Iain Swanston
How to Sell on LinkedIn without being Spammy
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How to Sell on LinkedIn – the short answer
Follow LinkedIn’s four recommendations listed in the Social Selling Index which are:
- Create a professional personal and company brand.
- Find and save the profiles of the right people so LinkedIn can push updates to you.
- Start engaging with insightful content that generates likes, comments and shares.
- Continuing to build relationships via connecting in a value led approach.
- Lastly from Klozers – stop trying to sell to people. The more you try and sell the more you will put people off.
Here’s a more detailed guide on How to Sell On LinkedIn
1. Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn
The genesis of LinkedIn in 2002 was as a recruiting platform that enabled job seekers to be found by recruiters and the reverse, in that job seekers could quickly find new opportunities.
The platform has moved on since then and is the largest B2B Directory with over 722 million users listed. The sheer volume of contacts has made LinkedIn the place to be for B2B salespeople who are researching and connecting to decision makers throughout the sales process.
The size of the opportunity is equalled only by the size of the potential to ruin both your personal and company brand on the platform.
LinkedIn has a certain etiquette and when you break the “rules” your personal brand is damaged. For example, if the percentage of your connection requests are refused then your prospect can block you for life – not just for the time you are in your current job role, every future job role. Life means life on LinkedIn.
The advent of lockdowns where Field Sales people where suddenly forced to do everything online without any strategy, planning or training, resulted in a massive increase in LinkedIn Spam which made connecting and selling on the platform more difficult than ever.
LinkedIn is without a doubt the best platform for generating new B2B sales leads and a must have as part of your social selling strategy.
2. Your Company Brand on LinkedIn
Outbound done badly damages your brand and this is so true on LinkedIn. The use of automations, spam, connect and pitch messaging and even fake profiles does nothing to enhance your brand.
To compound this problem many people turned to “LinkedIn Lead Generation Experts” who would take control of your profile and spam everyone on the planet with some form of “buy now” message.
Yes these people generate leads, however, this is a scorched earth strategy and the damage will be found by the profile owner for years to come.
Your Personal and Business brand is what attracts and retains customers. Cherish, nurture and develop them all you can.
3. Don’t be spammy
Everyone knows selling has changed, however, it’s worth reminding people as not everyone has got the message. People do not want to be sold to, but they do like to buy. The role of sales is no longer to sell, but to facilitate the right conditions for buyers to buy.
How do you do this:
- Provide value up front
- Provide insight up front
- Focus on building relationships
- Provide every single piece of information the prospect wants, including the information that they don’t know that they want, up front.
When you get this right, there is no need to “sell”. It’s actually so much easier.
4. How to Optimise your LinkedIn profile
Let’s start at the very beginning, your LinkedIn Profile. In order to put your best personal brand forward LinkedIn rewards those with the most complete profiles.
By reward I mean they will push you and your content to other users more actively based on the completeness of your profile.
With that in mind it’s important to complete as much information as possible on your profile, whilst paying particular attention to starting from the very top:
- Your LinkedIn URL. Be sure to “claim” your name and once you have done this add your primary keyword to the title as shown in the image – I have added the keyword “sales trainer”.
- Include a professionally designed banner that conveys your brand promise. This should be congruent with your company website.
- Use a business like, professional portrait image – not an image of you sipping cocktails. LinkedIn is B2B and you need to play to that audience.
- Use keywords that your target audience would use to search for you in your title. Many LinkedIn trainers will recommend a title targeting a specific audience and including the outcome that you provide. I can tell you that I and many others immediately decline connection requests from these people as they have just told you in advance “I am coming to get you”. Remember nobody wants to be sold to.
- Include relevant hashtags for your industry. This needs to be done via the Creator Mode feature.
- Be sure to complete the “Providing Services” section with three services that you would like to promote. Where possible these should match your hashtags
- Next up is the “Featured” section. This is an opportunity for you to showcase your subject matter expertise. White Papers, Books, Articles and Posts that position you as the expert. Where possible include lead magnets from your website to attract new prospects.
- About is the next section you should customise. This should be about who you work with, the services you provide and the results you deliver. Lastly include a call to action, keywords from your Skills section (more on this to follow), hashtags and contact details.
- The next two sections are Experience & Education, and these should be as detailed and truthful as possible. Whether you are selling a product or service or yourself in an interview, company’s will look to verify this information and you will quickly be found out if you are not telling the truth.
- Licenses and Certification is the next section and here you should take the opportunity to reinforce your brand. This is arguably easier for us as a training provider, however, you can include vocational training and anything that puts you forward as a thought leader. If you are not continually educating yourself and keeping up to date you should be.
- Skills & Endorsements is the nest section and this is really important. The LinkedIn search algorithm is more likely to recommend you for a skill if you have been endorsed for that skill, which makes sense. Therefore, you should ensure that the skills you would like to be known for are at the top to encourage people to endorse you for these skills.
As you can see from my profile I have 99+ endorsements for a few skills but not for the core skills “sales”, “sales coaching” and “sales trainings”. My fault as I was not aware of the importance of this until recently.
What’s also strange is that LinkedIn has not listing for “Sales Training” only “Sales Trainings”. This may be a language/translation issue, however, as the Skills are predefined there is no way to change this.
- Lastly, the Accomplishments section is a great place to highlight any awards, courses or publications that you are credited with.
That’s it. One important point I should explain. Whist we always advocate a consultative, non salesy approach we are referring to our communication style your personal and company pages should be very salesy. They are akin to a website Landing Page and should do as much as possible to convert the visitor to an enquirer.
5. How to create a LinkedIn Company Page
Like your personal profile page the Company page should be like a Landing page on your website. Content rich and full of information.
Once the page is complete it’s important that you keep the page up to date with new posts in order that anyone visiting the page will not be confronted with an empty page with no activity.
Again it’s important to have your company livery and brand promise front and centre. The about section is an opportunity to tell the world how great your products and services are, who they are for and the results they help your clients achieve.
Don’t forget your call to action button, contact details and hashtags.
6. How to create a LinkedIn Showcase Page
Showcase pages are a great tool for promoting a product or service. Imagine you are Microsoft, your company page would be Microsoft and you could create Showcase pages for Microsoft Dynamics or Microsoft Teams.
We use the Showcase section to promote the events we run on LinkedIn and Funnel Sprint which is our premier lead generation training programme.
Please note: Showcase pages must be created from your Company page using the “Admin Tools” drop down menu.
7. How to create a LinkedIn Showcase Page
LinkedIn articles are a great resource for positioning your personal brand. LinkedIn loves content so they desperately want you to be creating content on a regular basis.
When combined with creating content for our own website this can be really demanding, however, the best strategy is to create full, long form content on your website and then create a short summary piece as a LinkedIn article that links back to your website.
That way you have satiated both the Google and LinkedIn beasts.
As an example this particular blog post How to Sell on LinkedIn was first published on the klozers.com website with a summary article then published on LinkedIn here.
Google does index content published on LinkedIn but so far we have found by far it’s better to use our company blog as the primary content source.
8. How to create a Boolean Search Strings
Boolean search strings are the somewhat complicated looking search terms that allow you to create very specific and highly targeted searches. This targeting is encouraged by LinkedIn and contributes to your Social Selling Index score. Here are the different operators you can use:
- Quotes [“”] These are used when you are looking for an exact match. As an example when you type in sales manager to the search bar without the quotes the search returns all the contacts with the word sales and manager in their profile. By adding the quotes and entering “sales manager” the search returns all the contacts with that exact keyword.
- Parentheses [()] These searches are used when you want to combine search terms. For example if you wanted to find people who have “VP” in their profiles, but exclude “assistant to VP” or SVPs, type VP NOT (assistant OR SVP).
- NOT – when you type NOT in capital leaders this excludes what follows. For example you may search for “sales manager” NOT “sales director” if you wanted to exclude sales directors from the results.
- AND – as it sounds when you type in AND in capital letters the search returns results for both keywords. As an example if you type in “sales” AND “marketing” the search would return results that included both words.
- OR – OR is the broadest search term and best used when you want to widen the results. The search term “sales” OR “marketing” would cast a wider net and return more results than “sales” AND “marketing”.
9. How to connect on LinkedIn
Building your network is one of the 4 foundations of social selling, however, this has come under more scrutiny recently. LinkedIn would like you to only connect to people you know – but equally they know users are connecting to people they don’t know all the time.
Unfortunately, most people employ a spray and prey approach and connect with anyone and then never speak to them again. Because of this LinkedIn has reduced the number of connection requests to 100 per week to stop this although there are legitimate ways around this via the groups function.
In an attempt to short circuit the connection process many people search for the “best” connection messaging templates on Google.
By the time these templates are on Google they have been used literally millions of times. People buy from people we would encourage you to interact via like, comments and shares before trying to connect.
You can then refer to content or comments they have shared in the connection request and voila – no templates required.
By employing this strategy your acceptance rate will increase from the standard which is around 30 to between 60 and 70%.
HOW TO DOWNLOAD YOUR LINKEDIN CONNECTIONS
LinkedIn allows you to download your connections although it’s worth pointing out that this does not include the users email address or contact details.
The data is nonetheless still helpful for Account Planning and targeting larger enterprise accounts.
10. How to get the most from LinkedIn Messaging
We’ve covered the best approach to messaging with respect to when you are connecting, however, what happens after you have connected. The options here are three fold:
- Pitch your product or service. This will work for some people, however, the percentage of times this will work is very low. If you are in a hurry, and don’t care about your personal or business brand, then this is your best option.
- Send a thank you for connecting message and never speak to them again like the majority of LinkedIn users
- Focus on building a relationship by providing insight and value. This is a longer term approach, however, the results are much improved in comparison to options 1 and 2.
Here are some ideas that you can use to facilitate this approach:
- Tell the prospect in the “thank you for connecting message” that you regularly share insight to their job title about xyz and look forward to speaking again.
- As discussed in step 1 regularly share insight with the prospect but don’t bombard them.
- Message the prospect and ask for help with an industry survey
- Create a plan – download our simple spreadsheet so you can plan and track all your interactions on LinkedIn.
- Engage – Follow the individual using Sales Navigator and like, comment or share when the prospect posts or comments on the platform.
- Provide sales leads to them using our “recommended search” hack
Lastly, you must compress all your messages as no one wants to read a novel in their inbox and wherever possible make the desired response to your message a simple thumbs up emoji. The quicker and easier it is for the prospect to respond the more likely they are to do so.
11. How to Create a LinkedIn Event
LinkedIn Events took off during the lockdown period as millions of users found themselves stuck at home in need or new routes to market and in some cases training.
Whilst the LinkedIn Events platform was primarily designed to host and deliver events on the LinkedIn platform itself many users are hosting Events and using LinkedIn as the main channel to drive registrations.
We’re personally great fans of LinkedIn Events and regularly run workshops on the platform. This has allowed as greater access to our clients and also potential new customers outside our current 1st degree connections and into 2nd and third degree contacts across the globe.
Like your company page, its important to brand your events inline with your company branding. Once the event is set up you can easily invite any of your personal connections and you should share the event regularly in your timeline.
In addition to LinkedIn we have a webinar sign up page on our website and use our email list to drive registrations. With what we would describe as limited effort we typically have between 50 and 100 attendees.
The downside of any free online event is there is a huge drop out rate on the day. This is partly due to the fact that the LinkedIn Events function does not add a Calendar Appointment to the users diary when they click yes to attend.
It’s obviously not possible to send a regular diary invite as the users would then have access to the contact details of all the other attendees.
We have managed to create a workaround using Microsoft Live Events, however, it’s still manual and something that we need to work on before we would share this.
12. How to use sell using LinkedIn Groups
LinkedIn Groups used to be huge, however, LinkedIn decided to move users away from the groups, and group discussions, leaving many groups almost dormant.
Whereby previously groups where the hotbeds of focussed industry discussions they mostly lie silent and posting into groups can feel like shouting into the unknown.
The plus side is that groups remain an easy route to build connections and gather data. For example, while new connection requests are limited to 100 per week, this can be sidestepped by connecting to users in a common group. LinkedIn may well change this again in the near future.
Users are allowed to be members of up to 50 LinkedIn groups and we recommend joining groups where your Ideal Client Profile can be found.
13. How to get the most from LinkedIn Inmail
LinkedIn Inmail historically had the highest open rates which according to LinkedIn is 57.5% which when compared to standard email which is 21.6% sounds great.
Forgive me though – Inmails are limited to premium accounts (20 Inmails per month) and add-ons that you can be purchased, so without independent verification this may not be the most accurate of data.
What I believe to be true is that the open rates and conversion rates from Inmail has dropped as it has become more widely adopted by sales and marketing team.
For us, the Inmail feature shows no difference in open rates given the strategies that we use, however, when certain prospects are not active on LinkedIn and have locked down their connection settings, Inmail might be the only channel available.
14. Using LinkedIn for Content Marketing
LinkedIn loves content creators and with the new “Creator Mode” available from 2021 they have signalled that this is the direction that they want to take the platform.
For obvious reasons when compared to Facebook, LinkedIn is primarily focussed on B2B, however, the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 drove new users to the platform and encouraged existing users to engage more using content.
The type of content has also changed there are much more personal stories on the platform then previously.
From a sales perspective this makes sense as stories sell. Whilst some people are uncomfortable sharing their story other content types that are popular are:
Industry Insights
Event Information
Customer Focussed
Employee Focussed
Company News
Products and services
Partners & Sponsors Stories sell, so in order to gain engagement and visibility it’s important to develop your content around a story wherever possible.
15. How to sell on LinkedIn using Sales Navigator
Sales Navigator is the Premium version of LinkedIn and a must have tool for any modern sales rep. The Navigator platform is extremely powerful and in addition to the increased search filters, the main benefit we would suggest is the ability to follow prospects and target accounts from a central dashboard.
The dashboard provides alerts based on both the prospects and accounts you are following allowing you to identify opportunities to engage at a glance.
Sales Navigator also provides what they call “Smart Links” which gives the user tracking data for any documents they send via Inmail.
The data includes the number of times the link was clicked, how long the user viewed the link, the date and time the link was clicked and the full details of the user who clicked on the link. All of which are important when sending .pdf, ppt or word documents to prospects.
Saved Searches are also an important feature within Sales Navigator. These allow the user to save highly targeted searches and return to them as LinkedIn updates the search results on a daily basis.
The saved search function has many uses such as tracking when connections move companies or when they are promoted to a more senior role.
16. What is LinkedIn Social Selling Index?
Linkedin developed the Social Selling Index (SSI) to encourage both user adoption and best practice. As mentioned at the start of this document the SSI has four core areas:
1. Creating your professional personal and company brand
2. Finding and saving the profiles of the right people so LinkedIn can push updates to you
3. Engaging prospects with thought leadership and insightful content that generates likes, comments and shares
4. Continuing to build new relationships via connecting in a value led approach
LinkedIn displays an SSI score for every user and their position or rank compared to their Team. Again, this is to drive user adoption and make the product sticky.
