Managing your sales process can be one hell of a struggle. Lead generation, nurturing, client communication, etc. It’s a lot to handle. Even the best of strategies encounter hiccups so it’s not your sales team. In fact, 54% more sales professionals agree that sales got a lot more difficult in 2024.
What exactly is the remaining 46% doing differently to close sales?
Let’s find out.
5 Steps To Improve Your Sales Benchmarks
1. Automate Repetitive Tasks
You’re probably spending too much time on tasks that don’t move the needle. Activities like email sequences, calendar bookings, lead verification, basic reporting, and follow-ups can all be automated. This frees up time for authentic efforts in areas such as sales calls, client communication, personal messaging, and strategy sessions.
As a sales professional, understand that time equals revenue. You’re racing against the clock to convince decision-makers that your product or service is worth their investment. 28% of your prospects are backing out because your sales process is long, so what do you do? You create more time to sell your product or service in the shortest possible time.
2. Kill The Monologue Technique
No one wants to have their ears talked off. We understand that you think B2B is a more serious business model but hey, the stakeholders are also human, no? If you are still treating sales like a monologue where you pitch until your prospects buy, then you are missing the point of sales.
Your sales strategy should revolve around finding the pain point. This is your entryway. Achieving this requires in-depth research and asking relevant questions. Up next is your listening game. Listen to your prospects without interrupting. They’re having a conversation with you, and that’s enough reason to believe that they’re actively looking for a solution. How you take it up from there, is using their words to mirror what they’re looking for. And what’s the solution? Your product, of course.
3. Make Your Offering Clearer
The best sales strategy is being so clear with what your prospects receive that they can’t help but buy. It’s not always a product problem, sometimes you just might have made it too complex to understand. Simplify your product offering.
Your prospects may not understand technical jargon, and your job isn’t to overwhelm them with it. Your goal is to sell—plain and simple. To sell in the most non-complicated way possible. They want A, you’ve got A, give that to them. What you don’t want to give to them is “The first alphabet of the 26 English alphabets also known as the Latin alphabet or the Roman alphabet”. Do you understand now?
4. Be Where Your Prospects Are
As a salesperson, networking isn’t a skill, it’s a lifestyle. Some of the best lead generation, nurturing and sales closing were done outside of the traditional sales follow-ups. Attend Industry events.
Attend non-industry events, in a nutshell, be where you’ll find your target audience. Build relationships, have a few laughs and avoid being so persistent that it feels like they’re being chased. Your presence as a sales personnel is strategic, show up where necessary.
5. Know When To Take A Break
One email introducing your solution, five emails explaining how the solution is the best thing after freshly baked bread, one apologizing for being overbearing and spamming and then another one picking right off from where you stopped the selling. We get it, it has worked in the past. It still works now, sometimes. But many times, your prospect just unsubscribes because you’re after their life.
Change the tactics, there are different touchpoints with a prospect or client. Take a break from one channel and sometimes from chasing the prospect. Part of being an excellent salesperson is knowing when a lead has gone cold and refocusing your efforts on generating new leads. This doesn’t mean giving up entirely. Just adapt.
As for the prospect, there’s no way we’re backing off totally, come on (winks). Instead, you can use a more personalized approach via a different channel and a different angle to address their pain points.
Conclusion
Are there parts of the sales process that are out of your control? You can’t always speed up decision-making. However, with the right approach and strategy, you can ultimately close more sales.
When you begin to view sales as an opportunity to spotlight your prospects’ needs rather than solely your solution, everything changes. Your strategy might not be terrible, it just needs a better ecosystem to thrive.