assess. The sales professional practices the new skill and the coach assesses their competency and provides feedback.

L = Links. The coach then links the new skill to the sales reps role and key objectives.

The PEDAL coaching model is commonplace in areas where the correct execution of a skill is paramount and no choice is allowed. For example, when sales professionals need to comply with regulatory procedures, or when sales people need to follow a prove sales process.

But what does the GROW model involve?

GROW stands for:

G = Goal. What are the salespersons goals for the session?

R = Reality. What is the current reality?

O = Obstacles. What obstacles are holding the salesperson or team back?

W = Way. What way and actions do you commit to taking to move forward?

Sales Performance Coaching

Selecting the right sales coach is an important step towards improving the sales performance in your team. Quota carrying sales managers can often be swamped by their own workloads, leaving them with little time to fully dedicate towards coaching sales behaviours.

In these circumstances, to avoid missed opportunities and good staff leaving, external sales coaching could be the answer. Our expert coaches at Klozers can help you with all of your sales coaching and training needs.

How to Build an Outbound Sales Team

by Iain Swanston

How to Build an Outbound Sales Team – Top question from Google

What is outbound sales?

Outbound sales is the process of a sales team or salespeople initiating engagement with potential and existing customers. This could encapsulate trying to secure new customers, up selling to existing customers, or general account management. In contrast, inbound sales relies on a company’s marketing strategy to drive customer interest, and customers will contact the company to enquire about their services. This blog post will tell you how to build an outbound sales team.

Preparing to go Outbound

In the rush to go outbound many companies either overlook or pay little attention to the core foundation of every successful outbound sales campaign – their value proposition. Without this most campaigns will fail at best, at worst, they will fail you will lose market traction. you will lose your best sales people and you will also lose a lot of money.

A Proven Value Proposition

Many companies make the mistake of trying to scale their sales operations without a proven value proposition with disastrous effects. Whether you chose to build your own outbound team or to subcontract to a specialist you need a proven value proposition. The more time and money you invest on proving your value proposition will be returned ten fold in your results. This does not just apply to Startups. Those that believe they have already proven their value proposition can equally benefit by refining and fine tuning what they have.

Words Sell

Whilst most of us would accept the importance of words in the world of Business to consumer few people in B2B dedicate sufficient time and energy to finding the right words to describe our products and services. Ask and Pay per click specialist who is restricted to 30 characters for the headline and 90 for the description of the importance of word choice. That’s characters not words.

Technology

We are blessed in the modern sales world with lots of great outbound technologies which makes the outbound process both easier and more productive. From intent data, to auto diallers, to call recording and artificial intelligence there are a plethora of great tools to choose from that will help your outbound team be successful. Be sure to invest the time and budget to arm your sales team with the technology they need.

Sales Leadership

An often overlooked area of business is sales management. Many sales managers have come from a sales background and were at some stage a top sales rep. Unfortunately the skills required for modern sales management are very different to just selling and the position of sales manager is a key hire for any business. Without a great sales manager your best sales reps will leave and the worst reps will stay which is the exact opposite of what you want to happen. Company culture is hugely important in any business and no more so than in an inbound and outbound sales team.

In short, without a proven value proposition and good sales management, you will spend more money and take much longer to get where you want to go. These three areas are an essential component for a scalable outbound process.

Building an Inhouse Team or Outsourcing

When developing an outbound sales team, sales managers and company owners have two choices. They can build an in-house sales team or they can outsource the process to an external agency or group of salespeople.

Each option has its own positives and negatives, and sales managers and company owners should consider these carefully before making any changes.

Through outsourcing their outbound sales operations, companies can hire people with a proven track record of success that they might not otherwise be able to afford.

Outsourcing can be more economic for some companies, as they do not have to resource staff training or office space for them. It can also provide more cost flexibility, as the salespeople will not be tied down to long-scale contracts.

In-house sales teams are much more likely to develop excellent product knowledge over time, which they can convey to prospective clients. Outsourcing can also result in a lack of control of the sales process, and the company cannot guarantee that the leads generated are of a sufficient quality until much later.

There are also concerns that an outbound sales team may not be as “bought into” your product, company or company ethos, and this could be purveyed to prospective clients.