Most users are unaware of the benefits of having a social selling strategy. LinkedIn and Sales Navigator are like Ferraris which mean they need to be driven differently to a supermarket trolley if you want to get the full benefits from them.
Any strategy will take time, however, in the new world of remote selling it’s much more than inside sales and SDR’s who can benefit from the platform.
From our own experience we have developed a social selling strategy that can be replicated across every industry. There is however no magic wand and no substitute for hard work.
The more you put into LinkedIn the more you will get out.
17. How to sell on LinkedIn using Automation Software
The popularity of the LinkedIn platform has led to the development of a number of Google Chrome browser extensions that automate the process of visiting, connecting and messaging.
Like all tools they are only as good as the individual who is configuring them. In essence the tools are great, however, the widespread use of the tools are what has caused LinkedIn to now limit the amount of connection requests to 100.
Spray and prey, connect and forget and Scorched earth are the negative results caused by the misuse of the tools.
As you would expect LinkedIn discourages users form using any form of automation as they are against the rules.
With that said every one of the automation providers are on LinkedIn and even using LinkedIn events to promote their tools so the cynic in me thinks they are well aware of the problem and turn a blind eye to it because for the time being it suits them.
My understanding is that if you are “caught” using automation you will receive a warning and not immediately blocked from the platform.
I have never received such a warning so I can’t confirm this – only you know your level of risk so I will leave the decision to automate or not up to you.
18. How to sell on LinkedIn – Engagement Pods
A different take on Automation are Engagement Pods. Like other automation tools these are browser bases extensions that allow you to join a pod or group.
The purpose of the pods is to boost the reach of the members content by automating the like and comments on their posts.
The LinkedIn algorithm promotes content to more of your connections based on the engagement withing the first hour of posting.
Whilst you might like the idea of boosting the reach of your content, the problem arises when you suddenly find the automation is commenting on content that does not fit your brand and in some cases, will be damaging your brand.
You have no control over what they post and what comments they attribute to you. Giving control of your LinkedIn account to other pod members is not something we would recommend to anyone.
19. How to sell on LinkedIn – Social Selling Course
Social selling is such an important part of modern B2B selling we have incorporated all our best social selling strategies and tactics into our B2B Lead Generation Course. In addition to live training the course provides practical strategies and tactics that users are encouraged to use immediately.
The course is comprehensive and covers everything from the basics of setting up and optimising your LinkedIn profile to the more advanced lead generation strategies we teach.
As always our sales training is built around the consultative sales methodology so the priority is always the protection of your personal and business brand.
LinkedIn Sales Strategy Consulting
Need more help? Training is great, but strategy is the game changer that can set you apart from your competition.
We provide a full LinkedIn Sales Strategy Consulting for companies who need their team to have a joined up approach.
LinkedIn, Sales Navigator and Social selling are all vital components of any Account Based Marketing campaign which we are happy to advise you on.
Sales Training and Consulting for B2B Companies
Why invest in Sales Training and Consulting?
There are normally two reasons companies invest in our Sales Training and Consulting services. Firstly, they are often in a hurry to find sales growth and are looking for a short cut, a growth hack.
Often these companies would eventually find the right strategies and tactics themselves, but they may be keen to capitalise on their first mover advantage or satisfy the needs of external investors.
For these companies we provide a shortcut, we help them avoid the pitfalls and roadblocks that every growing business experiences.
When you engage with Klozers your team has access to over 70 years experience in B2B sales and marketing.
Our sales training can help you get the best out of your team, alongside our consultancy services that will help you deploy the changes identified by our consultancy
Let’s take a closer look at why it makes so much sense to use sales training and consulting services together.
1. Why sales consulting compliments your sales training?
Many companies make the mistake of rushing into training as the solution to improving sales performance.
Indeed, training may be part of the solution, but it is never the whole solution. Before any training takes place it’s important to understand the root causes of the challenges within the sales department and only when we truly understand the problems can we prescribe the best possible solution.
By rushing into training we would be assuming that everything else that affects sales is 100% perfect, and that is simply never the case.
As with anything, the greater the investment upfront in terms of the diagnosis, the more effective the training will be.
This is because the training can then be customised to meet the exact needs of the business which makes it much more impactful.
2. Why is Sales Training so effective?
Sales training builds both skills and confidence, and those are simply unbeatable in front of a customer.
The best salespeople are like athletes and they are hungry to learn more and stay at the top of their game.
The reason they are so good is that they are constantly looking for an edge, an advantage, and this keeps driving them forward.
These are small but important things that make the difference and gets more deals over the line. Our training is designed to keep your team at the top of their game and help them benefit from the very latest insights and industry best practice.
Our sales trainers work hard to keep your team engaged and motivated during training sessions, using a range of mediums to maintain their attention and inspire them.
Your sales trainer will help your team sell more effectively whether that be over the phone, in-person or online.
They can help them improve their lead generation, closing and account management skills, and provide indispensable mentoring services.
3. What happens before training takes place?
Before your training sessions begin, it’s important to identify what you want to get from them. As a sales training provider we offer bespoke services that are based on your specific needs and challenges.
We can provide a full sales consultancy service in advance of any training. This would typically include an evaluation of your current sales unit in relation to sales maturity and best practice.
We can also provide full training needs analysis so you can gain a better understanding of your requirements before staring any training course.
For sales training to be effective, they need to be delivered in a way that maintains your teams’ attention, which means your sessions will include a great deal of interactivity.
Our sales training sessions include a range of demonstrations, exercises, games and roleplay.
4. What is the aim of Sales Training
Our goal as a provider is not to deliver sales training, but to deliver results.
Therefore we believe the goal of Sales training is to help you meet a range of sales goals faster than you would if you were to continue without any intervention.
Not every company’s needs are the same, but businesses often invest in sales training because they want to improve their staff’s sales skills, close more deals, create more conversions, make their staff feel more supported, improve morale and boost the average value of their sales.
However, ultimately all of these lead to one overall benefit – an improvement in results. Some companies invest in training because they have identified a particular problem that needs addressing which is being caused by a skills gaps within their businesses.
Training may also benefit your team if they seem to be lacking direction, or are feeling unmotivated. A lack of motivation can often occur because staff are unclear on what their roles are, or because the current strategies they are using are not working.
In many occasions this is why Sales consultancy is a perfect fit alongside sales training as it can also help you identify and deal with additional challenges.
5. How can a Sales Consultant help our business?
A sales consultant will help your business by taking a close look at your current situation, identifying strengths and weaknesses, and helping you make positive changes to drive revenue growth.
If you are not currently meeting your sales targets, our sales consultants can help you find out why this is happening and develop strategies to address the issues.
Our experienced consultants can help with optimising your sales processes and ensuring you get the maximum conversion ratios from the leads you are generating.
With our years of experience in B2B sales our sales consultants can introduce you to specific resources that will support your business.
These can include lead generation, marketing, sales tracking, and training programmes and software that will give you a better insight into how your sales team are performing.
6. Adding Sales Experience to your Leadership Team
When you are immersed in the day-to-day running of your company, it can be hard to assess your situation objectively.
It’s often impossible to find anyone around you who is not objective as your team all have a role which in some way will make them subjective.
Our sales consultants aren’t just there to identify problems that you weren’t previously aware of, we are completely hands on and happy to work alongside your team to implement any solutions.
Where applicable we will highlight your strengths and help you make the most of the resources that you currently have. In most cases this revolves around the creation of a sales plan, which we work with you to develop and if required are happy to help with executing against the plan.
Our consultants will work with you to help you improve relationships between departments and colleagues. For instance, we are often called upon for detailed advice on aligning sales and marketing departments so you’re delivering coherent messages to your customers.
Indeed aligning sales and marketing is one of our most popular services.
7. Which Companies benefit the most from Consulting Services
We typically have two types of customers of our consulting services. The first are larger organisations who already have a Sales Plan in place.
They need help executing and delivering against the plan as they simply lack the internal resources to do this themselves.
The second group are those looking for external and objective advice. In some cases they have seen a substantial decline in sales recently or aren’t meeting their targets they need to reach and hence are reaching out for support.
These businesses hire us because we have a track record of turning companies around. Alternately you may need external support if you have experienced changes in your industry and you’re struggling to keep up with your competitors.
Companies also may hire us because they feel missed sales targets are starting to affect morale and staff retention rates.
By investing in training and consultancy services, you can show your team you’re determined to improve and start achieving more.
8. Build a Selling System
It’s also common for companies to invest in sales consultancy services because their sales processes are confused and unclear, with team members pulling in different directions.
We are a huge advocate of having a selling system. Finance has a system, operations have a system so why not sales. Building a repeatable scalable selling system is simply a must for any business.
By mapping this out we can help your salespeople to understand how and where they can influence buyers and sell to people on different parts of their journey, helping you secure more sales.
Our consultants can also help you gain a richer understanding of the data available to you, from both your marketing automation and CRM platforms.
In many cases our clients either don’t have enough data or they are overwhelmed by data, and miss out on the most important parts. Either way we can help.
In Conclusion
Sales is an ever changing environment and more and more businesses are improving their performance, staff retention rates and workplace morale.
For most of use this means competition is tough and by investing in our sales training and consultancy services we can give you that edge you need to not just compete, but win.
Sales consultants and trainers can provide invaluable mentorship, help you identify and eradicate weaknesses, and help you make the changes that you need to not only survive but prosper.
Our team can breathe new life into your organisation and inspire people throughout your company. Whether you’ve been missing your targets or are simply ready to build upon recent success and take your business to the next level, there are many great reasons for hiring sales training and consultancy professionals.
If you are ready to hire a sales trainer, sales consultant or both, come and talk with us.
Sales and Service Training Courses
If your business is typical, up to 80% of next years revenues will come from this years customers. Despite this many organisations give little or no thought to customer service, viewing it merely as a cost to the business.
In many cases customer service is a cost to the business, however, survey after survey shows customer service as a core component of your brand. In certain cases some brands who understand the commercial value of great customer service, use it as an opportunity to cross sell and upsell, thus driving additional revenue into the business.
There are so many great statistics for investing in sales and service training once you look into it, it’s difficult to ignore. As an example studies show that 82% of customers leave because of a poor experience and of those 73% leave because of a reaction to rude staff.
Structured and well supported training can help your team meet your customers expectations and even exceed them. The right sales and service training can make your team more adept at winning customers’ trust, whilst boosting your teams confidence.
The best sales and service training programmes are designed to help companies move away from customer service and towards customer experiences.
How can Sales and Service Training help my team?
Often the biggest challenge in business is winning new customers. Given that’s the case it surely makes sense to do everything possible to not only keep those customers, but to maximise the revenue from them.
Most service issues have a simple root problem, for example, 55% of customers are leaving because of delays in resolving a dispute and 51% are leaving because of poor staff training. What’s possibly most important to note, is that all these problems can be easily remedied.
Sales and service training can give your team a system to measure, track and consistently improve your customer service and sales. This will help change the mindset of your team, enabling them to make a real impact by being able to identify what matters most and take action to improve.
When done correctly training can enhance your workplace culture substantially and provide your sales team with additional skills that can benefit them personally throughout their careers.
Close More Deals and Learn New Skills
Most companies are unaware of the potential sales opportunities they have with existing customers. With repeat customer spending up to 67% more, sales and service training is more than just handling complaints and returns.
A big part of resolving customers problems should be finding new solutions to the problems customers encounter. In most cases the problems that customers experience are actually the best opportunities for cross selling and upselling.
Training can introduce your team to new strategies and tactics that they may simply never come across before. In addition to external input, there are often great lessons that can be shared internally, and these should be captured and documented for the benefit of others.
Training will help your team become more familiar with your own company’s best practices. In a well structured sales and service training programme, your staff will not only learn new techniques, but also find out why they are so effective and which situations they should be deployed in.
Benefit from External Sales Specialists
Often a key benefit of sales and service training is that it gives your team a chance to take onboard new ideas and strategies from outside the business. In many cases they are more open to learning from external facilitators with an in-depth knowledge than from internal colleagues.
Sales and service specialists can give your team more than just the skills they need to engage potential customers in meaningful conversations. They can help you explain on your customers terms why your products and service may be a good fit for them.
Sales and service training will help your team use the product knowledge and information that they have about your products and services, and turn this into powerful questions that make the buyer want to buy rather than them having to sell to them.
Retain the Best Staff
Many companies are now switched on to the fact that it’s easier to retain quality staff when you invest in training courses for them.
If your team members feel you aren’t investing in them, there’s a high possibility that they will move to a company that will. Investing in training shows your employees that you are eager to help them improve.
When staff receive quality training, they tend to feel more supported, which in turn boosts their confidence. Recruitment costs to replace team members can be incredibly expensive and take up an inordinate amount of management time.
It’s therefore important to try and keep hold of the employees that you have already invested in and continue to develop them.
Should Managers attend Sales and Service Training?
Your Managers set the bar in terms of what is acceptable performance and what is not. With this in mind, it’s important that sales managers attend every sales and service training along with their staff so they can hear the information first-hand.
When managers know exactly what’s covered and agreed during training, they can ensure their staff apply this knowledge to real-life scenarios and coach them if they are struggling.
Sales training often includes an element of goal-setting, which is yet another reason why it’s so important for managers to attend. It’s important for the managers to set realistic, yet achievable goals, rather than targets that are out of your team’s reach.
Failure to do this will simply harm the confidence of the team and demotivate them.
Increase your Customer Satisfaction Ratings
Training like everything else in your business needs to deliver a return on your investment. Whilst not everything should be judged by customer service scores, any service training should ultimately improve your customer satisfaction ratings.
Customer expectations are arguably higher than they have ever been and today’s customers expect to receive high-quality service more than ever before.
If they have a bad experience with a member of your team, they’re likely to make their opinions public and Social Media can amplify bad news like never before.
Customer Service training will not only teach your team to deliver the best customer experiences possible, but also turn your happy customers into advocates for your brand, thus generating new business referrals.
Omnichannel Customer Support
Modern customer service training often starts before your customers have even made a purchase. In most cases your customers first interaction with your brand is either your website or social media pages.
It’s important to include these as part of your wider customer experience strategy. This is supported by many statistics for example, using three channels instead of one for marketing campaigns results in a 287% higher purchase rate.
Providing Omnichannel customer support helps your team keep your clients happy across a range of channels and mediums. It can help them communicate with your customers better not only over traditional channels like the phone, but also via live chat, email, social media, SMS and other platforms.
