Welcome to the Sales Playbook Word of The Day. We have a collection of meaningful words with explanation and examples that will help and empower sales professionals in the beginning and during their sales careers. These impactful words and their understanding are useful across all stages of a sales pipeline, will help to build trust, credibility and ultimately lead to closing more sales!
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Providing value to your potential customers should be a main focus from the minute you start prospecting through to the minute the deal is closed, and beyond if retention is part of your sales process! We define value as the information, insights, new approaches and/or ways of creating solutions that a salesperson brings to a potential buyer.
Prospects are not interested in your company, your products or you hitting quota, but they are interested in how you can help solve their problems, provide new initiatives that increase their bottom line, or streamline their teams to make them more effective. These are some examples, but customers are looking for advice, best practice, increased ROI. Simply, they want ways of improving their division or their organization depending on which prospect you’re conversing with and what their individual pains, needs, wants and desires are!
Zero in on what your products or services address against their business challenges, demonstrate that you understand their role and the problems they face, and provide information on other companies that worked with you, and as a result were able to successfully overcome similar situations. Don’t just list off the features and benefits of your product or service. Convert this into business value for your prospect. Discuss with them how these have helped other companies break down barriers or position them better within their marketplace. Think about what your company does for other and what it can do for them. That’s the value! – Ben James
Habit can be a great attribute for salespeople, but it can also be one of the worst, so be wary when developing this skill. When you pick the right habits to develop you not only become more successful but you can scale that success, because eventually the habit becomes second nature and that something you do often transforms into consistent repeatable actions.
Take adding a strong CTA (call to action) to your emails or InMails, or always setting a concrete next step during a cold call, or asking who else would benefit from joining your discovery call, demo or presentation. There are many, so many great habits to get into when you work in sales. If you start off forcing the habit eventually it will become an involuntary action which could be the difference between missing, or taking an opportunity.
But, remember if you feel you’re slipping into bad habits like neglecting your pipeline, or failing to follow-up with a prospect then these should be quickly tackled and turned in the opposite direction! – Ben James
When leaders empower their teams they generally see more success. Why? Because micromanagement very, very rarely works, It’s far better to have an open and inclusive relationship with people you work with. Leaders should encourage their team to be part of the decision making process where possible. They should make it 100% clear that their teams ideas and insights are valued and encourage them to bring these forward for discussion and consideration. When ideas are implemented from the team, especially the ones that have a significant positive impact on the organization they should be recognized and rewarded.
This next part is for the members of the team. If you have a leader who empowers you, don’t take advantage of this situation, you’re in a position others aren’t and you should show the same level of respect to your leader as they are willing to show to you!
Keep open communication, make sure everyone has the ability to have input or provide feedback in weekly catch-ups, 1:1s, reflection sessions etc. Leaders remember to trust and respect your team, and team members you also remember to trust and respect your leaders! – Ben James
Sales is one of the best careers you can choose when it comes to being able to learn new skills. You´ll learn how to talk to new people, how to build relationships, how to deal with rejection, how to listen, how to prioritize and more importantly you will learn how you can help people. When you work in sales you’re also in a unique position to learn from other departments around you. Marketing, Finance, Customer Success. We can learn things from all of these departments that we can potentially use in our sales activities which can support the growth of our careers.
Plus when you learn from other departments in your organization you get to learn more about your colleagues and company, which can ultimately lead to a better working culture for you and for them. Apart from what you’ll learn in and around your job, make time to read books/blogs, listen to podcasts, watch videos, take external training and acquire knowledge that will aid every day in the progress of your career. – Ben James
We’ve all heard the sayings like “plan ahead” or “lay the foundations” and these terms are paramount when we talk about selling as preparation is vital throughout every step of your sales process. In fact preparation is one of the fundamentals of sales because this is where we research, organize and execute the way in which we ultimately communicate with our prospects and/or customers. Preparation is a way of showing interest and respect to your potential client(s), they will of course have specifics to share with you that you will not have foreseen, but whether it’s your initial cold outreach, connecting on your first video call or walking into your first meeting by having a solid understanding and planned strategy will prove your professionalism while also building trust and credibility.
Making a sales call or walking into a meeting without proper preparation is like walking into a final exam without studying, you’re turning up hoping that you have the answers, but the odds of failing will be much higher than success with this tactic. “Be prepared” always be ready to do what is necessary to help your prospects/clients. Be ready, willing and more importantly able to understand their pains, needs, wants and desires and the odds of success will be greater than those of failure. Have you done your preparation in order to hit the floor running next year?! If not, start to think about what you can do now that will set you up for the best possible start! – Ben James