How do you identify your selling weak spots? Are there problems with your process? Are you asking too much of your salespeople?
If you’re thinking about recruiting and expect your sales reps to make cold calls, it’s time to re-examine your sales strategy and look at what you could be doing better.
1. Be realistic about workloads and expectations
The success of your business comes down to two things:
- Looking after your existing customers
- Generating new business
Conducting 100% of the sales process, from prospecting to closing, is a huge demand on a small sales team.
2. Let your sales staff focus on what they enjoy
Generally speaking, sales rep and manager roles – those that are vital for nurturing and keeping long-term business relationships – attract people who are exceptional at dealing with clients in a ‘face to face’ environment.
Most sales reps and managers will probably:
- not enjoy/hate cold calling
- have lost the confidence to do it
- lack the skills to do it successfully
Cold calling over the phone and face to face requires two different skill sets and whilst you can find people that are great at both, they’re few and far between.
The most effective sales teams split the prospecting and closing responsibilities between different people and play to individual strengths.
3. Specialist tasks for specialist teams
An effective sales strategy divides the process into two elements: lead generation and appointment setting, and account nurturing and selling.
If you want your sales reps to be successful, support them with a strong lead generation process.
Lead generation professionals will:
- Make cold calls to prospects
- Find hard-to-reach decision-makers
- Set appointments and arrange call-backs
- Contact lapsed customers
- Upsell and cross-sell
- Provide detailed reports on all calls and conversations
Your sales reps will then have more time to:
- Nurture accounts and relationships
- Encourage repeat business
- Follow up on existing leads
- Take orders
4. Give your sales staff the support they need
Cold calling is just the beginning of the sales process; a successful cold call may take several weeks or even months to turn into a sale.
You can help your salespeople succeed by giving the cold calling responsibility to someone else, allowing them to focus on what they’re best at – nurturing accounts and closing deals.
Our friendly team at Straightahead UK will:
- work as an extension of your sales team for short- or long-term lead generation campaigns
- speak to your cold prospects to establish whether there is a need for your solution
- only charge you for the quality leads you need
Get in touch today to find out how we can support your sales reps.