The most successful customer service teams around today adopt an omnichannel approach with research showing that companies with an omnichannel approach experience a 23 fold increase in customer satisfaction.
We believe it’s really important to include these areas in your service programme. Many companies are failing to meet their customers’ expectations which makes it easier for you and your team to stand out from the crowd and win business from them.
Build Expert Product Knowledge
No matter the industry customers want to deal with experts and not agents who are simply following a call centre script.
If sales reps don’t have the knowledge that they require, they are more likely to leave customers feeling frustrated, with the customer going on to air their feedback publicly.
The more your reps know about your products and services, the better they can address customer pain points and explain why your solutions are the answer to their problems.
Enhance Customer Loyalty
Repeated studies show that customers tend to be much more loyal to companies that offer outstanding customer service. Many of today’s customers say that customer service is more important than price when they’re deciding who to do business with.
By investing in sales and service training, you can attract and retain more customers and gain a real edge over your competitors. Part of your overall programme should include how you plan to collect and share customer reviews.
With 70% of people taking action based on customer reviews this is an essential component of every sales and customer service training.
Resolve Disputes Quickly
Delays when resolving complaints can often be the straw that breaks the camels back with 55% of people leaving a brand because of delays in resolution.
Sales and service training can help your reps resolve complaints quickly which is important when dealing with angry and frustrated customers.
Training can help them show tactical empathy when they are dealing with an angry customer and enable them to steer the conversation in the right direction, no matter which medium they are communicating on.
Understanding active listening skills can turn your team into better, more helpful listeners that pay close attention to what your customers have to say and then use the skills and information they have to deliver the best outcome possible.
Customer Service Training
Unlike traditional customer service training courses, Klozers provides the latest in business simulation software, that allows your team to experience a 2 year customer experience transformation program in 1 day.
Our state of the art business simulation goes way beyond basic communication skills and helps your sales team understand customer expectations, sales process, and what truly drives sales performance across the organisation.
Designed specifically as a holistic cross departmental our customer service courses are designed to engage everyone from your front line sales team, product and services teams and company management.
The customer service training includes two options as follows:
Enterprise Customer Service Training
SaaS Customer Success Training
Please contact us for further information.
In Summary
How important is retaining your existing customers?
How valuable would the extra revenue be if your customer service team were actively cross selling and upselling throughout their day?
Investing in sales and service training will make your staff and customers much happier. If you look after your staff they will in turn look after your customers.
If you feel you need to make improvements in these areas, please give us a call. We would love to work with you and make the sales and service goals you have in mind a reality.
Sales Coaching – For Individuals and Sales Teams
There’s a new way to deliver sales growth…
Don’t buy Sales Training until you’ve watched this video…
1. Sales Coaching - Why Invest in Coaching?
At Klozers we love sales coaching. Watching people or a company who had previously struggled, suddenly find their feet and take off, is one of the main benefits of our job.
However, as with anything in business, sales coaching must provide real value and a financial benefit to the business. Unfortunately, many companies still do not invest in professional coaching for their salespeople and the most common reason for this is the cost.
One could argue that if you can’t afford sales coaching then there is an even greater need for it. Perhaps it’s easier for people to blame the cost, than for the coaching profession to admit they could do more to help justify the costs.
We were in that position ourselves until we changed the format of our own sales coaching in order to make it easier for our clients to measure the increases in their pipeline and the subsequent sales revenue that comes from this. If you would like to learn more about this and how you can change your own sales coaching process then you can jump to the end here.
2. Sales Training vs Sales Coaching - what's the difference?
Many people get confused between what is sales training and what is sales coaching. Not only is training and coaching different, they also have different outputs which are really important.
Whereby sales training is about the transfer of knowledge, Sales Coaching is about the practical implementation of that knowledge in the field.
The easiest way to think of this is if your company has technical people like engineers or software developers. The training is what a developer would go through to learn how to write the code.
The coaching is what the developer would need to turn the code into a meaningful application for your business. This means that coaching is the part that drives productivity in the sales team.
One of the main benefits of coaching is that it reinforces the new skills and techniques learnt during the training. Without coaching studies show that up to 98% of knowledge is lost within 30 days.
In other words, one off event-based training sessions have a very limited impact on sales productivity.
3. When to coach and when not to coach
A recent study on Sales Coaching identified it as one of the most productive activities for any sales team, however, not every sales rep is coachable. Some salespeople have a “superiority complex” and don’t believe they can either learn or improve.
This can be falsely reinforced by hitting sales targets that are too low or by being the top sales performer in a group. Other people will not responding to coaching as improving sales invariably means changing sales behaviours and every human being struggles to change their behaviours.
The last reason some salespeople do not respond to coaching is because they are simply stuck in their own comfort zone, and without any really powerful reason to change they simply carry on as before.
The irony is of course that in the majority of cases these people are in the most need of training and coaching. With that said, unless there are exceptional circumstances you should not invest time or money in coaching people who have no desire to improve.
You must either accept them as they are and the potential negative impact they will have on the wider group, or you must have one of those ”management” conversations with them.
Get started with our Sales Performance Coaching
4. Sales Coaching Models
There are many sales coaching models and frameworks that you can choose from. The one we use both internally and externally is the GROW model which we find provides the simplicity and flexibility we require.
It’s worth noting that coaching in sales can be very different to other forms of coaching. For example, in Exec coaching, coaches are encouraged not to provide the answers and to focus on the questions.
This forces the coachee to come up with the answer and the though process is that because its their idea they are more likely to believe it and then act on it.
In sales when there are potentially millions of dollars in terms of deal values up for grabs and time is of the essence, the best sales coaches will switch from a consultative coaching process to directive coaching whereby they are training, coaching and advising the coachee what they need to do.
Opportunities for Coaching
There are many areas within sales that lend themselves to sales coaching. The most common areas Managers should be focussing on for coaching we have found are around:
Sales Activity
Accountability
Lead Generation
Pipeline Coaching
Qualifying/disqualifying
Deal Coaching
Field Coaching
Pre-call planning
Post-call debriefing
Storytelling
5. The Six Biggest Benefits of Sales Coaching
1. Growing Sales Revenues
The more adept your employees become at selling, the more revenue they will generate for your business. We use the word employees because sales has changed and the most productive companies have people in every department that can sell to one degree or another.
For example, many companies who have now aligned their sales and marketing now acknowledge that great salespeople can do marketing and great marketers can sell.
Best in class companies have expanded this to their operations team who are now positioned as thought leaders and subject matter experts. This helps build brand authority and helps to differentiate companies in the marketplace.
By investing in training based on the very latest strategies, techniques and market activity, you can gain a real edge over your competitors.
2. Increased Sales Productivity
Productivity can be difficult to measure in many roles, however, in sales there is a tangible figure every month that can be used as a good indicator.
That’s not to say that your MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) or other revenue goals are the only indicator of productivity, but it’s always the ultimate figure that sales reps are judged by.
Whereby sales training is about the transfer of knowledge, Sales Coaching is about the practical implementation of that knowledge in the field. This means that coaching is the part that drives productivity in the sales team.
With studies showing that 83% of employees want to learn new skills sales training and coaching can make your team more productive and efficient. Quality sales coaching sessions can inspire your team and help them get out of a rut.
You may find that some of your employees feel that they know all there is to know about driving sales. However, the market is always changing, and what works one year isn’t always as effective 12 months later.
Some of your employees may have more sales potential than they think, and training and coaching can help them unlock this.
3. Closing Bigger & Better Deals
Many times human beings create their own glass ceilings and get stuck. Salespeople are susceptible to this and often suffer from self limiting beliefs around deal sizes, sales behaviours and the whole sales process.
Sales training can give your staff the skills they need to secure bigger, more lucrative deals, however without coaching they will quickly lose the new skills and revert back to type.
A good sales coach helps embed the new skills and strategies your sales reps learn in training and helps hold them accountable to using the new skills. As your team become more knowledgeable and confident, they’re more likely to close more deals and bigger ones.
By using highly experienced sales coaches who live and breathe sales you are in effect fast tracking your team past all the typical problems they will encounter that slow down company growth.
Your team will learn about the latest best practices that they can follow whilst attempting to close deals. The more successful your sales reps become, the more their confidence will grow. Success breeds success.
4. Win More New Clients
Often the most difficult activity in sales is generating new business. Sales prospecting, lead generation, whatever you call it in your business filling the top of your sales funnel is always a challenge in B2B sales.
The problem with prospecting is that nobody wants to do it, but it still needs to be done. Many of the problems associated with sales prospecting are connected to the mindset of the sales reps.
It’s easy to churn out 70 calls a day, and even when you achieve some success it’s difficult to get motivated to come back in day after day and make more calls.
The job of the modern sales coach isn’t just to help improve your telephone skills, or the number of dials you make every day. A great sales coach will take a more strategic approach, and work with you on the bigger picture – revenue goals, sales coals, sales campaigns that dramatically increase your sales results.
This in turn helps to motivate and inspire your staff, and get them thinking more strategically about the sales process.
5. Boost Workplace Morale
Great sales coaching can also boost confidence and improve morale amongst your staff. Research by LinkedIn shows that 91% of people agree that teams that learn new skills together are more successful.
Furthermore 90% of people surveyed believe that team learning helps foster a sense of belonging to the organisation.
Whilst not everyone will, the majority of your team members are likely to appreciate the effort you’ve put into training them, and helping them improve their knowledge and skills.
Investing in training shows your staff that you care about their career development and want them to achieve more. If staff feel valued, they are more likely to meet their goals and stay with the organisation longer.
Employee satisfaction can be worth its weight is key when it achieving customer satisfaction and meeting business targets. Training can also refresh their knowledge so they can follow and new best practices and anything they may have forgotten or become unclear about.
6. Increased Decision Making by Sales Reps
Many companies struggle to grow because there are bottlenecks in their internal decision-making process. These bottlenecks occur when sales reps do not have the confidence or knowledge to make any form of decision.
This makes companies less agile and slow to react to changes in the market. Many companies are investing in sales training and coaching in order to improve the decision-making skills of their sales leadership team.
Effective sales coaching can help your team recognise and capitalise on opportunities to drive not only your business forward, but their professional development too.
Sales trainers act as a sounding board and can listen to your Teams ideas and help them fine-tune them to make them more effective in real-world situations.
Other benefits of sales coaching are that your team can become more creative and you will foster an environment where they feel more comfortable discussing new ideas.
6. Virtual or Remote Sales Coaching
During the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 many salespeople were forced to work from home. Homeworking was easier for some than others, however, many studies showed that people felt less connected and even unsettled when working from home.
Many Field Salespeople who had spent their lives on out on the road where suddenly confined to their home and confronted with a completely new way of selling. These are exactly the sort of scenarios where coaching can help people adjust to new circumstances and maintain performance.
In many cases sales reps had to retrain on how to sell remotely using tools like MS Teams and Zoom. Sales training and coaching can bring your remote team together and make it more than the sum of its parts.
The best sales trainers don’t just focus on boosting individual performance but foster a sense of teamwork and unity between your staff. To close big deals in the modern sales world takes a Team and not just one individual.
If everyone is using a common sales language and are working together at the best of their abilities, you’re more likely to close bigger and better deals than ever before.
7. Sales Coaching Tips
1. Focus on One-on-One Coaching
One of the most impactful sales coaching tips is to prioritize one-on-one coaching sessions. Sales representatives often struggle with specific challenges unique to their roles. By tailoring these sessions to the individual’s needs, a sales coach can offer the most relevant content and actionable advice. This personalized approach enables sales reps to make progress more effectively, ultimately achieving their business goals and hitting quotas.
2. Implement an Effective Coaching Program
An effective coaching program is essential for any sales organization looking to improve its sales performance. By regularly conducting coaching sessions on a monthly basis, sales managers can keep their teams on track. The best coaching programs include a formal process for providing ongoing feedback, focusing on areas for improvement, and setting clear objectives. Implementing such a program can significantly impact your team’s effectiveness and overall success.
3. Encourage Role Play and Real-Life Scenarios
Role play is a crucial component of sales coaching that allows salespeople to practice real-life scenarios in a safe environment. This technique not only prepares them for potential sales situations but also helps them to refine their selling techniques and overcome common obstacles. By simulating conversations with prospects, sales reps can better articulate their value propositions, handle objections, and close deals more effectively.
4. Offer Constructive Criticism and Praise
Balancing constructive criticism with praise is vital in sales coaching. While it’s important to address areas where sales reps need to improve, recognizing their strengths and achievements is equally crucial. Offering encouragement and celebrating small wins can boost self-motivation and foster a positive coaching environment. Remember, the goal is to create an environment where salespeople feel supported and motivated to excel.
5. Align Coaching with Business Goals
To ensure your sales coaching efforts lead to tangible results, it’s important to align your coaching activities with your organization’s business goals. Regularly reviewing progress toward quotas, discussing action plans, and adjusting strategies as needed will help keep your team focused on what matters most. By aligning coaching with business objectives, you can create a win-win scenario where both individual reps and the organization as a whole achieve success.
6. Utilize Technology for Continuous Improvement
Leveraging technology like CRM systems and sales analytics tools can enhance the effectiveness of your coaching program. These tools provide valuable insights into sales performance, helping coaches identify areas for improvement and track progress over time. Additionally, video recordings of sales calls can be reviewed during coaching sessions to offer specific, actionable feedback. Incorporating technology into your coaching process not only improves efficiency but also ensures that your coaching remains data-driven and impactful.
7. Foster a Culture of Continuous Learning
Sales coaching should be viewed as an ongoing process rather than a one-time event. Encouraging a culture of continuous learning within your sales organization is key to long-term success. Provide your team with professional development opportunities, such as sales training courses or workshops, to help them grow their skills. A great coach knows that developing people is a continuous journey, one that requires commitment, support, and the right resources.
8. Best Practices for Sales Managers in Coaching Sessions
When it comes to improving the performance of sales representatives, the role of a sales manager in coaching sessions is crucial. Conducting effective coaching sessions requires a structured approach that leverages insights, encourages motivation, and focuses on the specific needs of each team member. Below are some best practices that sales management can follow to ensure their coaching sessions get the best results:
1. Understand Your Team’s Needs:
Sales managers should begin by identifying the unique strengths and weaknesses of each sales representative. By conducting a thorough analysis and reflecting on past performance, managers can tailor coaching sessions to address the specific challenges that sales reps struggle with, ensuring that each session is impactful.
2. Set Clear Objectives:
Establishing clear, actionable goals is essential for any coaching session. Sales managers should define what success looks like and communicate these objectives effectively to their team. Whether it’s improving close rates, enhancing product knowledge, or mastering objection handling, having a defined goal helps in tracking progress and ensuring accountability.