Remember, a poor outbound experience is the fastest way to destroy your brand. Badly executed outbound calls will have a negative impact on your brand and could lose you valuable market traction.

Outbound prospecting particularly cold calling, is very different to responding to inbound sales leads. Your sales team and lead generation strategy should be built with this in mind.

What are outbound sales activities?

Outbound sales requires salespeople to go to the potential clients. In contrast, inbound sales where potential clients come to the company, either for more information or to buy their product/service.

Therefore, traditionally outbound sales does not include any marketing or product development tasks.

Outbound selling can be very labour intensive, and in the case of cold calling it needs a high volume of calls to have a meaningful impact on sales. This is because:

80% of cold calls go straight to voice mail – Sales Intel

It takes an average of 18 attempts to reach a technology buyer – Gartner

In addition to being labour intensive, outbound sales has a high churn rate in terms of staff. Many companies struggle to retain the people they have, let alone build a high performing team of SDR’s.

Lead generation is the starting point of an outbound sales process. Some company’s will have a dedicated in-house lead generation team, whilst others leave it for their general salespeople to handle.

In most cases when outbound sales is left to general salespeople it simply doesn’t happen. Sales people have a skill of always finding something “more important” to do than lead generation.

Outbound sales is a contact sport, pure and simple and requires salespeople to contact prospective customers. This could be by telephone, email, LinkedIn or face to face, however predominantly this is done via phone and email.

From our own experience SDR’s who use a multichannel approach are much more successful than those who are only using the telephone or email.

Often as part of the outbound sales role SDR’s will undertake what is known as sales qualification process. This involves a salesperson determining whether or not the lead is likely to become a customer or not.

Once the leads have been qualified, leads are typically then passed to a Business Development Rep whose responsible for any form of product demo and closing the deal.

In more traditional sales organisations this may include setting appointments for the companies field sales reps. The length of the sales process will depend on the target market, the industry and the customer.

As an outbound sales person you will be expected to do the following:

Research leads
Generate new sales leads
Qualifying inbound sales leads and build a sales pipeline
Setting appointments with potential or existing customers and follow the sales process
Follow up proposals
Cold and warm calling
Cold and warm emails
Social Selling
Customer service calls, with a view to upselling
Product demos
Account Management

Outbound prospecting is especially vital for companies with little or no marketing budget. This is this because in these circumstances, prospective customers are unlikely to come to the company in great numbers, and as such the company will have to go to the potential clients.

Outbound sales strategy

Having a great team of outbound sales reps important, but if they don’t have a good sales strategy to follow, they are unlikely to be successful. Creating a sales strategy should be one of your first tasks when establishing an outbound sales team.

A good outbound sales strategy requires the right sales playbook (script, methods etc.) and the right methods to measure success. Opinions on sales scripts vary, but if you develop a good sales script, it ensures a consistent approach and can help new sales reps get up to speed faster.

Our research here at Klozers, find that sales teams with playbooks are 33% more likely to be high performers. If a sales script is used, preparation should be used so the salesperson will appear to be talking as naturally as possible.

Different sales methods should be explored to see if they will result in more successful sales. For example, consultative selling could result in an increase in sales.

Preparation is key for a successful outbound sales strategy. Salespeople should have all of the data, scripts and tools they need before they start calling. They should also have an excellent knowledge of the products or services.

Whatever sales strategy is used, it is important that there are processes in place to monitor its success. If certain aspects of the strategy haven’t been successful, then either the sales strategy can be amended, or extra training and coaching should be organised.

Data can be used to monitor the most successful times to make outbound sales calls. For example, if the data shows that outbound calls are more successful on a Wednesday afternoon, then greater focus should be placed on this time, and team meetings should be avoided at that time.

Outbound and Inbound Sales Support

At Klozers the inbound and outbound sales process that we teach in our sales training is based on the success we have had in our own business. We will show you exactly the sales strategies and outbound methods that we use every day to target customers, qualifying leads, make a sales call, cold calling, cold emailing and drive customer engagement.

Furthermore, if you would like to optimise your inbound and outbound channels we can teach you how we use content marketing combined with search engine optimisation, to turn our website in to a lead generation machine.

