EMMA
The sales manager’s view
I am big believer in “the devil makes work for idle hands” so I confess I have driven the sales team hard this year. So, during quiet moments, we’ve updated GDPR lists, cleansed our CRM, done quite a lot of freebie work for clients to show some love and been very active in prospecting to try to build a pipeline for when recovery comes.
It feels like we are very fit for the future, but when will the apples fall, I ask myself? Also, I am conscious that we have a lot of small & unprofitable sales opportunities and commitments on the go, and if the economy gathers pace, they might hold us back.
For this reason, we are starting a customer portfolio review with a view to updating our customer prioritisation model. We started using this approach 3 years ago, after I read “Sales Excellence- Systematic Sales Management”. The author Dr Christian Homburg has done a lot of research in this area and I would say it’s one of the ‘master keys’ to unlocking growth and profits in your customer base.
At its simplest level, it just helps to decide where to prioritise valuable sales time and money – after all, no sales team can give every single customer all the time in the world.
I will involve the team in scoring and prioritising our accounts: They know them best, and I need their buy-in to the final scheme. Yes, there will be some disputes, but I have a way of getting the outcome I want! I definitely recommend it as an approach to start 2021 with a sharp focus.
Tips from the front line
What impression are your sales team creating with their virtual sales calls? Remember, “We cannot not communicate” (Paul Watzlawick). Whilst a dog running around and barking in the background might be authentic and cute, there are some basics we need to take care of in making a virtual sales call:
Lighting: Ideally soft natural light onto our faces (NOT backlit). If this is not possible, invest in a professional light source
Camera: A separate HD webcam (USB) is a huge improvement over the camera in a laptop, plus you can get the very best angle / composition if it’s mounted on a tripod
Backdrop: This is your office! Experiment with different layouts to project a pro image. Reducing clutter and introducing select items normally helps
Sound: An external USB microphone will help with this, or some high-quality webcams have good microphones in them.
A good read
Whilst not billed as a book for sales professionals, we heartily recommend “The Checklist Manifesto – How to get things right” by surgeon Atul Gawande. It tells the compelling story of how the WHO surgical checklist was developed. This simple routine has saved tens of thousands of lives by ensuring that surgeons use checklists before every procedure. It helps them to ensure everything is taken care of and greatly reduces mistakes and ‘unexpected challenges’ in theatre.
We apply this logic to sales training, by developing industry / company-specific checklists for key sales interactions along the sales process. Salespeople can then refer to the checklists ‘pre-meeting’ to ensure they get things right in the heat of the action.
Trending
What are you doing to entertain your best customers at the moment? With hospitality on its knees at present, we see some clients being very creative, for example by organising a virtual gin tasting.
What better way to capitalise on lockdown?
Our back yard
We were delighted to be part of Warwick Business School’s Gold Award at the prestigious Learning Technologies event for best on-line learning project. This innovative 2 week-long business simulation event involved us training 400+ MSc students on how to conduct an on-line sales pitch. Find out more here:
We are also very excited to become a partner of sales technology giant Allego to deliver truly world class sales enablement solutions to clients.
We will be communicating more about the reasons for this partnership very soon. Allego has a truly excellent platform to support large sales teams that incorporates so many ‘sales best practices’ that we want to offer going forward.
The Selling Interactions team
Contact us at info@sellinginteractions.com