3. Incorporate Regular Feedback:
Consistent feedback is a key component of successful coaching. Sales managers should provide constructive criticism while also recognizing the achievements of their sales reps. Regular feedback, given during weekly one-on-ones or after team meetings, helps reinforce positive behaviors and correct any areas of concern.
4. Utilize Role-Playing Scenarios:
Role-playing is an excellent way for sales representatives to practice and refine their skills. Sales managers should incorporate role-playing exercises into their coaching sessions to simulate real-world scenarios. This approach not only builds confidence but also helps reps think on their feet and improve their performance during actual sales calls.
5. Foster an Open Communication Environment:
Creating an environment where sales reps feel comfortable discussing their challenges and successes is vital. Sales managers should encourage open-ended questions and active participation during coaching sessions. This open communication fosters trust and allows for a more personalized coaching experience.
6. Leverage Data and Technology:
Sales managers can enhance the effectiveness of their coaching sessions by leveraging data-driven insights from CRM systems and other sales tools. Analyzing sales performance data helps in identifying patterns, tracking progress, and making informed decisions. Additionally, using video recordings of sales calls can be a powerful way to provide targeted feedback.
7. Focus on Long-Term Development:
While addressing immediate performance issues is important, sales managers should also focus on the long-term development of their team members. This includes providing professional development opportunities, offering career guidance, and helping reps build a path toward achieving their career goals.
8. Balance Between Guidance and Autonomy:
A great sales manager knows when to provide guidance and when to allow reps to take ownership of their learning. Striking the right balance between offering direction and encouraging autonomy empowers sales reps to take initiative and develop their problem-solving skills.
9. Track and Measure Progress:
Regularly tracking and measuring the effectiveness of coaching sessions is critical. Sales managers should set key performance indicators (KPIs) and use these metrics to evaluate progress over time. This approach ensures that the coaching process is aligned with the overall sales goals of the organization.
By implementing these sales coaching activities, sales managers can conduct coaching sessions that not only improve individual performance but also contribute to the overall success of the sales organization. Effective coaching sessions are a blend of insight, motivation, and structured guidance, and when done right, they have the power to transform average companies into high-performing sales teams.
9. Sales Coaching Techniques
Sales coaching is a critical part of any effective coaching program, especially in a dynamic sales organization where sales representatives are constantly adapting to new challenges. Here are some essential sales coaching techniques to help your sales reps succeed:
1. One-on-One Coaching for Personalized Development
Personal 121 coaching sessions are an effective way to address the unique needs of individual sales representatives. Often a Sales rep may struggle with specific obstacles in their role, and these tailored sessions allow coaches to provide relevant content and actionable advice. By making personal coaching a top priority, sales coaches can focus on developing core performers, thereby improving overall sales performance and achieving business goals.
2. Implementing an Effective Coaching Program
A structured and effective sales coaching program is essential for ongoing development and quota attainment. According to CSO Insights, a well-implemented coaching process leads to significant improvement in close rates and overall sales performance. By scheduling coaching sessions on a monthly basis and providing ongoing feedback, managers can ensure their teams are consistently making progress. Importantly, these sessions should be seen as opportunities for constructive criticism and praise, helping to motivate and guide reps toward success.
3. Role Play to Prepare for Real-World Scenarios
Of all the sales coaching activities you could implement, Role play is by far the most productive. Role play is a proven technique that prepares salespeople for real-world interactions with prospects. By practicing different approaches in a controlled environment, the sales rep can build confidence and refine their techniques. This method not only helps reps articulate value propositions more effectively but also enables them to overcome common objections they may face during sales calls.
4. Leveraging Technology for Enhanced Coaching
The use of CRM systems and other sales enablement tools is crucial in modern sales coaching. These technologies provide valuable insights into sales activities, allowing coaches to track performance, identify areas for improvement, and review sales calls for feedback. By integrating technology into your coaching sessions, you can ensure that your coaching is data-driven and tailored to the specific needs of your sales team.
5. Encouraging a Culture of Continuous Learning
Creating an environment that fosters continuous learning is vital for long-term success. Sales coaching should not be a one-time event but rather an ongoing process that aligns with the organization’s goals. By offering professional development opportunities and encouraging self-motivation, sales leaders can ensure that their teams are consistently developing and improving. This culture of continuous learning will ultimately lead to greater job satisfaction and higher retention rates.
6. Aligning Coaching with Business Goals
To maximize the impact of sales coaching, it’s crucial to align coaching activities with the organization’s business objectives. Regularly reviewing progress and setting action plans based on these goals helps create a win-win situation where both the sales reps and the organization achieve their targets. By focusing on these main points during coaching sessions, sales leaders can ensure that their teams are on track to hit their quotas.
7. Fostering Trust and Ownership Among Reps
Effective sales coaching is built on a foundation of trust and ownership. Sales coaches must foster an environment where reps feel supported and accountable for their progress. By involving reps in the decision-making process and encouraging them to take ownership of their development, coaches can empower them to achieve success. This approach not only leads to better results but also helps build stronger, more resilient sales teams.
By implementing these sales coaching techniques, you can create an effective and motivating environment that drives your sales team toward success.
10. Coaching your Sales Team in a Structured Way
It’s common for companies to know exactly what kind of training their teams need. However, many sales management teams are unclear about how the training should be structured.
Structure is important because it ensures that the training sticks and is embedded in the organisation. Without any form of structure you will find participants forget up to 98% of what they learn in training.
Experienced training providers and coaches can help you examine your current sales culture and build a training programme that’s specifically tailored to your organisations needs.
A sales training provider can carry out research such as a training needs analysis before training and coaching takes place. Any training and coaching should also be aligned with the companies sales strategy.
For example, if there is a need from the business to reduce customer churn the training and coaching on this topic might be a priority.
Training can also be built around new product launches and sales campaigns and wherever possible should be built around your current sales challenges.
11. Product and Service Training
Buyers have very little time to spend with sales reps and when they do they want to talk to salespeople who understand their industry, their business and their own products and services.
For any new sales rep this can be a huge challenge as they get up to speed on products and services.
Buyers expect salespeople to know all the answers to their questions, and their products inside out. including all their features and benefits. While training supports features and benefits, coaching provides the all important bridge between them, and what relevance and value they provide to the customer.
Sales coaches can help reps gain a deeper, richer understanding of the context and relevance of the products that they’re selling. This in turn allows them to emphasise their value when discussing them with customers.
A quality sales coach will encourage your team members to talk about the most important features of your solutions, so your prospects can clearly see how beneficial they are, resulting in more sales success for everyone.
12. Coaching Sales Managers
Many companies overlook one of the most important elements of any successful sales coaching program, namely the sales manager.
In most cases a sales manager also fulfils the role of the sales coach and as such has a huge influence on the success of the sales team.
Coaching sales people will have limited results if the overall coaching program does not include the sales manager.
Modern sales managers set the bar in terms of productivity and sales performance, so unless they are learning and improving, neither will their team be.
Most sales managers have neither been trained in sales management, let alone as a sales coach.
Running an effective sales coaching programme is very different from being a great sales person or sales manager.
13. Virtual Selling
The pandemic and subsequent lockdowns resulted in many traditional field sales reps being taken off the road and working from home.
Despite most lockdowns having lifted the traditional field sales role has in some cases merged into a hybrid role and in other cases been removed completely.
Virtual selling is here to stay and for most organisations this represented an immediate need for sales coaching and training to support reps in their changed environments.
Sales Managers with no training as sales coaches where thrown into the limelight, and overnight were required to be the sales coach.
In addition to their management duties, overnight they now had strategic coaching, tactical coaching, sales cycle coaching team motivation, coaching sales calls, coaching underperforming sales reps, one on one meetings, group sessions to keep their team motivated, boost engagement maintain accountability and sales performance.
All this whilst managing their own performance and continuing to meet the revenue and sales goals and overall sales success of the organisation. Sales managers need support, they need professional development programs themselves if they are in turn expected to support other team members.
Remote selling requires a different skill set and different coaching techniques in order to deliver results.
14. In Conclusion
If you’re interested in providing structured and effective sales coaching program that’s specifically based on your needs, we would love to talk with you. Sales coaching can reverse any negative sales trends, make your team more adept at selling, improve your sales processes and increase morale within your workforce.
By getting your sales leaders on board and involved in the training and coaching process, you can increase the chances of the training being successful.
Sales coaching can also unite sales teams, help you close bigger, better and more lucrative deals, enhance your revenue, help you win new clients, and retain existing ones. Few companies regret their decision to invest in sales coaching.
Klozers has different sales coaching programs available for salespeople, sales managers and business leaders. We have built our business on our ability to train and coach sales professionals across various industries and love what we do.
12 Critical Objectives of Sales Management
The Objectives of Sales Management
There are many objectives and goals for sales management and the importance of each will vary from business to business.
Business to business sales can be complex, with many variables and whilst the obvious objectives of revenue, profitability and growth are important it’s easy to argue a case for the plethora of other objectives such as customer satisfaction, team morale, employee retention.
Effective sales management is the key to running every successful sales team. When sales management is executed correctly, the rest of your enterprise benefits.
Sales managers are responsible for inspiring teams, leading by example, maximising profits and providing customers with the best experience to make sure they return for more.
We’ve resisted the urge to include the all to common piece around smart goals, because we assume your past all that and looking for something more meaningful.
So, we’ve listed below what we believe to be the main objectives of sales management, enjoy.
1. Sales Plan
We’ve listed sales plan at the very start because of it’s importance. Without a plan it’s difficult to track progress, meet or exceed your goals and align your sales team around those goals.
Quite simply, the sales plan ensures that not only is everyone on your company boat rowing in the same direction, it ensures that the boat itself is going in the right direction.
As with any objective or goal, the sales manager should be measured on the execution of the sales plan.
For some reason the majority of companies do not have a sales plan and miss out on the many benefits they bring.
2. Sales Strategy
Strategy is listed in the dictionary as “an approach” and although it sounds simple coming up with the best approach or strategy to how you gain maximum market penetration with the budget available to you is never easy.
At best if you nail your sales strategy sales will take off and at worst you will find that sales become like wading through treacle. An eternal hardship that consumes any profits you dreamed of as it sucks the life from your business.
Once you’ve agreed on a strategy you need to review this on a monthly basis and adjust as required.
Beware however, of changing your strategy before it has had a chance to mature or you might just end up going round in circles.
Once you’ve decided on your sales strategy the next challenge is aligning all your resources including the sales team and executing on that strategy.
3. Reporting and Metrics
Before you start to implement and share your strategy and sales plan you will need to give some thought as to how you are going to measure your progress.
Data is the new oil and Sales reporting is an essential part of the modern sales managers day to day activities.
Your reporting system should tell you everything from how well your reps are performing on a daily basis, to the cost of customer acquisition on your latest sales campaign.
Reports will tell you which areas you are succeeding in and areas need your attention. You should draw up a list of baseline sales metrics and then from there you can measure progress towards your targets.
In almost every scenario, you will be asked to generate Management Reports for your board and these will include things like your current sales funnel/sales pipeline which will provide information such as how many live deals you currently have in your funnel, the average size of each deal and the average length of the journey through the funnel.
It’s critically important that you not only can generate the right reports, but that you can interpret the results in a meaningful way.
4. Sales Performance
There is no one individual who has as much influence over sales than the sales manager.
Every day the Manager sets the bar between what is acceptable and what is not, in terms performance from their team.
They are responsible for not just managing, but also the training, coaching and development of the sales team.
Every salesperson wants to sell, every salesperson wants to be part of a winning team and the sales managers that succeed are those that focus on 2 things:
- They do everything they can to help salespeople sell more
- They do everything they can to develop their salespeople.
Unfortunately, as the manager has the power to make everything a success, they can also be architects of their own failure.
5. Key duties of the Sales Manager
Sales managers are tasked with developing sales teams, coordinating all operations within sales departments and identifying and implement the right sales techniques to deliver success.
Although the aim is to meet sales targets, it’s not uncommon for these aims to be surpassed.
The right sales management processes can give you a substantial edge over your competitors and ensure your company is thriving rather than simply surviving.
As a minimum the sales manager should address the following areas in their plan. Strategy, Process, People, Channels, Technology, Customers and Leadership
6. Team Morale
Morale is extremely important when it comes to building a winning sales team. The more inspired and confident your team are, the more they will achieve.
This is why it’s so important to ensure each member of your team feels listened to and respected. The easiest way to do this is by including them in the sales planning wherever possible.
Provide real-time information on as much as possible including things like the exact costs to the business to employ them, the profitability of your sales and how many deals they need to close to breakeven in terms of their own cost to the company.
Transparency is essential, so make sure each member of your team knows how well you’re currently performing.
What’s also important in terms of morale is being completely fair and not having any personal favourites in the team.
It’s normally easy for managers not to have favourites, however, many find it more difficult to deal with disruptive sales reps and often ignore them rather than look to resolve the problem.
Often times the most disruptive sales reps can be a top performer but you will still need to let them go if you feel they are damaging the overall morale and productivity of the team.
It’s incredibly important to foster a positive workplace culture where workplace friction is addressed as soon as it arises.
7. Setting realistic but ambitious targets
When it comes to setting your sales targets it’s vital to strike a balance between being ambitious and being realistic.
If your targets are unrealistically high, your sales team and your sales team fall so far behind that they don’t believe they can hit those targets, they will quickly become demotivated.
We recommend that you include your sales team as part of the planning process to help you set your sales targets.
By doing this you are much more likely to get buy in from the sales team and as the manager, you can still guide the team to create targets that are challenging.
Unrealistic targets will only serve to damage morale substantially and in turn, this will lower the overall performance of the team.
Managers should guide and coach their team members through the entire period of the targets to help ensure they remain on track and re-motivate them if they begin to lose confidence.
Managers typically have lots of experiences and skills that they can draw on from when they were a salesperson that will support their sales reps.
8. Building a sales funnel
Creating a sales funnel that continually is topped up with new, high quality sales leads is one of the most important objectives of sales management.
A sales funnel, also known as a pipeline is used to outline each step a customer takes throughout their journey towards making a purchase.
In B2B sales the salespeople are responsible for moving the deals or opportunities through the sales funnel.
There is nothing more demotivating to sales reps than the struggle to fill the sales funnel with new leads. It’s therefore important that you work with your marketing team to ensure a continuous flow of good quality sales leads.
If you are using Sales Development Reps (SDRs) to generate their own sales leads then you must give them the strategies and tactics to generate those leads.
Tactics like cold calling and cold email campaigns do work but they on their own it is a slow way to scale your business. As the sales manager it’s your responsibility to break the entire sales process down into easy, manageable stages.
Sales funnels enable salespeople to remain organised and in control, especially when used in conjunction with a good CRM system.
