In sales, the lowest lows can sometimes follow the highest highs. Reps who are keenly focused on closing an important deal might push prospecting until after the contract is signed. But once the prospect officially becomes a customer, the rep is left with a weak or empty pipeline. Now, what?
Sales doesn’t have to be a boom and bust cycle. If salespeople develop the right processes and avoid bad habits, they can ride a perpetual wave. In her book Nonstop Sales Boom, Colleen Francis, owner of Engage Selling Solutions, reveals the sales tips that can help sellers crush their quotas month after month.
Below are 19 of the most quotable tidbits from the book, covering topics from prospecting to qualification to pricing. If you can consistently incorporate these sales tips into your personal process, you won’t be left scrambling to recover after a major deal closed. Grab your surfboard, and ride the biggest wave of your career.
Sales Tips to Create a Perpetual Boom
1) “Sellers who actively prospect every day will always outperform those who just sit and wait”.
2) “It pays to be choosy. There’s no rule that says everybody has a right to buy from you equally”.
3) “You must know how the numbers work to be a success”.
4) “Prospects who ask about price early have already made up their mind to buy from someone else”.
5) “Social media [is] worth the effort as long as you follow the number one rule: Go where your clients are”.
6) “The key to successful content creation is to not push your products, but to push your knowledge”.
7) “Because buyers interpret different platforms in different ways, they view each message differently and don’t feel you are overwhelming them with information as long as you mix your platforms”.
8) “The best sellers actively participate in what were traditionally considered marketing activities to attract prospects in addition to the normal sales activities they undertake to convert those leads to customers”.
9) “Your work with a client does not stop when you close a sale. It continues until the client is actively using the product”.
10) “Slow down the qualification process to speed up the closing process”.
11) “If you always have a full pipeline of three to four times what you need to close, urgency will not be an issue for you”.
12) “When you take the time to set your goals for the meeting you will increase your chance of moving the sale forward every time”.
13) “Never listen to sales experts who say you can’t move backward in the process. Movement — forward or backward — is always better than stagnation”.
14) “Never reduce your price without getting something in return”.
15) “Once customers have tasted your desperation to get the deal done at any cost to your business, they will always demand that discount (or more) for future business. I call this vicious circle of discounting ‘eating your young.'”
16) “Not all current clients are created equal nor should they be treated as equal. You must play favorites!”
17) “There is no such thing as the wrong contact. The more corporate contacts you have, the stronger the corporate relationship is”.
18) “Remember that you are selling to a fellow human being, not a faceless corporate entity”.
19) “Whenever you have the opportunity to introduce your best clients to your best prospects, the results are increased sales”.
Source: HubSpot
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