Are Your Salespeople Winging It?

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April 2010, Issue 74

Sales Engagement
Are Your Salespeople Winging It?
Excerpt from a ShadeTree Technology White Paper, "Engaging in Effective One-on-One Sales Conversations"

This article is an excerpt. Want to read the whole thing?

Download the complete white paper, "Engaging in Effective One-on-One Sales Conversations."

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In order to equip your sales team for success, examine how your organization prepares for and executes this lost art: One-on-one sales conversations. Are they winging it, or are your salespeople equipped to optimize each and every conversation? The following excerpt is the first half of a ShadeTree Technology white paper, "Engaging in Effective One-on-One Sales Conversations."

In a business-to-business environment, sales conversations are a key element to successful sales results. Conversations are utilized throughout the sales process from initial prospecting through lead qualification and opportunity development and eventually closing a deal.

Yet, little attention has been given to being more effective with the actual sales conversation.

Sales pipeline

Unsatisfied with Current Results

There are several common areas of dissatisfaction for sales management and salespeople alike, including lack of leads, the quality of leads, low conversion rates, forecasting inaccuracies, pipeline variability and time-to-competency. One-on-one conversation effectiveness has a direct impact on improving each of these areas.

Objective of the Sales Conversation

The sales organization's objective is to take messages often developed by Marketing and have a conversation that gets the prospect to take action. That action, or next step, is dependent on where the prospect is in the buying cycle, and could include:

An introduction to others that will be involved in the buying process
Participation in a proof-of-concept or trial
Legal staff review of the business agreement
Execution of the agreement by a certain date & time

Job Complexity for the Sales Professional

There is a great deal of knowledge that the average sales rep must be conversationally competent with, including:

Knowledge of the buyer and needs of prospects similar to the buyer
Knowledge of the buyer's company, positioning, strategy
Product features and benefits
Seller's company strategy and positioning
Competitive kill points
Customer references/examples
Future product direction
Pricing and business terms

The sales conversation gets even more complex for organizations that sell multiple products or that have multiple buyers (i.e., different recommenders, approvers, budget holders, decision makers, etc.) where discussions must be tailored to the needs of each participant at each stage of the buying cycle.

"In many organizations, salespeople are 100% responsible for distilling sales and marketing information into sales-useable conversations... the results are predictably highly variable."

The sales training process is ineffective in the area that salespeople most need to be effective… one-on-one conversations.

Equipping the Sales Team for Success

With the outcome of sales conversations having such a significant impact on a prospect taking a next step (conversion ratio), it is useful to examine how your organization prepares for and executes this important activity.

Are they winging it, or are your salespeople equipped to optimize each and every conversation?

Download the complete white paper.

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About ShadeTree Technology
ShadeTree Technology's founder, Jim Banks, developed the principles of the Thoughtful Conversation using experience gained in sales for Motorola, Oracle and Siebel Systems. ShadeTree Technology's flagship product, Incite2, is a plug-in application for salesforce.com that simplifies the use of CRM and helps salespeople perform better. Incite2's 'single screen' provides an optimized workflow for sales professionals, eliminating multi-page navigation, speeding research & keeping reps in-the-zone. Sales professionals use Incite2 to dramatically improve cold call results, qualified lead production, renewals & addons and account management programs. Incite2’s simple approach delivers more leads that move through the pipeline faster, more predictable revenue forecasts and more revenue. www.shadetreetechnology.com

Marketing Watchdog Journal is a monthly newsletter from Bulldog Solutions, an online marketing agency that changes the way BtoB companies define demand-generation strategy, engage prospects and convert leads to customers. We welcome your feedback on this newsletter's content and design, and encourage you to share your ideas for topics you would like us to cover in future issues. Please send your comments or questions about Bulldog Solutions to Amy Bills, director of Field Marketing.