With the right CRM dashboards in place Sales reps can easily see the progress they have already made towards their sales targets.
This in turn will inspire them to continue focussing on moving deals through the sales funnel.
9. When can I expect results?
In our experience every overnight success has taken years of hard work to get there. With that said, you should see early indications of success in months, not years.
It’s important to manage expectations and collectively agree what success looks like in the initial phases.
This is why we are such advocates of creating a sales plan that everyone can align themselves behind.
Your sales plan should identify what we call the lead indicators rather than the lag indicators for success and you can start tracking them immediately.
It’s unlikely your sales management will deliver exceptional results immediately but with planning, patience and persistence you will slowly turn the ship around.
Trial-and-error can play a big role in helping you create the right sales process for you.
Even when you start seeing the results that you’ve been aiming for, you should always be prepared to make amendments as customer behaviours and requirements, technology and markets change.
10. Motivating your Sales Team
As a sales manager, you will be tasked with overseeing things like data, technology, processes and sales pipelines which you may or may not find easy.
However, often the biggest challenge is people management and listening to your team is very important.
It’s essential to ask your team what drives them and what their personal goals are and then tie them into your own business objectives.
Not every member of your sales team will be motivated by money alone, so try to find out what else drives them and why they were interested in a career in sales in the first place.
It’s also essential to deliver additional support for those members working remotely during any lockdown period.
Some team members will be comfortable working from home, whilst others will prefer to be out in the field visiting customers and working in a busy office environment.
11. Do great salespeople make great sales managers?
One problem many companies encounter is that not all great salespeople make a fantastic sales manager.
Being a sales manager requires a whole host of different skills not required by salespeople, and it may take time to start seeing success once you’ve moved from making sales to overseeing them.
Most of the key tasks assigned to sales managers are strategic versus the tactical skills required by salespeople.
For example, data analysis is hugely important for every sales manager, as is planning, strategy and people management.
In addition, identifying realistic goals, hiring the right salespeople, creating incentives, arranging ongoing training and learning and matching the right kind of guidance to specific individuals in your team are all important.
12. Learning & Development
It’s easy to overlook training as a Sales Manager because there never seems to be any free time for developing your team or indeed yourself.
Training falls into the category of important/not urgent and because of this it often gets overlooked. In nearly every case the salespeople who don’t want training are those that need it the most.
Learning and development starts by hiring the right salespeople and only recruiting those who are driven and determined with great people skills.
The team that you inherit may be very different from this and it’s your objective as the sales manager to improve the team that you’re working with over the coming months or years.
It’s also important to seek out coachable people as these people are great learners and will continuously improve given the right support.
You will encounter people that already have good sales skills but seem unwilling to continue learning or taking feedback and this can become a problem.
These people not only don’t want to learn but they don’t want others to learn either and can sabotage and undermine your leadership.
Under these circumstances, as long as you have done everything possible to try and support these people if they still refuse then you will have no alternative to letting them go.
If you’re able to offer real-time information that you can display in the workplace, you should certainly do this as this creates incentives and keeps your salespeople’s eyes on the ball.
Transparency is essential, so make sure each member of your team knows how well you’re currently performing.
In conclusion
Sales managers are arguably the single most important part of your sales team and the right manager will help you achieve outstanding results when they build an exceptional and focussed team that they take the time to support.
They will ensure the organisation has the right people, structures, technology and sales processes in place progress which can be tracked and clearly visible for all the stakeholders.
By ensuring team members remain willing to learn and committing to learning more themselves, sales managers can deliver real success, even in the most competitive markets.
Sales Negotiation Training
Key Negotiation Skills – Introduction
There is a common misconception that sales negotiation skills are only required towards the end of the sales process. The part in every sales process where costs and terms are agreed. Whilst this is undoubtedly true, it’s also true that the best salespeople are negotiating all the way through the sales process. In fact every Professional salesperson negotiates, every single day which is why it’s an important part of any training programme.
From negotiating with their children on what to have for breakfast, to negotiating with a Partner on where to go for dinner. In between times they will negotiate workloads with their line managers, negotiate meeting times with co-workers, negotiate dates & times for appointments with prospects and lastly negotiating sales contracts, project delivery and aftercare contracts. In short, Negotiation is actually unavoidable, and the ability to Negotiate is a core skill for every Salesperson.
Planning for Sales Negotiations
Like most things in life when it comes to Negotiation knowledge is power. The more information you have and better prepared you are then the more likely you will achieve a successful negotiation. Follow the information below to discover how to research and plan your next negotiation.
Sales Negotiation Goals
These are the needs, wants and desires of the parties involved in the negotiation. In business this can be complicated as not only may both sides have differing goals, but parties within each side may have differing and even conflicting Goals.
Goals can be subjective for example “We need to increase the confidence of our people.” or they can be more objective like “We need to reduce our overheads by 10 this quarter”. Either way it’s important to know both your own Goals and that of the other side. Important questions you must ask are:
- Have we identified all the Goals?
- What are the Prioritised Goals?
- What are the Business Goals?
- What are the Personal Goals?
- Are there conflicting Goals?
| Business Goals Examples | Personal Goals Examples |
| Strategic | Security |
| Change | Satisfaction |
| Growth | Peer Pressure |
| Improvement | Financial Gain |
Please note Goals are NOT the same as outcomes.
Example:
Goals – George is 65 years old and would like to retire (Goal). In order to fund his retirement he needs to sell his business but no one wants to invest a large sum of capital. Mike would like to buy a business (Goal) but does not have any capital to invest.
The Outcome is the Negotiated agreement that they come to.
Negotiation Options
These are all the possible solutions that satisfy the goals of both parties. They are all possibilities that both parties agree or say Yes to.
By investing time to explore all the Options then you are more likely to find:
- Alternative solutions
- Enable both parties to achieve their goals
- Reach the Best Possible Agreement (BPA)
Example:
Goals – George is 65 years old and would like to retire (Goal). In order to fund his retirement he needs to sell his business but no one wants to invest a large sum of capital. Mike would like to buy a business (Goal) but does not have any capital to invest.
Option – George can sell his business to Mike but rather than invest a lump sum he agrees to pay George on a Monthly basis from the profits for the next 5 years and hence fund his retirement.
Criteria for Negotiation
Criteria are the “terms” of any possible Option
Example:
Goals – George is 65 years old and would like to retire (Goal). In order to fund his retirement he needs to sell his business but no one wants to invest a large sum of capital. Mike would like to buy a business (Goal) but does not have any capital to invest.
Option – George can sell his business to Mike but rather than invest a lump sum he agrees to pay George on a Monthly basis from the profits for the next 5 years and hence fund his retirement.
Criteria – George needs to guarantee a minimum payment every month regardless of the profitability of that month. Mike needs to ensure ensure he will not be liable for any warranty, liability or compensations claims from the period before he take responsibility/ownership of the business.
Get expert Sales Negotiation Training from our Sales Coaches
CNA – Cost of No Agreement
Not all Negotiations end in an agreement, it is therefore vital before entering into any Negotiation that you first work out what the Cost of No Agreement is for both parties. The costs of no agreement can be both Objective and Subjective.
Example:
Goals – George is 65 years old and would like to retire (Goal). In order to fund his retirement he needs to sell his business but no one wants to invest a large sum of capital. Mike would like to buy a business (Goal) but does not have any capital to invest.
Option – George can sell his business to Mike but rather than invest a lump sum he agrees to pay George on a Monthly basis from the profits for the next 5 years and hence fund his retirement.
Criteria – George needs to guarantee a minimum payment every month regardless of the profitability of that month. Mike needs to ensure ensure he will not be liable for any warranty, liability or compensations claims from the period before he take responsibility/ownership of the business.
CNA – George does not have the financial resources to retire (Objective) however he has been trying unsuccessfully to sell his business for three years and is now desperate (Subjective) for a solution. Mike is keen to buy a business (Objective) but knows there are hundreds of businesses for sale and he is pretty relaxed (Subjective) if this deal doesn’t go through another one will come along.
The Subjective Cost of No Agreement can be more powerful than the Objective ones as people make decisions emotionally and then justify their position intellectually afterwards.
BATNA – Best Alternative to No Agreement
Not all Negotiations end in an Agreement, it is therefore vital before entering into any Negotiations that you first work out what the Best Alternative to No Agreement is. In some cases you may well experience that the other party is so entrenched in their position that they have no desire to Negotiate. BATNA is typically but not always, an alternative course of action that can be taken if no agreement is reached.
BATNA helps you prepare for a Negotiation by:
- Helps prevent you from agreeing to something you will regret
- Defining your Minimum Possible Agreement (MPA)
- Provides you with a Plan B
- Helps prevent you from over or underestimating the your own and the other party’s position
- Helps you understand where the leverage is
- Identifying alternative Options
Example:
Goals – George is 65 years old and would like to retire (Goal). In order to fund his retirement he needs to sell his business but no one wants to invest a large sum of capital. Mike would like to buy a business (Goal) but does not have any capital to invest.
Option – George can sell his business to Mike but rather than invest a lump sum he agrees to pay George on a Monthly basis from the profits for the next 5 years and hence fund his retirement.
Criteria – George needs to guarantee a minimum payment every month regardless of the profitability of that month. Mike needs to ensure ensure he will not be liable for any warranty, liability or compensations claims from the period before he take responsibility/ownership of the business.
CNA – George does not have the financial resources to retire (CNA) and has been trying unsuccessfully to sell his business for three years and is now desperate for a solution. Mike is keen to buy a business and has spent £3,000 with Solicitors and Accountants thus far completing his due diligence on the company.
BATNA – George is in discussion with his Lawyers to explore the possibilities of a Management Buyout for the business. Mike knows there are hundreds of businesses for sale and he is pretty relaxed if this deal doesn’t go through another one will come along.
Concessions for Negotiation
A concession is something given to the other party in furtherance of the agreement. These concessions should be identified in advance and segmented for both parties in terms of:
High Value – High Cost
High Value – Low Cost
Remember – Never give anything away without receiving something of equal or greater value in return.
Example:
Goals – George is 65 years old and would like to retire (Goal). In order to fund his retirement he needs to sell his business but no one wants to invest a large sum of capital. Mike would like to buy a business (Goal) but does not have any capital to invest.
Option – George can sell his business to Mike but rather than invest a lump sum he agrees to pay George on a Monthly basis from the profits for the next 5 years and hence fund his retirement.
Criteria – George needs to guarantee a minimum payment every month regardless of the profitability of that month. Mike needs to ensure ensure he will not be liable for any warranty, liability or compensations claims from the period before he take responsibility/ownership of the business.
CNA – George does not have the financial resources to retire (CNA) and has been trying unsuccessfully to sell his business for three years and is now desperate for a solution. Mike is keen to buy a business and has spent £3,000 with Solicitors and Accountants thus far completing his due diligence on the company.
BATNA – George is in discussion with his Lawyers to explore the possibilities of a Management Buyout for the business. Mike knows there are hundreds of businesses for sale and he is pretty relaxed if this deal doesn’t go through another one will come along.
Concessions – George is prepared to spend 3 months of his time ensuring during the handover period which is Low Cost to him as he will be retired but High Value to Mike as he is new to the industry and recognises the benefit of George’s experience.
Mike is prepared to move quickly which has no cost to him however this is High Value to George as the last thing he wants is a long protracted sale.
Negotiation Strategies
Aggressive Tactics
- Shoot the hostage
- This strategy is extremely aggressive as it involves an immediate offer to walk away with no deal which is designed to throw and unsettle the other party. This is often delivered in a reluctant tone “we don’t want to do this but…”,
- Delaying tactics
- When time is clearly on one parties side the process can often be deliberately slowed which is extremely effective when there are cost implications if talks over run. This tactic also applies if the other party has another meeting or needs to leave. The negotiator deliberately talks around the subject to delay the real conversation and then uses time to put pressure on the other party to come to an agreement.
- Poor Me
- This strategy is used to play the false victim that needs rescued by the other party.
- Last Minute.com
- As the name suggests this strategy involves the Negotiator agreeing to a solution right up until they are required to sign and then withdrawing. The withdrawal is usually followed up quickly with a counter offer at dramatically reduced terms.
- Misleading/lying
- Often Negotiators will make exaggerated claims or even lie so without hard data to support them you should discount these. They may also issue warnings and threats or make matters personal to unbalance you.
- Missing People
- Everyone knows the importance of having all the Decision Makers in the room but Negotiators may even turn up with complete strangers. In sales some companies will remove Sales People from the final negotiations. If the Sales People have a relationship with the other party they could be more empathetic and weaker negotiators. Turning up without warning with complete strangers also unbalances the other party.
Co-operative Tactics
- Agree on the Process
- Spend time up front agreeing the process and format of the Negotiations including what’s in scope and what’s not.
- Win Win Agreements
- Most professional Negotiators accept that any final agreement must be fair and sustainable for the life of the time period. In most business scenarios it should never be win at all costs as this destroys relationships.
- Matching Rights
- Offer the other party the right to match any solution that you receive. For example if one of two business partners decides to sell their shares to another party they may have the agreement that the other party gets first refusal if they match the offer.
- Contingent Agreements
- These are simply agreements based on future events. Financial Bonus may be tied to Performance. Football transfer fees can be include Contingent Agreements that provides the selling club additional revenue if a player is sold on and or if a player is capped by their country or simply makes a certain number of appearances.
- Multiple Offers
- When multiple offers are placed on the table this allows both parties to indicate preferences and encourages creativity as a winning hybrid offer can be formed. Placing one offer on the table often leads to a refusal and a stall in the process.
Sales Negotiation Checklist
1. Be prepared to walk away. Sales Negotiation is 70% Mindset and 30% Strategy and unless you are prepared to walk away, no strategy will help you.
2. It’s not what you charge it’s what your worth. Thoroughly research the market and discuss with the buyer the Value you bring to the table?
3. Take council from colleagues and external advisors and agree a pre-meeting strategy for the negotiations then PRACTICE.
4. Never give anything away without receiving something of equal or greater value in return.
5. Never enter a Negotiation without first providing your price and outline terms in advance, to anchor the prospect to a higher number and terms.
6. Where possible in high value deals do not include your sales people in Negotiations, as they will be emotionally involved in the sale and not objective.
7. Ensure everyone in your team have agreed in advance your trade-offs, your concessions, and your best alternative to a negotiated settlement.
8. You must be comfortable with silence and at most only talk 30% of the time, as the more you talk the more information you are giving away.
9. If it’s not Win Win then you run the danger of the prospect backing out or failing to implement your agreement, then the lawyers are the only winners.
10. Negotiation is between human beings, you must therefore be familiar with Human Psychology, DiSC, Neuro Linguistic and Programming.