We have a number of ways we support SaaS companies. From advice on recruitment and value proposition development, through to telesales, social selling training and strategy training, we can help you win more business, grow your business. and have more fun along the way.

Klozers has been selected among the Top Lead Generation Companies by Designrush

Consultative Sales Training | How Customers Want to Buy

by Iain Swanston

Consultative Sales Training – Top question from Google

What is a Consultative Sales Approach?

Consultative selling is very different to more traditional forms of selling, as it doesn’t actually focus on selling. Instead, it focuses on building relationships with customers, listening to their problems and only then, offering them solutions to their problems.

Asking open-ended questions and active listening are key components of any consultative sales approach. This approach works because potential buyers are more motivated to buy products or services that meet their own needs, rather than the needs of the sales professional.

A consultative selling truly puts the buyer first. Instead of just selling any old product, or what happens to be on promotion that month, sales professionals using the consultative sales approach will look to sell products and services that match the exact needs of their buyers, which makes for more productive business development results and satisfied customers.

Instead of a scripted sales pitch, sales teams can use conversational skills and listen to their buyers personal and business needs. Only then do they provide advice and guidance, which includes being adaptable to the different challenges buyers may face.

Consultative selling is highly effective and can lead to far greater results for your business and better long term customer relations. Using other sales techniques typically results in salespeople chasing leads that are not a good match for the buyer. Whilst they may well win a first order, if the product isn’t right for the buyer and their customers, it is unlikely that they will build long term relationships.

However, using the consultative approach, the sales rep needs to listen to the customer needs and provide meaningful solutions, meaning your new customer can come back time and time again for your product or services.

It has become increasingly popular in recent years as sales professionals and sales managers managers have realised that traditional sales techniques have become less effective, because buyers have become wary of sales pitches. Instead of being sold a product, people prefer sales professionals to take a genuine interest in them as a person and their business.

If your product or service matches the criteria below you should consider using consultative selling:

Direct route to market
Low volume of sales but high profit margins – less popular but still relevant with transactional sales
Requires high level of industry knowledge with experienced sales people
Higher cost to employers, with lots of training required
Medium to long length sales cycles

Consultative selling requires a change in mindset. Instead of going out to sell, salespeople will need to have a conversation with potential buyers, in a structured and reputable manner. Building trust first with any potential buyer is just one fo the key selling skills required.

Initially, many sales professionals struggle to adapt to the consultative sales method, as they are almost hard wired to sell products and services via the traditional features and benefits method. However, if you choose to adapt a consultative sales approach, it is important to stick with it, as modern buyers have become more resistant to being sold product.

Steps involved in Consultative Selling

1. Research potential buyers thoroughly before contacting them

Before engaging with potential buyers, it is important that the salesperson researches the potential customer, thoroughly and effectively. If the salesperson is used to a more traditional fast-paced sales environment, taking the time at the onset of the sales process to research may seem like an alien process.

However, first impressions matter, and considering the consultative selling method prides itself on expert knowledge, you need to make sure that you have done enough research. Similarly, consultative selling involves asking probing questions, and without enough research it can be difficult or almost impossible for salespeople to ask probing questions.

2. Define the Symptoms – What are the symptoms of the problem the potential customer is facing?

During this first step the salesperson will try to get an understanding of the issue at hand. Here the salesperson will play a role of expert consultant, where their expertise of the industry can be used to discuss the issues.

It is likely that the buyer may only have a surface-level knowledge of the symptoms, therefore the expertise of a consultative salesperson is vital.

At this stage, it is vitally important that the salesperson doesn’t revert to a more traditional techniques and try to sell products or services. This is because, it is very early in the process, and it is unlikely that the salesperson will have formed a fully rounded understanding of the issues at hand, and could recommend the wrong solution.

3. Root cause analysis – ask the buyer questions to understand and diagnose the underlying causes.

During this stage, the salesperson will need to dig deeper into the problem, and find out what is causing it.

By digging deeper into the problem, the salesperson can use their knowledge to generate powerful questions that will reassure the buyer that they are dealing with an expert in the field, and that they can use their expertise to offer solutions to their problem.

This step can be a really powerful tool to build the buyers confidence in the salesperson.

4. Business impact – Ask how the issue is impacting on the business. Does it impact on morale, performance, profitability or all three?

