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Understanding The Fundamentals Of Selling

August 6, 2010 – 7:35 am

Generating leads is a vital part of the sales process. To help you get a better understanding of how to generate profitable sales leads, here are a few words to help you get a better understanding of the fundamental elements of selling.

Prospecting

Prospecting is essentially planning and researching. There are plenty of tried and tested clichés batted around warning you about the perils of not planning. “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail” is my favourite. But however worn out that saying is, it offers concrete advice.

The first stage in the selling process is research. Or prospecting.

This pre-sales research can be done from your desktop. It involves gathering as much information about your prospective client as possible. You can use search engines, news stories and social media to gather insight and background information on a prospect.

When prospecting, pay particular attention to how your product or service can provide a benefit to your potential customer.

Does it help them streamline a complicated process, saving them money?

Does it help them gain market share by doing something their competition doesn’t?

Once you’ve established how you can specifically help your prospect, the next part of the research stage is discovering who the key decision makers are. Make sure you aim for c-level and directors. It is far easier to be referred downwards than upwards.

Here’s an acronym to help with your prospecting:

MANACT

M – Money. Does a budget for exist? Can you create a business case for one?

A – Authority. Who is the key decision maker? Who will sign off on your proposal?

N – Need. What specific business need are you helping to fix?

A – Action. As the sales person, what future actions can you prepare for now?

C – Is the deal competitive?

T – Create a series of time bound events, leading to the sale being closed.

Presentation

Now you’re fully ...read more

Posted in sales leads | Tagged sales leads | Comments (0)

10 Things You Can Do To Maintain Momentum In Your Sales Cycle

July 13, 2010 – 11:09 am

So, you’ve had your first meeting with that sales prospect you’ve wanted to speak to for a while. You think the meeting went well and your potential dream client was saying all the right things. You left feeling confident but…

Now what?

What Actions Can You Take To Drive The Sales Process Forward?

There are many things you can do to build on the momentum of a successful initial sales meeting and avoid the dreaded, “We’re waiting for the client to get back to us” sales-sapping blackhole of no-return. But here are our 10 favourites:

1. Establish a reason for a follow-up meeting

Don’t just follow up with an email to answer your prospect’s questions. Instead schedule a meeting where you can teach, show or demonstrate your answers.

2. Have a better understanding of your prospect’s procurement process

Does your contact need to go through a complicated buying process? Learn how you can help make it easier. Find out exactly what your prospect needs to allow them to place an order without any hiccups.

3. Get buy-in from the people controlling the purse-strings

Providing a sound business model and examples of the sort of return on investment is how you can make sure the Financial Director is on your side.

4. Engage the C-Suite

Often the CEO or other C-level Director is the key to successfully turning your prospect into a loyal customer. Sometimes you need to target your sales pitch at what interests them.

5. Don’t forget the Techies

Arrange meetings with technical support/Design teams within your prospect’s company. Show them how to integrate your product, make them feel comfortable knowing support is available to them.

6. Drip-feed relevant PR and product news

Has your product just added Chinese language support which will let your customer access a whole new market? Does your widget now work on the ...read more

Posted in Lead Generation, sales leads | Comments (0)

Do You Feel Like Finding More Sales Leads Is Like Looking For A Needle In A Haystack?

May 19, 2010 – 7:39 am

“Find me some red hot sales leads!” is something we hear a lot. If we had a pound every time a client said they were struggling to find hot sales leads, we’d be rich.

Recalibrating What You Expect From A Lead Generation Agency

As a lead generation agency, we speak to a lot of people, like you, who need to put more leads in their sales pipeline. But you might be surprised to know, the first thing we need to do it recalibrate expectations about what to expect from a professional lead generation agency.

The reason we have so many of these conversations is that most telemarketing companies promise so much but deliver very little. When speaking to other telemarketing companies, you’ll be promised heaps of ‘hot sales leads’ but in reality, you find out the number of leads promised will be a lot less than you might think. Here’s why…

How To Start Looking For That Elusive Sales Lead

First up, finding a customer who is ready to buy your product or service within a short time frame is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Trust me, the only way to even get close to success would be a harsh numbers game of a hundred cold calls a day, five days a week – and even then our experience shows the return might be less than three opportunities.

Imagine, spending your whole week on the phone and uncovering only three sales opportunities; The work itself is tough and offers little reward to the person wading through the database.

There’s a second problem too. By definition, if you’ve found someone ready to buy it follows that they are some (if not all) way down the line in their purchasing/evaluation process -so it’s likely that you’ll be entering the game at half-time ...read more

Posted in Lead Generation | Tagged Lead Generation, Sales lead generation, sales leads | Comments (0)

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