सास सेल्स फ़नल का निर्माण कैसे करें
1. बिक्री फ़नल क्या है?
एक बिक्री फ़नल उन क्रियाओं, घटनाओं या चरणों का एक क्रम है, जिनसे उपयोगकर्ता किसी उत्पाद या सेवा को खरीदने से पहले गुजरता है। बिक्री फ़नल को विपणक को परिणामों को बेहतर बनाने के लिए बिक्री प्रक्रिया को ट्रैक, रिकॉर्ड और अनुकूलित करने की अनुमति देने के लिए डिज़ाइन किया गया है।
आप यहां हमारे सास बिक्री प्रशिक्षण के बारे में अधिक जान सकते हैं ।
2. सास सेल्स फ़नल कैसे बनाएं
आपका SaaS बिक्री फ़नल आपके ऐप्स की सफलता का एक अनिवार्य हिस्सा है। यदि आप SaaS ऐप्स की पेशकश कर रहे हैं तो एक दोहराने योग्य, स्केलेबल और ट्रैक करने योग्य बिक्री फ़नल बनाना महत्वपूर्ण कदमों में से एक है जिसे आपको लेने की आवश्यकता है।
आसान लगता है? तो फिर सोचो। बिक्री फ़नल वह जगह है जहाँ कई स्टार्ट-अप राजस्व सृजन संघर्ष में परिवर्तित होते हैं, और कई मामलों में विफल हो जाते हैं।
अपना फ़नल बनाना शुरू करने से पहले यह विचार करने लायक है कि आप अपनी ऐप यात्रा में कहां हैं।
3. सास विकास के तीन मुख्य चरण
दुर्भाग्य से, बिक्री में कभी भी एक आकार सभी समाधान फिट नहीं होता है, और सास बिक्री फ़नल बनाने के लिए शुरुआती बिंदु इस बात पर निर्भर करता है कि आप सास व्यवसाय के तीन मुख्य चरणों के संदर्भ में कहां हैं?
क्या आप पर हैं:
चरण 1 : यात्रा की शुरुआत जिससे संस्थापक और प्राथमिक टीम अभी भी उत्पाद/बाजार में फिट स्थापित करने की कोशिश कर रही है।
चरण 2 : जहां संस्थापक और प्राथमिक टीम के सदस्यों ने उत्पाद/बाजार में फिट साबित किया है और साबित कर रहे हैं कि वे सिस्टम और प्रक्रियाओं को लागू कर सकते हैं जिन्हें अन्य लोग बेचने के लिए उपयोग कर सकते हैं।
चरण 3 , अंतिम बाधा जहां आपके पास एक सिद्ध उत्पाद बाजार फिट है, आपने स्केलिंग के लिए सही प्रणालियों और प्रक्रियाओं की पहचान की है और साबित किया है और अब आप अपनी बिक्री को बढ़ाने, ग्राहक अधिग्रहण पर ध्यान केंद्रित करने और अपने एमआरआर का निर्माण करने के लिए तैयार हैं।
SaaS बिक्री फ़नल बनाने के लिए आपके द्वारा उपयोग की जाने वाली रणनीतियाँ ऊपर चरण 1 में आपने जो सीखा है, उसके आधार पर अलग-अलग होंगी।
तो इस अभ्यास के प्रयोजनों के लिए मैं मान लूंगा कि आप चरण 1 पर हैं। यदि आप अभी भी चरण 2 और 3 पर बिक्री फ़नल बनाने के लिए संघर्ष कर रहे हैं, तो या तो आप चरण 1 में कुछ चूक गए हैं या कुछ ऐसा बदल गया है जिससे आपने चरण 1 में जो कुछ भी सीखा है वह काम करना बंद कर दिया है।
4. अपनी बिक्री फ़नल से पहले एक मार्केटिंग फ़नल बनाएँ
किसी भी व्यवसाय के लिए यह महत्वपूर्ण है कि आप अपनी बिक्री टीम के सफल होने के लिए अनुकूलतम परिस्थितियाँ प्रदान करें। सास की दुनिया में एक अच्छी वेबसाइट का होना ही काफी नहीं है, आपको एक ऐसी वेबसाइट की जरूरत है जो:
ए) आपके उत्पादों और सेवाओं द्वारा प्रमुख खोज इंजनों में पाया जा सकता है – Google, बिंग, याहू और यूट्यूब
बी) प्रमुख खोज इंजनों – Google, बिंग, याहू और यूट्यूब में आपके द्वारा हल की जाने वाली समस्याओं से पाया जा सकता है
c) वेब ट्रैफ़िक को मार्केटिंग योग्य लीड में परिवर्तित कर सकता है
कई कंपनियां इसे अनदेखा करती हैं और एक आउटबाउंड बिक्री टीम बनाने के लिए दौड़ती हैं। तथ्य यह है कि हर संभावित संभावना है कि आपकी आउटबाउंड टीम दिलचस्पी लेती है, फिर आगे की शोध करने के लिए आपकी वेबसाइट पर जाएगी।
जब तक वेब अनुभव आपकी आउटबाउंड टीम के साथ संभावित अनुभव के बराबर या उससे अधिक न हो, वे तुरंत बंद हो जाएंगे।
मार्केटिंग फ़नल बनाने के लिए आपको “सम्मोहक उपयोगकर्ता पहली सामग्री” बनानी होगी। यह वह सामग्री है जिसे उपयोगकर्ता सक्रिय रूप से उस सामग्री के लिए खोज रहा है जिसे आपकी बिक्री और मार्केटिंग टीम आगे बढ़ाना चाहती है।
You SaaS मार्केटिंग फ़नल आपकी इनबाउंड बिक्री रणनीति का एक अनिवार्य हिस्सा है। इसे सफलतापूर्वक करने के लिए आपको खरीदार यात्रा के प्रत्येक चरण में उच्च गुणवत्ता वाली सामग्री बनाने की आवश्यकता होगी जैसा कि नीचे दिखाया गया है।
सामग्री को आपके ब्रांड की कहानी और अन्य उपयोगकर्ताओं को आपके द्वारा लाई गई सफलता को सूक्ष्मता से बताना चाहिए। अपने शुरुआती गोद लेने वालों को हीरोज में बदल दें, न कि आप।
TOFU – फ़नल का शीर्ष
आपकी बिक्री फ़नल का पहला भाग जिसे अन्यथा TOFU के रूप में जाना जाता है, फ़नल का जागरूकता चरण है। संभावना उनकी समस्याओं से अवगत है और समाधान की जांच कर रही है।
आपकी वेबसाइट में ऐसी सामग्री होनी चाहिए जो इन समस्याओं को बयां करे और आपकी कंपनी को विषय वस्तु विशेषज्ञों के रूप में स्थान दे। यहां सबसे लोकप्रिय सामग्री होगी:
गाइड कैसे करें
व्याख्यात्मक वीडियो
वेबदैनिकी डाक
लीड मैग्नेट
इस स्तर पर, संभावना अनुसंधान मोड में है, खरीद मोड में नहीं है और केवल जानकारी एकत्र कर रही है।
हो सकता है कि इस स्तर पर आपके संभावित समाधान में दिलचस्पी न हो क्योंकि वे अभी भी अपनी स्वयं की समस्याओं का सही-सही निदान करने का प्रयास कर रहे हैं। यह संभावना नहीं है कि आपकी संभावना इस स्तर पर बिक्री से बात करना चाहेगी।
हम अनुशंसा करते हैं कि आप मार्केटिंग ऑटोमेशन का उपयोग यह ट्रैक करने के लिए करें कि कौन से लेख / पृष्ठ आपकी संभावनाएं साइट पर प्रवेश करते हैं क्योंकि यह समस्या उनके लिए सबसे ऊपर है। यह जानने से बिक्री के लिए उनके साथ प्रासंगिक बातचीत करना आसान हो सकता है।
आपको अपनी साइट पर चैटबॉट के साथ संभावित लोगों को उलझाने में कुछ सफलता भी मिल सकती है, हालांकि कई लोग इस स्तर पर गुमनाम रहना चाहेंगे।
फ़नल का मध्य
आपकी बिक्री फ़नल का मध्य तब होता है जब संभावनाएं चरण 1 में सीखी गई बातों के आधार पर विशिष्ट समाधानों का मूल्यांकन करना शुरू करती हैं। फ़नल सामग्री के बीच में शामिल होंगे:
प्रस्तुतियों
प्रदर्शनों
मामले का अध्ययन
व्यावहारिक रूप से उन्होंने संभावित आपूर्तिकर्ताओं की शॉर्टलिस्ट के कुछ रूप बनाए होंगे, और फिर वे प्रत्येक संभावित समाधान के विवरण में गहराई से खुदाई करेंगे।
इस स्तर पर संभावना अभी भी आपके साथ नहीं जुड़ सकती है क्योंकि वे अक्सर अपने स्वयं के संगठन के भीतर अन्य लोगों की ओर से शोध कर रहे हैं और उनकी प्राथमिकता अभी भी जानकारी एकत्र करना है।
फ़नल के नीचे
जब तक आपकी संभावना आपके मार्केटिंग फ़नल की तह तक पहुँचती है, तब तक कई मामलों में वे पहले से ही एक विशेष आपूर्तिकर्ता या समाधान को “खरीद” चुके होते हैं।
उन्होंने बड़े पैमाने पर ब्रांड के अपने वेब अनुभव, आपकी बिक्री संदेश और खुद को एक नेता के रूप में नहीं बल्कि एक विचारशील नेता के रूप में अपनी समस्याओं को समझने की क्षमता पर अपना निर्णय लिया है।
फ़नल सामग्री के निचले भाग में निम्न चीज़ें शामिल होंगी:
मूल्य निर्धारण
तुलना तालिका
प्रशंसापत्र
समीक्षा
सरल कम कीमत वाले समाधानों के लिए आप पाएंगे कि वे अब परीक्षण करने के लिए तैयार हैं यदि आप एक मजबूत कॉल टू एक्शन (सीटीए) की पेशकश करते हैं, जबकि अधिक महंगे और जटिल समाधानों के लिए वे अब बिक्री के साथ संलग्न होंगे।
नीचे दी गई छवि से पता चलता है कि एक साधारण मार्केटिंग फ़नल एक शॉपिंग कार्ट में और अधिक जटिल बी 2 बी बिक्री बिक्री के लिए लीड में संक्रमण करता है।
सफलता सही मॉडल चुनने में नहीं है, बल्कि डेटा और परीक्षण और त्रुटि के आधार पर अपना खुद का मॉडल बनाने में है।
अधिकांश मार्केटिंग सॉफ़्टवेयर अब आपकी वेबसाइट पर उपयोगकर्ता के व्यवहार को ट्रैक करते हैं और संभावित लोगों तक सक्रिय रूप से पहुंचने का सबसे अच्छा समय होने पर बिक्री करने वालों को सचेत करने के लिए लीड स्कोरिंग का उपयोग कर सकते हैं।
हमारे अपने अनुभव से समय लगभग हमेशा जल्दी होता है और एक अच्छी तरह से परिभाषित नेतृत्व पोषण कार्यक्रम समान रूप से प्रभावी होता है।
ऐसा करने के लिए आपको अपनी मार्केटिंग में कम से कम तीन अलग-अलग लीड मैग्नेट बनाने चाहिए जो आपके वेब विज़िटर को एक ग्राहक में बदलने में आपकी मदद करेंगे ताकि आप संपर्क में रह सकें।
5. अपनी बिक्री फ़नल भरने के लिए विज्ञापन
कई कंपनियां विज्ञापन के माध्यम से अपनी बिक्री फ़नल को सफलतापूर्वक भरती हैं। डिजिटल विज्ञापन एक ऐसे स्तर पर परिपक्व हो गया है जो महत्वपूर्ण ट्रैकिंग और रिपोर्टिंग की अनुमति देता है जिससे आप कुछ ही हफ्तों में समझ सकते हैं कि आपका रूपांतरण अनुपात और सीएसी क्या होगा।
पहले उदाहरण में हम “अभियानों को फिर से लक्षित करने” की वकालत करेंगे। यह केवल उन लोगों के सामने ऐड डालने की प्रक्रिया है जो पहले ही आपकी वेबसाइट पर आ चुके हैं।
अध्ययनों से पता चलता है कि नए अभियानों की तुलना में पुन: लक्ष्यीकरण सात गुना अधिक प्रभावी है, यही वजह है कि हम इसे एक शुरुआती बिंदु के रूप में मानते हैं।
यह रणनीति एक मजबूत सामग्री विपणन अभियान के साथ बहुत अच्छी तरह से काम करती है। B2B के लिए सबसे लोकप्रिय ऐड चैनल लिंक्डइन होगा, हालांकि, कई कंपनियों ने फेसबुक और इंस्टाग्राम के साथ भी अच्छा प्रदर्शन किया है।
कहने की जरूरत नहीं है कि यह आपके दर्शकों द्वारा परिभाषित किया जाएगा। विज्ञापन का उपयोग बिक्री बढ़ाने के लिए सरल फ़नल में और बिक्री प्रतिनिधि के लिए नई पूछताछ करने के लिए अधिक जटिल फ़नल में किया जा सकता है।
अधिक जटिल बिक्री के लिए एक परिभाषित अनुक्रम की आवश्यकता हो सकती है जिससे उपयोगकर्ता $ 3 की लागत वाली प्रत्येक लीड के साथ एक लीड चुंबक प्राप्त करने के लिए क्लिक करें और विज्ञापन करें।
यदि आप बाद में इन नई लीडों में से 5% को परिवर्तित करने का प्रबंधन करते हैं, तो आप अपने सीएसी को विज्ञापन से प्रति बिक्री $60 का श्रेय दे सकते हैं।
आप केवल विज्ञापन ही नहीं किसी भी गतिविधि से ट्रैक करने योग्य अनुक्रम या मॉडल बना सकते हैं। उदाहरण के लिए, ईवेंट, वेबिनार और टेलीसेल्स आपको यह समझने की अनुमति देते हैं कि कौन सी गतिविधियां न केवल आपके फ़नल को भरने में, बल्कि वास्तव में ऑर्डर में परिवर्तित होने पर सबसे अधिक लागत प्रभावी हैं।
6. सास सेल्स फ़नल कैसे बनाएं
आपकी बिक्री रणनीति के आधार पर आपकी बिक्री फ़नल अलग-अलग होगी। क्या आप अपना ऐप सीधे बेच रहे हैं या आप भागीदारों के माध्यम से बेच रहे हैं? आपने शुरुआत में किन चैनलों पर ध्यान केंद्रित करने का फैसला किया है?