At this stage, the salesperson and the buyer have agreed on a diagnosis of the issue, and they will now begin to understand how this impacts on the business.

If the issue has very little impact on the business, in terms of profitability or revenue, then it is very unlikely that the buyer will look to make a significant contribution (either financially or with their time) to finding a solution.

If this is the case, or if the salesperson knows that their product or service isn’t the solution to the buyers problems, then the salesperson should cut their losses here.

5. Financial Impact – Find out how much the problem will cost the business if they do not fix it.

Identifying the financial impact of the issue is another major milestone in the consultative sales method. This can be easier to measure in objective measurements, such as monetary values, rather than subjective measurements such as staff morale or culture, which are far more difficult to monitor.

If the financial impact runs into the hundreds of thousands of pounds each year, and the solution only costs £10,000 then this could be a very attractive proposal for the buyer. Alternatively, if the solution costs £100,000, and it would only save the company £10,000 each year, it will be a much less attractive proposition to the buyer.

6. Personal Impact – Find out how the problem affects the buyer personally – how does it affect their day to day job?

Potential buyers are far more likely to be convinced by a solution, if the issue directly impacts upon them. This is why when using the consultative selling skills, it is vitally important to make sure that you are speaking to the right person.

If the salesperson and buyer are involved in a complex sales solution, it is likely that the 6 step process above may need to be repeated. It may also need to be repeated with different departments and stakeholders. Whilst this inevitably adds to the time taken to sell a product or service, patience is an important aspect of consultative sales.

What do you need to be a good consultative salesperson?

Consultative selling requires some key selling skills which aren’t necessarily associated with more traditional selling methods. This includes:

Active Listening – traditionally salespeople aren’t renowned for their listening skills, but under the consultative selling method, using active listening is a key requirement. Not only does it help understand the buyers issues, it also helps you stand out from the crowd. As buyers are being turned off by hard sales pitches, if a buyer needs to choose between two similar products, they may choose for the one with the sales person that genuinely listened to their issues.

Emotional intelligence – This covers peoples ability to evaluate, perceive and control emotions. Buying and selling remains an emotional process, and it is important for salespeople to respond to the buyers emotions.

Expertise – Because consultative selling requires the salesperson to really delve deep into issues, it is important that sellers are experts in their field. However, no one wants to be overawed with information, so the salesperson will need to communicate their expertise efficiently.

Domain knowledge – Similar to expertise, salespeople will need to have a specialised knowledge of the whole domain. Not only do salespeople need to know what their customers want, they need to know what their customers’ customer want.

Self-awareness – Consultative salespeople will need to understand and manage our thoughts and the impact that can have on people.

What questions to ask?

Asking the right questions is probably the most important part of consultative selling. Asking aimless questions or having an unstructured conversation with a potential buyer, is unlikely to either build rapport or project confidence. Whilst consultative selling doesn’t involve hard selling, salespeople can still funnel a conversation one way by using structured and well designed questions. Using specialised questioning techniques when combined with active listening and the required expertise can be a winning combination.

There are several types of consultative selling questions. They are:

Open ended questions – These are used to gather further information

Closed questions – Should be used for confirmation

Summary questions – Sales professionals should will summarise or paraphrase the prospective buyers statement and turn it into a question. These are used to confirm the correct understanding of issues.

Funnelling questions – These channel the conversation through a particular area.

Redirect questions – Sales Professionals should use these questions to control the conversation and move the sales process forward.

Opposing redirect – These questions is answering a question with a question back to the buyer.

Presumptive questions – Presumptive questions are questions when the salesperson knows or presume the prospective buyer does not know the answer.

Which Products and Services are best suited to Consultative Sales Techniques?

The great thing about Consultative sales techniques are that they can be used in almost any industry, or with any product or service. Our own clients sell a wide range of services from Waste Management through to Aircraft Manufacturing each using a consultative sales approach.

Furthermore, once you have mastered the system it can be as flexible as possible. We have clients using a consultative sales approach and closing deals on one inbound sales call, and we also have clients using the exact same consultative approach to close large enterprise deals through a six month sales cycle.

What is Consultative Sales Training?

