Sales managers and sales teams often come to us full of questions. Therefore, we’ve put together some of our most frequently asked sales questions and tried to answer them below.
If you’d like more detail about any of the questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Given the current political climate, this is one of the questions we’re getting asked the most recently.
With the vast uncertainty surrounding Brexit, there’s sadly no sure fire way to prepare. However, by having a proven sales system in place, you can be prepared to ride the storm and come out the other side.
If your sales team need more help implementing a proven sales strategy in time for Brexit, contact our team today.
Look, it happens. In fact, you can’t get the yeses without the noes. But, the key is not letting the ‘noes’ get you down too much.
Evaluate where you went wrong, think about what you can do to improve and then pick up the phone and try again. If you’re finding it more and more difficult to get back on the phone after negative responses, read our MD’s blog on how to beat sales call reluctance.
It’s hard to answer this one in one or two lines. Motivating your sales team is crucial, especially during tough times.
Essentially, being honest with your team, using our two management styles situational leadership or Transformational Leadership, dishing out praise and encouraging staff personal development are great ways to motivate your team. And, of course, investing in their professional development with a training course is another great way to motivate your team by making them feel valued and worthwhile.
For more tips on motivating your sales team, read our blog.
YES! Of course, we’re bound to say that. Although some people are naturally better at ‘hunting’ and some better at ‘farming’, both can be trained accordingly.
Hunters are active and push new business deals over the line. Meanwhile farmers are ‘passive’ and make good account managers.
Both are critical to the sales funnel and have unique strengths that can be capitalised on. We offer unique sales training courses for both ‘hunters’ and ‘farmers’ to ensure we get the best out of everyone.
Essentially this boils down to a lack of business style awareness. People don’t really not like you. Instead you are just clashing with their business style.
By understanding your business style, and being able to identify your prospect’s, you can cater your conversation to their style and, in a nutshell, make them ‘like you’.
Take the Business Style Awareness questionnaire to find out your style.
There’s a simple answer to this that most people don’t like. Get on the phone.
Firstly, plan the call. Who are you calling? Why are you calling them? What is it you will say? Then, get on the phone.
It can be daunting picking up the phone to a prospect, but, having a proven sales strategy behind you will make it a lot easier and help you secure those new business appointments.
Whether they’re individual or team targets, setting and measuring targets is one of the most essential aspects to a successful sales team.
Most people have heard of SMART goals:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Realistic
- Timely
We’ve updated this to STRAM, changing the timely to trackable and measurable to motivating.
- Specific
- Trackable
- Realistic
- Achievable
- Motivating
When setting targets remember that they must be motivating in order for you and your team members to reap the full benefits.
The important thing to remember when setting targets is to make them attainable yet challenging. Unrealistic targets demotivate people while easy targets don’t effectively measure performance or challenge employees. Set both short and long term targets with a range of difficulty and measure them at regular intervals.
As we said earlier, accept the noes. You will have peaks and troughs in sales, it’s only natural. Speak to your manager and colleagues. Take a moment and evaluate your sales strategy. Look at where you’re going wrong, give yourself credit for where you’re going right and try again. A sale will come, we promise.
If you need a little more help getting out of a sales slump, get in touch and see how our sales training can help.
A ‘good manager’ comes in many forms. However, the basics of management include clear, effective communication, the ability to listen to employees, the confidence to effectively hand out reprimands and praise, give constructive feedback and the ability to put the interests of your team ahead of yourself.
What can help to be a good manager is to have a good system to work to and rely on when managing the most difficult aspect of the workplace, sales people.
For more help on managerial or leadership strategies, take a look out our management training.
If you have any more questions about sales, or our sales training courses, don’t hesitate to get in touch.