1. अपनी संपूर्ण संभावना प्रोफ़ाइल की पहचान करें। यह एक मार्केटिंग व्यक्तित्व का बिक्री प्रतिनिधि संस्करण है। इसमें वह सब कुछ शामिल है जो एक मार्केटिंग व्यक्तित्व में शामिल होगा, साथ ही कुछ अतिरिक्त जानकारी जो बिक्री को समझने और संभावना के साथ गहरे स्तर पर संवाद करने में मदद करती है।
2. अपनी बिक्री संदेश तैयार करें। उत्पाद/बाजार फिट का एक हिस्सा यह समझ रहा है कि आपका उत्पाद किस व्यवसाय और व्यक्तिगत समस्या का समाधान करता है।
हमारे अनुभव में सबसे सफल SaaS सेवाएं व्यावसायिक समाधान हैं जो व्यावसायिक समस्याओं का समाधान करती हैं।
एक बार जब आप समझ जाते हैं कि यह आपके अपने उत्पाद / सेवा से कैसे संबंधित है, तो आप अपनी बिक्री संदेश बनाना शुरू कर सकते हैं।
यह वह शब्द और बारीक भाषा है जिसे आपने साबित किया है कि संभावनाएं जुड़ती हैं। अपने स्वयं के व्यवसाय और समाधानों के बारे में जानना पर्याप्त नहीं है, आपको अपने ग्राहकों के बारे में पता होना चाहिए।
आपको ठीक से पता होना चाहिए कि आपका समाधान आपके ग्राहक को पैसे बचाने, पैसा बनाने और उनके जीवन को आसान बनाने में कैसे मदद करता है।
3. लीड जनरेशन अभियान।
एक बार जब आप अपनी लक्षित संभावनाओं की पहचान कर लेते हैं और अपनी बिक्री संदेश तैयार कर लेते हैं, तो आपको लीड जनरेशन अभियान पर काम शुरू करना होगा।
लीड जनरेशन के दो मुख्य दृष्टिकोण इस प्रकार हैं:
ए) इनबाउंड लीड जनरेशन। इनबाउंड लीड जनरेशन अभियान वे हैं जहां संभावना आपसे पहले संपर्क करती है। आपके वेब पेज पर एक फॉर्म भर सकता है, आपको फोन कर सकता है या आपको ईमेल कर सकता है। इनबाउंड बिक्री लीड उत्पन्न करने के लिए आपको कुछ प्रकार की सामग्री निर्माण, विज्ञापन अभियान, वेबिनार, रेफरल प्रोग्राम या एसईओ करने की आवश्यकता होगी।
बी) आउटबाउंड लीड पीढ़ी। आउटबाउंड लीड जनरेशन अभियान वे हैं जहां आप टेलीफोन, ईमेल, डायरेक्ट मेल, इवेंट्स या अकाउंट आधारित मार्केटिंग के माध्यम से संभावनाओं तक पहुंचते हैं। आउटबाउंड अभियानों का हमेशा मतलब होता है कि आपको एक आउटबाउंड टीम का निर्माण करना होगा जो महंगी हो सकती है।
अधिकांश सास कंपनियां इनबाउंड और आउटबाउंड के संयोजन का उपयोग करती हैं, हालांकि, वे लगभग हमेशा एक से अधिक पर जोर देते हैं।
एक बहुत ही रफ गाइड के रूप में सास सेवाएं जो कम लागत वाली हैं और एसएमई को लक्षित कर रही हैं, वे मार्केटिंग के नेतृत्व में हैं और मुख्य रूप से इनबाउंड फोकस हैं।
सास सेवाएं जो अधिक खर्चीला हैं और मिड मार्केट से एंटरप्राइज संगठनों को लक्षित कर रही हैं, उनके पास खाता आधारित मार्केटिंग के माध्यम से अधिक बिक्री आधारित दृष्टिकोण होगा।
7. SaaS बिक्री फ़नल के चरण क्या हैं?
आपकी बिक्री फ़नल के चरण केवल चरणों की एक श्रृंखला है जो आपके संभावित ग्राहकों को एक आदेश देने के लिए आगे बढ़ते हैं।
ये चरण बहुत भिन्न हो सकते हैं और कोई एक फ़नल नहीं है जिसे आप प्रत्येक ऐप पर लागू कर सकते हैं। भले ही चरण समान हों, जिस तरीके से आप फ़नल के माध्यम से संभावनाओं को स्थानांतरित करते हैं, वह भिन्न हो सकता है।
प्रदर्शन को मापने और समय के साथ सुधार करने के लिए डेटा एकत्र करना शुरू करने के लिए आपकी बिक्री फ़नल एक बेहतरीन जगह है।
सामान्य तौर पर, संभावनाओं को जितनी जल्दी हो सके बिक्री फ़नल के माध्यम से आगे बढ़ना चाहिए – इसे बिक्री चक्र या पाइप गति कहा जाता है।
गति को मापने के लिए कि संभावनाएं चक्र के माध्यम से आगे बढ़ती हैं, आपको अपने फ़नल और उन क्षेत्रों में रुकावटों की पहचान करने की अनुमति देता है जहां संभावनाएं धीमी होती हैं।
ये “चिपके हुए” बिंदु हैं जहां आपको सुधार करने के लिए देखना चाहिए।
8. मैं अपने SaaS उत्पाद को ग्राहकों को कब प्रदर्शित करूं?
बिक्री प्रक्रिया के भीतर SaaS ऐप डेमो का समय कई कंपनियों के लिए चर्चा का विषय रहा है।
दुर्भाग्य से प्रश्न का उत्तर “यह निर्भर करता है” है। कई कंपनियां बिक्री प्रक्रिया की शुरुआत में अपने ऐप को सफलतापूर्वक प्रदर्शित करती हैं, हालांकि, कई ऐसे भी हैं जो शुरुआत में डेमो करते हैं और फिर उनकी संभावनाएं वॉयस मेल और अनुत्तरित ईमेल के ब्लैक होल में गायब हो जाती हैं।
संक्षेप में, सस्ता और सरल समाधान, तो पहले की प्रक्रिया में आप डेमो कर सकते हैं और जितना अधिक महंगा और जटिल समाधान डेमो को बिक्री प्रक्रिया में जितना संभव हो उतना पीछे धकेल दिया जाना चाहिए।
वास्तविकता यह है कि उद्यमियों और सेल्सपर्सन के लिए अपने ऐप को डेमो करने के लिए जल्दी करने की प्रवृत्ति है, उम्मीद है कि डेमो साइन अप करने की संभावना को मना लेगा।
यहां तक कि अगर संभावना योग्य है और एक अच्छा फिट है, तो संभावनाओं के दर्द के निदान के किसी भी रूप के बिना एक डेमो संभावना खोने का खतरा है।
आपकी संभावना को यह जानने की जरूरत है कि आप जानते हैं और आप उनकी दुनिया को समझते हैं। यह केवल बुद्धिमान और लक्षित पूछताछ के माध्यम से प्राप्त किया जा सकता है। यदि आप बिक्री को गति देना चाहते हैं, तो बिक्री को धीमा कर दें।
डेमो आमतौर पर सेल्सपर्सन का लीवरेज का सबसे बड़ा बिंदु होता है और यदि आप इसे जल्द ही दे देते हैं तो आप लीवरेज खो देंगे और पूरी संभावना है।
अंगूठे के एक सामान्य नियम के रूप में – ऐप डेमो को अपनी बिक्री प्रक्रिया में जितना संभव हो उतना पीछे धकेलें।
डेमो में विशेष रूप से जटिल बिक्री के लिए समय और पैसा खर्च होता है जहां अधिक बार एक बीस्पोक डेमो की आवश्यकता नहीं होती है।
कोई भी बीस्पोक डेमो केवल संभावना खरीदने वाली टीम के वरिष्ठ निर्णय निर्माताओं को ही दिया जाना चाहिए। यदि उपयुक्त हो तो आप बिक्री प्रक्रिया के भीतर दो डेमो भी रख सकते हैं – अगर यह काम करता है तो इसके अलावा कोई नियम नहीं है।
अधिकांश बिक्री प्रतिनिधि उत्पाद के लाभों को अधिक विस्तार से समझाने के लिए बिक्री प्रक्रिया के इस भाग का उपयोग करने की गलती करते हैं।
जब आप कह रहे हैं कि आप नहीं बेच रहे हैं। संभावित संभावित प्रश्नों का उपयोग करने के लिए आपको यह बताने के लिए कि समाधान उनके व्यावसायिक दर्द को कैसे हल करेगा।
आपको उन विशेषताओं के बारे में बात करने से बचना चाहिए जिन्हें आप उनके लिए प्रासंगिक मानते हैं। यदि आपने बिक्री प्रक्रिया के खोज चरण में इसे उजागर नहीं किया है तो प्रक्रिया के नीचे कुछ भी नया पेश करना स्वाभाविक रूप से जोखिम भरा है।
सरल कम कीमत वाले समाधानों के लिए आप पाएंगे कि वे अब परीक्षण करने के लिए तैयार हैं, जबकि अधिक महंगे और जटिल समाधानों के लिए वे अब बिक्री प्रतिनिधि के साथ जुड़ेंगे।
यह प्रदर्शित करने के लिए कि उन्होंने उचित परिश्रम किया है, वे हमेशा दो या तीन संभावित आपूर्तिकर्ताओं से बात करेंगे।
यह जरूरी नहीं है कि आपूर्तिकर्ता को कीमत पर हरा दिया जाए, लेकिन कभी-कभी उन्हें अपने संगठन के भीतर व्यापक क्रय समूह को मान्य करने की आवश्यकता होती है कि उनकी प्राथमिकता क्यों है।
ऐप परीक्षण भी उपयोगकर्ताओं को साइन अप करने का एक अच्छा तरीका है, हालांकि, अधिकांश सास मामलों में परीक्षणों के बंद होने का रूपांतरण अनुपात आमतौर पर खराब होता है।
मूल्य निर्धारण के आधार पर आप एक प्रबंधित परीक्षण की पेशकश कर सकते हैं, ताकि वे आपके सॉफ़्टवेयर का मूल्यांकन कर सकें जबकि आप उन्हें बिक्री प्रक्रिया को और नीचे प्रबंधित करते हैं।
एक परीक्षण के दौरान, संभावना देख सकती है कि व्यवहार में उत्पाद उनके लिए कैसे काम करेगा। परीक्षण को बुद्धिमानी से समय देना और यह सुनिश्चित करना महत्वपूर्ण है कि आप पहले से सहमत हैं कि यदि परीक्षण सफल होता है तो क्या होगा।
हमने ऊपर ग्राफ़िक बनाया है ताकि यह स्पष्ट रूप से समझाने का प्रयास किया जा सके कि यह आपके संगठन के लिए कैसे काम कर सकता है।
उदाहरण में यह ध्यान देने योग्य है, आपके सीएसी का अधिकांश हिस्सा मार्केटिंग होगा, जबकि अधिक जटिल फ़नल में आपकी लागतों में मार्केटिंग, बिक्री + ग्राहक ऑनबोर्डिंग शामिल होगा।
9. सास सेल्स फ़नल उदाहरण
नीचे दिए गए बिक्री फ़नल उदाहरण हैं। आपको इन्हें तब तक नहीं दोहराना चाहिए जब तक कि वे आपकी बिक्री प्रक्रिया के अनुकूल न हों।
वे उन लोगों के लिए एक शुरुआती बिंदु के रूप में डिज़ाइन किए गए हैं जो बिक्री फ़नल विकसित करना चाहते हैं।
जैसा कि आप ग्राफिक से देख सकते हैं, आपके द्वारा बनाए जा रहे फ़नल के प्रकार के आधार पर आपकी बिक्री फ़नल बनाने के लिए चरणों के कई विकल्प हैं।
विशुद्ध रूप से डिजिटल फ़नल के लिए आपके पास हो सकता है:
लीड मैग्नेट लैंडिंग पृष्ठ – जहां संभावनाएं आपके विज्ञापन पर क्लिक करने के बाद आती हैं
पुष्टिकरण पृष्ठ – आपके मुफ़्त ऑफ़र, परीक्षण या खरीदारी की पुष्टि
अपसेल पेज – जहां संभावनाओं को अतिरिक्त सेवाओं को जोड़ने या अपग्रेड करने का अवसर मिलता है
चेकआउट पृष्ठ – जहां ग्राहक सेवा के लिए भुगतान करते हैं
बधाई या धन्यवाद पृष्ठ – जहां आप उपयुक्त अगले चरणों के साथ पोस्ट संभावनाओं पर हस्ताक्षर कर सकते हैं।
10. सास बिक्री फ़नल मेट्रिक्स
जब मेट्रिक्स की बात आती है तो हम मानते हैं कि ये सामान्य बिक्री संचालन मेट्रिक्स और KPI हैं जिनसे अधिकांश लोग परिचित हैं। कहने की जरूरत नहीं है कि ये मीट्रिक महत्वपूर्ण हैं और आपको उन पर रिकॉर्डिंग और रिपोर्टिंग करनी चाहिए।
एलटीटी – लीड टू ट्रायल कन्वर्ज़न
यह उन लीडों की संख्या है जो परीक्षण में परिवर्तित हो गए हैं।
डीसीआर – डेमो रूपांतरण अनुपात
बिक्री प्रक्रिया के अगले चरण में सफलतापूर्वक रूपांतरित होने वाले डेमो की संख्या.