Consultative selling requires a change in mindset and as such effective training is vitally important. As a specialist sales provider we offer training in consultative sales, and a range of courses from giving people a solid baseline understanding of the method through to those seeking to master the sales techniques.

As an international training provider we believe that sales teams learn better if they are doing the task, rather than reading text books or watching a presentation, and as such part of our training includes role place sessions. Consultative sales training also cover all aspects of the sales process, including social selling techniques.

It is also important to remember that consultative selling requires ongoing reinforcement training, so you should consider booking in several sessions, to ensure that your sales team do not revert to their natural selling habits.

Outside of training, under any sales technique it is important that sales professionals have enough support and encouragement. This is even more important under the consultative selling technique. Sales coaching from a sales manager between training sessions, can be a vitally important resource.

You can check out our course on consultative sales and book online here.

Klozers Sales Training

More than just sales training, we train salespeople the essential sales skills that turns them into a top performer. We work with your sales team taking them on a journey from Business Development and winning new customers, through to creating long term relationships.

Consultative Selling is more than just asking probing questions, it’s also when and how to ask them in a way that fosters and builds trust.

We help you identify the key areas that your sales team needs to uncover customer needs, become problem solving gurus, and close more deals.

Formación en ventas telefónicas | El secreto para hacer más ventas

by Iain Swanston

Best B2B Sales Blog | International Recognition for Klozers

by Iain Swanston

Best B2B Sales Blog

Edinburgh based, Business 2 Business Sales Training specialists Klozers have been recognized as one of only 12 companies worldwide for their Sales Blog in the Top Sales Awards.

Klozers blog was a Finalist in the Top Company Sales & Marketing Company Blog, and the only UK company represented in this category of the prestigious sales industry awards.

Created in January 2020 Klozers wanted to use the blog to demonstrate best practice in Inbound & Outbound selling.

Founder Iain Swanston explained:

“When the lockdowns started in March 2020 we lost all of our order book, as we were like every other traditional training company in that our training was all delivered face to face. We regrouped and introduced online learning, but we also doubled down on our blog, as we knew it could help with lead generation.”

With an average Google page rank of 16.4 the blog has over 120 articles listed on page 1 of Google.

These articles have helped the company grow through the lockdown period, with new inquiries generated from the blog accounting for over 30% of revenue in 2021.

The blog has helped raise brand awareness for Klozers abroad, helping them secure new clients in the US, Eastern Europe and the Far East.

Klozers founder, Iain Swanston was delighted with the award and commented:

“As a company we have put a lot of effort into both the strategy, and the blog content itself, so it’s great to see the results in terms of real sales orders and the recognition from the Top Sales Awards body. As the only UK company in the Finals for this category we had stiff competition from some of the US and worlds best sales and marketing experts, so I’m really proud of what our team has achieved.”

As a company Klozers works with small to mid-market organisations to help them compete with the giants and large brands in their industry and win.

Klozers has a full compliment of B2B sales training and coaching courses available online and specialises in helping organisations maximise their Inbound and Outbound sales capabilities.

Mejores prácticas de demostración de SaaS | Cómo hacer una gran demostración de SaaS

by Iain Swanston

Exhibition Sales Training – how to maximise your investment

by Iain Swanston

Exhibition Sales Training - maximising your investment

10 Reasons Why Sales Training Fails – & how you can fix it

by Iain Swanston

11 Steps to Create Sales Battlecards that Win More Deals

by Iain Swanston

Sales Prospecting Training Course | Start Filling your Pipeline Now!

by Iain Swanston

Formación en ventas virtuales | 5 técnicas de venta que hay que dominar

by Iain Swanston

¿Cómo construir un libro de jugadas de ventas de SaaS? (con Plantilla GRATUITA)

by Iain Swanston

cabecera del libro de jugadas de ventas saas

Cómo redactar un plan de ventas en 8 sencillos pasos (con una plantilla gratuita)

by Iain Swanston

5 Easy Ways for Using MS Teams for Sales

by Iain Swanston

There’s a new way to deliver sales growth…

Don’t buy Sales Training until you’ve watched this video…

Using MS Teams for Sales

We’ve previously written about how we use Microsoft OneNote for Sales Management for everything from recording meeting notes through to online sales coaching and training and sales playbooks. We are big fans of OneNote, but what really turbocharges OneNote for us, is the ability to create, store, access and use inside MS Teams.

