Emma:
The Sales Manager’s view
This year we have had an influx of new members to the sales team and one of the challenges I have to continually work on is email communication. Many of our new recruits do not have much sales experience and the quality of their written communication is very variable to say the least!
Here are the top tips that I coach them on:
Be responsive
A sales role is a customer satisfaction role: Acknowledge customer emails rapidly, even if it is just to say, “I am in meetings this morning and I will reply more fully this afternoon”. Today, customers expect speed, prospects even more so. If a lead comes in, make sure you reply within one hour to greatly increase the chances of “striking while the iron is hot.”
Attention to detail
If we want happy customers, we should always set our standards higher than our customers’. This means checking every single email to make sure it has corrected spelling and grammar. What will they think of the quality of our service if we can’t be bothered to check our work?
Personalise
How many emails did you receive this week that started with “I hope you are well..” How unimaginative is that?!! Make an effort! Refer to something real in the lives of your customer, for example “How did you get on in that half marathon at the weekend? The weather looked horrible for you…”
Make it look nice
There is nothing more demotivating than receiving a large block of text with no paragraphs in it. The science of reading is emerging and it is showing that we form an impression of text before we read a single word, based on layout.
Adapt to personality typesDo you have customers that are impatient and results driven? Then don’t send them a long, detailed email. Do you have customers who ask a lot of questions about the detail before buying? Give it to them in the email!
Be concrete & clear
If you just had a meeting with a client, make sure the follow up is super clear and concrete: Who does what and by when? The acid test: If you read the email a month later, it should be 100% clear what the action plan is.
Update the header
Ever been involved in one of those long email exchanges that ends up like a conversation? Where we make a reply, then hit send. The poor customer ends up with 20 messages that say “RE: our meeting”. Think about changing the header so it helps your client find the information they need, rather than going for the default option.
Quick updates
E-mail is wonderful for letting a customer or prospect know you are working on their needs when you are not visibly doing so e.g. “Since we met last week, I have created 3 options for you which I can show when we next meet. Please could you also let me know X,Y,Z”. This between meeting engagement drives trust and allows us to test commitment from potential customers too.
Gift emails
When was the last time you sent an email genuinely and spontaneously praising something a customer did? Maybe they took a risk and posted a video on Linked-in. Maybe they just completed an important project. Praise is highly motivating for most people and shows that you are interested in your customer as a person, not just their business!
Tips from the Frontline
We all know the world is changing fast in sales. The Harvard Business Review have reflected this in their January / February edition (2022). Their article, “Sensemaking for Sales” (Brent Adamson), argues that we need to help customers navigate an overwhelming sea of information in order to buy. They propose 3 core skills:
Connecting customers with relevant resources. Good reps curate information sources to help customers make good decisions.
Clarifying information. Good reps build trust by acknowledging the complexity of decision making today. They are great at simplifying complex issues.
Collaborating on customer learning. Good reps are expert at facilitating decision making so that the customer owns the solution.
I think we can summarise these attitudes as “Helping to Buy”, rather than “Selling to Close”. They require a mindset shift for sure.
A good read
In 2021, the 13th edition of “Sales Force Management” by Mark Johnston & Greg Marshall was released. This book will appeal to those who want a really thorough, researched-based view of sales management. The fact that we are on the 13th edition tells you something about the book’s popularity!
It will not appeal to those who like a quick snappy entertaining read! From our perspective, it plugs a number of useful gaps in the knowledge bank of sales: It has a particularly good section on cost analysis for sales forces, which is a topic not covered at all well in other similar sales management textbooks. This is great if you are trying to optimise cost of sales / profitability.
Trending
Sensemaking in sales
The January / February 2022 Harvard Business Review magazine introduced a new term into the sales lexicon: “Sensemaking for Sales.”
The basic idea is that, because of the sea of information that buyers face today, effective salespeople help their customers navigate this to make good decisions.
The authors identify 3 things these superheroes excel at: Connecting customers with relevant resources, clarifying information, and collaborating on customer learning.
Using a kind of altruistic coaching approach, they will only sell if there is a true fit between their organisation’s services and what is best for a customer.
As customers are so tuned into and aware of clumsy sales techniques, we believe this approach is definitely a trend to watch.
Our back yard
With over 10 years of “research-led sales excellence” under our belt, it is great to see this body of expertise being made much more widely available via Mindtools’ “Small Business Toolkit” that was launched at the end of 2021.
Mindtools is one of the world’s favourite on-line training content companies, with many blue-chip organisations relying on its extensive catalogue to train their employees. Selling Interactions provided the content to our sister company “The Kojo Academy”, a specialist in developing on-line sales content, that works directly with MindTools