टीटीएस – परीक्षण से बिक्री रूपांतरण
यह नि: शुल्क परीक्षण पर संभावनाओं की संख्या है जो भुगतान करने वाले ग्राहकों में परिवर्तित हो गए हैं।
एलटीवी – ग्राहक का आजीवन मूल्य
यह औसत कुल मूल्य है जो ग्राहक सेवा छोड़ने से पहले खर्च करेगा। विडंबना यह है कि आपके उत्पाद को बेहतर तरीके से मापना अधिक कठिन हो सकता है, क्योंकि ग्राहकों को छोड़ने के बिना आपको पता नहीं चलेगा कि वे कितने समय तक रहते हैं और व्यवसाय के लिए उनका कुल मूल्य क्या है।
मंथन – छोड़ने वाले ग्राहकों की संख्या
ग्राहक चले जाएंगे और यह हमेशा एक बुरी बात नहीं है। यदि आपके छोड़ने वाले ग्राहक आपके ICP (आदर्श ग्राहक प्रोफ़ाइल) में फिट होते हैं तो आपको एक समस्या है। जो ग्राहक इसे छोड़ते हैं जो आपके ICP के अनुकूल नहीं हैं, वे मूल्यवान संसाधन मुक्त कर सकते हैं जिसे आपके ICP पर खर्च किया जा सकता है।
एमआरआर – मासिक आवर्ती राजस्व
मासिक आवर्ती राजस्व आपको अपनी सफलता का एक सिंहावलोकन देता है, हालांकि, यह केवल एक सिंहावलोकन है और अधिक सटीक तस्वीर प्राप्त करने के लिए आपको डेटा के भीतर विवरण देखने की आवश्यकता है।
एआरआर – वार्षिक आवर्ती राजस्व
वार्षिक आवर्ती राजस्व व्यवसाय का एक अच्छा अवलोकन देता है, लेकिन एमआरआर की तरह आपको अपने उद्यम के स्वास्थ्य पर अधिक सटीक तस्वीर प्राप्त करने के लिए सभी डेटा का अध्ययन करना चाहिए।
बिक्री चक्र – प्रारंभिक संपर्क से बंद आदेश तक का समय
यह आमतौर पर कम मूल्य के सरल समाधानों के लिए छोटा होता है और जटिल एंटरप्राइज़ बिक्री के लिए लंबा होता है। उदाहरण के लिए, टियर 1 बैंक को बिक्री प्रारंभिक संपर्क से बंद होने तक 18 महीने लग सकती है।
सीएसी – ग्राहक अधिग्रहण लागत
यह समझना महत्वपूर्ण है कि एक ग्राहक प्राप्त करने में आपको कितना खर्च आता है। एक आदर्श दुनिया में आप इसे व्यवसाय के शुरुआती चरणों में खोज लेंगे जब आप मूल्य प्रस्ताव को साबित कर रहे होंगे। इस आंकड़े के बिना व्यवसाय को बढ़ाने के लिए सिस्टम और प्रक्रियाओं को लागू करना असंभव है क्योंकि आपको नहीं पता होगा कि आप फ्रंट एंड मार्केटिंग और बिक्री पर कितना खर्च कर सकते हैं।
नकारात्मक मंथन –
नकारात्मक मंथन एक शक्तिशाली विकास मीट्रिक है जो इंगित करता है कि मौजूदा ग्राहकों को अपसेलिंग और क्रॉस सेलिंग से होने वाला राजस्व ग्राहकों के जाने पर खोए हुए राजस्व को छीन लेता है।
11. सास प्रस्ताव प्रस्तुतियाँ
अंतिम डेमो के बाद, आपको कभी भी प्रस्ताव भेजने की पेशकश नहीं करनी चाहिए।
प्रस्तावों में समय और पैसा खर्च होता है और यदि आपकी संभावना इच्छुक है तो वे आपसे एक प्रस्ताव मांगेंगे ।
यदि आपकी संभावना आपसे प्रस्ताव नहीं मांगती है तो यह आपको बताता है कि वे आपके साथ काम करने में रुचि नहीं रखते हैं और आपको यह समझने के लिए बिक्री प्रक्रिया को वापस लेने की आवश्यकता है कि आप कहां गलत हो गए हैं।
जब बिक्री प्रक्रिया ठप हो जाती है, तो यह शायद ही कभी किसी ऐसी चीज के कारण होता है जिसे आपने उस समय गलत किया है – अधिक बार, यह कुछ ऐसा है जिसे आपने पहले बिक्री प्रक्रिया में याद किया था।
सुनिश्चित करें कि आप आश्वस्त हैं कि सॉफ़्टवेयर के सभी लाभों को उन्हें स्पष्ट रूप से समझाया गया है और उनकी बताई गई आवश्यकताओं के अनुसार मैप किया गया है।
जहां संभव हो, हमेशा अपने व्हाइट नाइट को प्रस्ताव के सह-निर्माण में मदद करने के लिए प्राप्त करें और आधिकारिक प्रति भेजने से पहले उनके साथ एक मसौदा संस्करण की जांच करें।
अपना प्रस्ताव भेजने से पहले आपको इस बात की स्पष्ट समझ होनी चाहिए कि यदि आप जीतते हैं या हारते हैं तो अगला कदम क्या होगा।
इसके बिना आपको अगले तीन महीने वॉयस मेल में भूतों का पीछा करते हुए बिताने की सबसे अधिक संभावना है।
12. अपने सास अनुबंधों का मूल्य निर्धारण
कई कंपनियां अपनी वेबसाइट पर सीमित या बिल्कुल भी मूल्य निर्धारण प्रदान नहीं करती हैं क्योंकि वे नहीं चाहती कि उनके प्रतिस्पर्धियों को उनकी कीमत दिखाई दे, या उन्हें लगता है कि यह संभावित ग्राहकों को डरा देगा।
आपको अपनी कीमत और आपके द्वारा लाए गए मूल्य पर गर्व होना चाहिए। प्रतियोगिता को आप पर हावी होने दें और अपने सभी संसाधनों को लाभहीन सौदों पर बाँध लें।
लोग शायद ही कभी सबसे सस्ता समाधान खरीदते हैं, इसलिए अपनी संभावनाओं को आप पर हावी होने दें।
यदि आप अभी भी अपनी वेबसाइट पर अपना मूल्य निर्धारण करने के बारे में चिंतित हैं, तो सोचें कि जब आप किसी ऐसे समाधान पर शोध कर रहे होते हैं, जिसमें केवल मूल्य निर्धारण पृष्ठ पीओए से भरा होता है, तो आप कैसा महसूस करते हैं।
यदि आप अधिकांश लोगों को पसंद करते हैं तो आपको यह वास्तव में कष्टप्रद लगता है और जल्दी से अगले संभावित आपूर्तिकर्ता की ओर बढ़ जाते हैं।
अंत में, अपने मूल्य निर्धारण को गर्व से प्रदर्शित करने का एक और लाभ यह है कि यह किसी ऐसे व्यक्ति को योग्य बनाता है जो उस स्तर पर निवेश करने के लिए तैयार नहीं है।
यह उन संभावनाओं के साथ आपका बहुत समय और संसाधन बचा सकता है जिनके पास बस एक अलग बजट स्तर है।
आपके लिए कई मूल्य निर्धारण रणनीतियाँ उपलब्ध हैं, हालाँकि, हमारे अनुभव से केवल एक चीज की गारंटी है, वह यह है कि आप अपने मूल्य निर्धारण को बदल देंगे।
अंगूठे के मूल नियम के रूप में यदि आपकी कीमतें अल्पकालिक अनुबंध या भुगतान परीक्षण के लिए बहुत अधिक निर्धारित की जाती हैं, तो अनुबंध समाप्त होने से पहले संभावना सॉफ्टवेयर के पूर्ण लाभों का अनुभव करने में विफल हो सकती है, और वे नवीनीकरण नहीं करने का निर्णय ले सकते हैं .
जहां संभव हो, आपको परीक्षण अवधि के दौरान जानकारी जोड़ने और सेवा का उपयोग करने के लिए संभावित लोगों को पुरस्कृत करना चाहिए।
उदाहरण के लिए, एक छोटा परीक्षण ऑफ़र करें और यदि उपयोगकर्ता अपना प्रोफ़ाइल/खाता सेट अप पूरा करते हैं तो उन्हें प्रोत्साहित करें।
एक और मुफ्त अवधि की पेशकश करें उन्हें उत्पाद का उपयोग करने के लिए प्रोत्साहित करें उदाहरण के लिए यदि वे सिस्टम में डेटा अपलोड करते हैं।
विचार यह है कि अपने नए उपयोगकर्ताओं को चरण दर चरण “ऑनबोर्ड” करें और अपने उत्पाद को यथासंभव चिपचिपा बनाएं।
यदि संभावना आगे बढ़ना चाहती है तो आपको बिक्री प्रक्रिया को गति देने के लिए डिजिटल हस्ताक्षर वाले अनुबंधों का उपयोग करना चाहिए।
ईमेल या डिजिटल अनुबंधों के लिंक में कभी भी अनुबंध न भेजें क्योंकि इन्हें आसानी से अनदेखा किया जा सकता है।
फोन पर संभावना प्राप्त करने और उनके साथ अनुबंध के माध्यम से बात करने की व्यवस्था करें। एक बार जब वे अनुबंध में सब कुछ के लिए सहमत हो जाते हैं तो बस उन्हें फोन पर हस्ताक्षर करने के लिए कहें।
इस तरह आप बिक्री प्रक्रिया पर नियंत्रण बनाए रखते हैं।
13. SaaS प्रदाताओं के लिए बिक्री फ़नल इतना महत्वपूर्ण क्यों है?
बिक्री फ़नल को लागू करने के लिए संघर्ष करने के बाद कई व्यवसाय विफल हो गए हैं। SaaS उत्पादों का विपणन और बिक्री अविश्वसनीय रूप से चुनौतीपूर्ण हो सकता है, और संभावना है कि आपके लक्षित ग्राहक पहले से ही प्रतिस्पर्धी सॉफ़्टवेयर विक्रेताओं के ऑफ़र से अभिभूत हैं।
इस बारे में सोचें कि मौजूदा बजट में खरीदारों के किस हिस्से से आप राजस्व प्राप्त करने जा रहे हैं। आप किस प्रत्यक्ष या अप्रत्यक्ष प्रतिस्पर्धियों से बजट छीन लेंगे?
आप दुनिया के कुछ सबसे बड़े और सबसे शक्तिशाली ब्रांडों के साथ प्रतिस्पर्धा कर सकते हैं जो आपके द्वारा हल की जाने वाली समान समस्याओं का सामान्य समाधान प्रदान कर रहे हैं।
इसका मतलब है कि आपको कुछ विशिष्ट पेशकश करने की ज़रूरत है जो आपके ग्राहकों को वास्तव में चाहिए।
सीबी इनसाइट्स के एक अध्ययन में कहा गया है कि सास के 42% स्टार्ट-अप विफल हो जाते हैं क्योंकि वे ऐसे उत्पाद पेश कर रहे हैं जिनकी उनके लक्षित ग्राहकों को आवश्यकता नहीं है।
संभावित ग्राहकों को आश्वस्त करना कि आपका सॉफ़्टवेयर वास्तविक मूल्य प्रदान करता है, आवश्यक है।
14. संभावनाओं की अपेक्षाओं का प्रबंधन
एक बिक्री फ़नल बनाना वेब विज़िटर से लेकर ग्राहक तक और डेमो और ट्रेल्स के माध्यम से और अनुबंध पर हस्ताक्षर किए जाने के साथ समाप्त होने के बारे में है।
आपकी बिक्री फ़नल को उन सभी प्रमुख चरणों पर ज़ोर देना चाहिए जो आपकी संभावनाओं को एक समझौते के रास्ते पर ले जाएंगे।
अपनी संभावनाओं के साथ पहले से खुले, आगे और प्रक्रिया के चरणों को साझा करें।
आपको घर्षण के किसी भी बिंदु पर पूरा ध्यान देना चाहिए जो तब हो सकता है जब आपकी संभावनाएं आपकी बिक्री पाइपलाइन के माध्यम से यात्रा करती हैं।
इससे आपको आगे बढ़ते हुए अपने फ़नल में सुधार करने का अवसर मिलेगा।
सबसे महत्वपूर्ण बात यह है कि आप अपने बिक्री फ़नल में सभी डेटा बिंदुओं को रिकॉर्ड करते हैं।
इससे आपको अपनी भावनाओं के बजाय तथ्यों पर निर्णय लेने में मदद मिलेगी। आपकी बिक्री फ़नल को पूरी तरह से प्रभावी होने में समय लग सकता है, और इससे पहले कि आपके पास वास्तव में अनुकूलित बिक्री फ़नल हो, आपको कई परिशोधन करने की आवश्यकता हो सकती है।
कई ग्राहकों को इस बात की गहरी समझ नहीं होती है कि जब वे पहली बार आपसे मिलते हैं तो उन्हें क्या चाहिए होता है। संभावनाओं को दोनों के बीच संबंध बनाने में मदद करके न केवल उत्पाद प्रदान करें।
यह भी सच है कि उपयोगकर्ता अक्सर वही खरीदते हैं जो वे चाहते हैं न कि वह जो उन्हें चाहिए।
यही कारण है कि लक्षित प्रश्न पूछना इतना महत्वपूर्ण है कि आप सटीक रूप से यह निर्धारित कर सकें कि उनकी ज़रूरतें क्या हैं ताकि आप अपने सॉफ़्टवेयर को सबसे अनुकूल तरीके से रख सकें।
ये प्रश्न आपको यह भी बताएंगे कि वे निर्णय लेने के कितने निकट या दूर हैं।
15. सास समाधानों का उदय
ऐसा लगता है कि दुनिया में सब कुछ अब SaaS एप्लिकेशन द्वारा ऑनलाइन संचालित है। नेटफ्लिक्स और अमेज़ॅन प्राइम से लिंक्डइन और माइक्रोसॉफ्ट एम 365 तक अब हम एक या दूसरे विवरण के सास समाधानों से घिरे हुए हैं।
वित्तीय रूप से SaaS समझ में आता है क्योंकि यह सामने वाले भारी पूंजीगत व्यय से बचता है और समाधान को जोखिम से मुक्त करता है।
आखिरकार, अगर यह काम नहीं करता है तो आप आमतौर पर केवल अधिकतम 12 महीनों में ही लॉक होते हैं। SaaS के अन्य लाभों में यह शामिल है कि यह सामान्य रूप से तैनात करने के लिए त्वरित है और क्लाइंट की ओर से किसी रखरखाव की आवश्यकता नहीं है।
अपग्रेड आमतौर पर स्वचालित रूप से वितरित किए जाते हैं, ग्राहकों को आमतौर पर सेवा के गारंटीकृत स्तर की पेशकश की जाती है।
बैकअप और डेटा रिकवरी आमतौर पर क्लाइंट की ओर से की जाती है, इसलिए वे इस बात पर ध्यान केंद्रित कर सकते हैं कि वे सबसे अच्छा क्या करते हैं, इस ज्ञान में सुरक्षित है कि सब कुछ सॉफ्टवेयर डेवलपर्स द्वारा स्वयं संभाला जा रहा है।
लॉकडाउन ने टर्बो चार्ज किया सास
महामारी से पहले भी दूरस्थ कार्य बढ़ रहा था, इसलिए यह तथ्य कि SaaS उत्पाद व्यक्तियों को कहीं से भी काम करने और सहयोग करने की अनुमति देते हैं, केवल SaaS को हमारे दैनिक जीवन में और भी गहरा करने का काम करते हैं।
दुनिया भर में हर देश में हजारों नए उत्पाद सास उत्पाद विकसित किए जा रहे हैं, इसलिए प्रतिस्पर्धा भयंकर है, हालांकि, उपभोक्ताओं की भूख और सास समाधानों के लिए व्यापार का कोई स्पष्ट अंत नहीं है।
एक सुसंगत बिक्री फ़नल आपके उत्पाद के वायरल होने और ड्रॉइंग बोर्ड पर लौटने के लिए मजबूर होने के बीच का अंतर हो सकता है।