With so many people now using MS Teams from home Teams has gone from a Business product to a household brand that everyone can use. Unlike its competitors that lack the Enterprise level of security, MS Teams has multilayered security allowing users to configure Teams to bring sales prospects, customers and employees all together. In some cases that might not be appropriate, however, in many cases we help our clients configure Teams so they have:

Using the Public Access feature to deliver Live Events & Sales Webinars for Lead Generation

Using Group Access to position your business as an Industry thought leader

External Company access for Sales Prospects to take them through a Complex Sales Process

In house access where Teams for Managing Sales Opportunities, for example, collaborating on Tenders

In House access where Teams is used as the “host platform” for a Learning Management System based on OneNote, MS Forms, Planner, Yammer, Stream, To Do, Calendar and My Analytics or even third party apps like Moodle.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these scenarios and see why using MS Teams for sales makes so much sense.

1. Public Access for Live Events using MS Teams for Sales

Every business needs new customers and the Live Events feature inside Teams allows you to create and run events open to the public as part of your Lead Generation Programme. Over the years we have found that many Salespeople struggle to pick up the telephone and make sales calls.

Some even struggle to send emails and LinkedIn connection requests because they are introverts and don’t want to face the possible rejection that comes in sales. We’ve found that create FREE high-value Events are a great way to overcome this because most Salespeople are much happier calling or emailing a FREE invitation. The reality is Events are a great way to position your business, raise awareness and start conversations with prospects.

If you’re struggling with ideas on what High-Value event you could deliver think about what’s relevant and what’s current. Are there changes in Legislation surrounding your industry? Are their new trends in your industry?

If you’re still unsure look up your Industry News site and run a Live Event on the topic they are headlining with. If you don’t know anything about the topic find the expert source that the News article referenced and interview them for the Live event using questions from the attendees.

ENABLING THE LIVE EVENTS FUNCTIONS INSIDE MS TEAMS

If you are planning on using MS Teams for Sales, the Public Access feature may not be available or switched on in your companies current MS Teams platform. If Public Access is not available then you will require a user with Admin Rights to switch this feature on from inside the Teams Admin Centre. Once Inside the Admin Centre you should look for the Meetings section and from there the Live Events policies. Please check the video for easy to follow directions.

The notes not only help us remember what was said and what next steps need to be taken they are great for referring back to when we send a “Thank you for meeting me email” with a summary of the notes and if we need to create a proposal or presentation later in the sales process.

If you are in the Admin Centre it’s worthwhile using the additional features in Teams to customise your Meeting Invitations:
Your Company Logo
Your Legal T’s and C’s
Your Support Contact for the Event
Your Company strapline in the Footer
These are then displayed whenever a recipient opens their Meeting Invite.

We should point out we’re not a Tech Channel so here are the links to Microsofts’ own guide to making these changes.

Getting started with Microsoft Teams Live Events

Setting up Live Events in MS Teams

Once you have Live Events configured you can create your own Event from inside teams by clicking on Calendar and then use the drop-down menu to access the live events option.

From here you can then add the Meeting Title and all the details. Next, simply copy the link and insert it into your emails or lead generation campaigns.

2. Group Access for Sales using MS Teams

Whereas Public Access in MS Teams is a great platform for Live events, we recently configured Teams for a client who wanted a Channel to communicate with a specific industry that was going through huge changes with the Pandemic and needed a platform to talk to them.

They invited over 350 customers and 450 prospects into Teams and are delivering weekly updates to an entire industry. They are now seen as thought leaders in the industry and it’s a great way to start conversations that lead to relationships that lead to sales.

You can use the same strategy and use MS Teams to create a platform so that you can talk to your industry.

You could deliver updates on new laws and regulations, industry trends and insights, interview industry thought leaders and invite your customers to talk about their businesses and experiences.

We would, however, warn against overtly selling in these types of communications as the minute the audience believes they are being sold to, they will start to drop out and the Channel will wither.

3. Company Access for Sales Prospects inside MS Teams

In B2B Sales it’s increasingly difficult to reach all the decision-makers in the Sales Process. In many cases they send a “Scout” to find information not available on your website and do all they can to keep Salespeople at a distance throughout the buying process.

What these buyers want is information and in most cases a quote or proposal and when they have it they immediately cease all contact. This can be a huge waste of time and money for the selling organisation as tenders become more and more complicated, needing multiple people in the way of bid teams to respond. If you’re not sure if this is happening to you simply check back through your CRM and you’ll see that many deals stall immediately after the prospect receives the pricing and information they need.

There is no easy way around this however what’s working for our clients is offering limited information up-front and then holding back until the other Decision Makers engage. They do this by re-framing the sales opportunity as a project and using Teams as the “Project Management Portal” to gather the needs of all the “stakeholders”.

This brings the buyers out and allows a controlled release of the information in exchange for engagement. This doesn’t work on every deal however it very quickly “smokes” out the genuine buyers from those just using the Salespeople for pricing.

An additional benefit of this approach is the Sales Team can invite Pre-Sales, operations, delivery teams and aftercare teams to the Teams Channel in the solution forming phase of the sale which can provide a richer sales experience for the customer. This is a great point of differentiation and whilst no sales strategy works every time it’s low cost and easy to try.

Lastly this strategy shouldn’t be applied across the board unless every sales opportunity is large and comes with a bespoke solution. We only implement this for deals above £10k, but you can choose where to set the bar.

4. Inhouse Access for Using Teams on Bids & Tenders

The most common use for MS Teams is the call and video conferencing functions, however, there is much more functionality that can help Sales Teams sell more. MS Teams makes Sales Teams more productive, more focussed and delivers a better user experience which in turn increases productivity.

There are numerous advantages with Teams such as the chat function, which allows us to stay connected without cluttering up our Outlook Inbox. Whether it’s Yammer, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or any of the other O365 products, they can all be accessed and worked on from inside the Teams environment.

If you have bid teams responding to tenders the Bid documents can be created, stored and developed within the Teams environment and Tender Teams can collaborate and even edit the same document simultaneously.

In many cases the Bid creation process can run down to the deadline and when multiple authors are involved which can create time delays as each contributes and updates potentially separate copies of the one document. The Multi author allows uses inside Teams to make edits and additions live and see the document develop as their work colleagues contribute in real time.

Whether it’s Word, Excel, PowerPoint or any of the other O365 products, they can all be accessed and worked on from inside Microsoft Teams.

5. Teams as a Learning Management System

Many companies now acknowledge the tangible benefits of training, coaching and developing their people. Sales Training and Coaching itself has changed and improved over the years, whereas in the past training was in most cases was one-off event, they are now almost always part of a bespoke sales training programme. In order to deliver these programmes software companies have developed SaaS models where companies can create bespoke learning programmes.

There are numerous Learning Management Systems on the market each with some great functionality, however, Microsoft Teams has for most companies all the functionality they will ever need from an (LMS). Furthermore, the beauty of using MS Teams as an LMS is both compelling and simple:

You are already paying for it with your 0365 Licence
Your people are already working inside the O365 suite every hour of every day so that’s a great place for learning.

Although there is no one standard in terms of the functionality of an LMS, for most companies an LMS has the capability to, create, document, record, measure, store and deliver training programmes. In practical terms this means:

Create. Document, Record. You can create learning content in OneNote, MS Wiki, MS Paint, MS Word, MS PowerPoint, Stream, MS Whiteboard, Excel, Publisher.

Measure. You can test and measure learning using all of the above and MS Planner and MS Forms.

Store. You can store all your content in either One Drive or SharePoint.

Deliver. You can deliver all your training and coaching using MS Teams and acknowledge achievements via MS Praise.

In addition to the suite of O365 tools there are many additional third-party applications available from inside MS Teams to both enhance and compliment your existing applications. For example, you can connect to

CRM systems – MS Dynamics CRM, Salesforce CRM, NImble, Zoho or iGlobe CRM.
Productivity – Asana, Trello, Jira & Stormflow.
Communications – Survey Monkey, Mail Chimp, Mail Clerk & Text Bot.

There are hundreds of other applications available and the number of these apps including Moodle which is a stand alone LMS that can be connected into your Teams Channel.

We’ve also written on the benefits of using OneNote for Sales Management and Coaching which are an important part of any LMS. We rally like the combined functionality of MS Teams and OneNote as a Coaching platform to help develop Salespeople.

You can break down your Training into competencies and deliver bespoke sessions on specifics like sales prospecting, pipeline management sales closing techniques all from inside your own Sales Playbooks in OneNote. We use our Sales Playbooks with every client and the combination of creating and using OneNote for the Playbook, and delivering them through Teams is really powerful.

6. Recommended Reading

If you would like to discover some of the free templates that we use inside teams then check out our B2B Sales Tools.

Los 9 mejores trucos para utilizar OneNote en la gestión de ventas

by Iain Swanston

Uso de OneNote para la gestión de ventas

FREE Sales Training for Salespeople Made Redundant

by Iain Swanston

In this article we will cover...

Cold Calling Training – Top question from Google

How do you Train for cold calling?

HERE’S THE SHORT ANSWER:

1. Cold calling is dead, long live cold calling

2. What is the definition of a cold call?

3. Cold Calling Training

4. Marketing vs Telesales

4. What makes a good Telesales Team?

* Preparation

* Record Keeping

* Plan for the day ahead

* Follow Up

* Practice makes permanent

* Share ideas and experience across the team

5. What makes cold calling so difficult?

6. Cold Calling Training Courses

Formación en ventas a través de la web - La mejor pregunta de Google

¿Es eficaz la formación de ventas en línea?

1. Reducción del tiempo de viaje

2. Equilibrio de la vida laboral

3. Gastos de envío

4. Colaboración y comunicación más rápidas

5. Refuerzo de la formación

6. Responsabilidad de las ventas

7. Apoyo continuo

There’s a new way to deliver sales growth…

Plantilla de evaluación del rendimiento de las ventas - Pregunta principal de Google

¿Cómo se redacta una evaluación del rendimiento de las ventas?

Por qué son importantes las evaluaciones del rendimiento de las ventas

Mejorar el rendimiento de las ventas

¿De qué debería hablar en una revisión del rendimiento de las ventas?

Hoja de ruta y trayectoria profesional

121 para vendedores que trabajan a distancia

Seguimiento de las revisiones del rendimiento de las ventas

There’s a new way to deliver sales growth…

SDR Sales Training Courses – Top question from Google

How do you train an SDR?

We think you can do much more than this.

Here’s the short answer – Run a 1 Day Sales Bootcamp

SDR Sales Training

Sales Training Topics

Sales Training Exercises

Free SDR Training Courses

Coaching Sales Behaviours – Top question from Google

How do you coach a sales person?

How do you coach an underperforming sales person?

What is the key to coaching a successful sales team?

Sales coaching techniques

Sales coaching models

Sales Performance Coaching

How to Build an Outbound Sales Team – Top question from Google

What is outbound sales?

Preparing to go Outbound

Building an Inhouse Team or Outsourcing

What are outbound sales activities?

Outbound sales strategy

Outbound and Inbound Sales Support

Consultative Sales Training – Top question from Google

What is a Consultative Sales Approach?

Steps involved in Consultative Selling

1. Research potential buyers thoroughly before contacting them

2. Define the Symptoms – What are the symptoms of the problem the potential customer is facing?

3. Root cause analysis – ask the buyer questions to understand and diagnose the underlying causes.

4. Business impact – Ask how the issue is impacting on the business. Does it impact on morale, performance, profitability or all three?

5. Financial Impact – Find out how much the problem will cost the business if they do not fix it.

6. Personal Impact – Find out how the problem affects the buyer personally – how does it affect their day to day job?

What do you need to be a good consultative salesperson?

What questions to ask?

Which Products and Services are best suited to Consultative Sales Techniques?

What is Consultative Sales Training?

Klozers Sales Training

Best B2B Sales Blog

There’s a new way to deliver sales growth…

In this article we will cover...

Using MS Teams for Sales

1. Public Access for Live Events using MS Teams for Sales

ENABLING THE LIVE EVENTS FUNCTIONS INSIDE MS TEAMS

2. Group Access for Sales using MS Teams

3. Company Access for Sales Prospects inside MS Teams