MarketStar Blog | Best Practices (5)

More companies are using live chat for leads. You are undoubtedly familiar with live chat as a sales and customer service tool. How often have you visited a website looking for information only to see a live chat box pop up in the bottom corner? These chat boxes aren’t sales bots; they are live sales reps looking to provide business-critical information that could turn a curious website visitor into a viable prospect. This is how you apply live chat for leads, and it is changing B2B sales.

Whom would you rather buy from? The slick sales rep with the aggressive sales pitch who wants you to decide today, or the sales rep who asks questions, listens to understand what you need, and takes the time to work with you to find the right solution. The answer is easy, but the reality is there are still too many quota-driven sales reps out there who put closing the deal ahead of the needs of the customer. Sales reps with happy customers and long-term success are the ones who master the art of selling without selling.

Change is inevitable; in fact, it is essential for businesses to grow. However, not everyone is willing to embrace change, and even if they are willing to accept change, they may not see things your way. That’s why stakeholder relations have to be a key component of any business or change management strategy. It’s important to have everyone involved on board with the new strategy, policies, and procedures so the entire team is working toward a common goal. When making plans for 2019, you want to be sure that everyone involved shares the same vision and objectives.

Selling any technical product is a team effort. Sales representatives need support from customer service, accounting, operations, and, perhaps most important of all, sales engineers. When you close a complex engagement involving multiple components, integrations, and customizations, you need the support of the sales engineering team to help with presales and to handle fulfillment. However, even the most seasoned sales professionals still get confused about the role of sales engineers and how best to include them in the sales process. That’s why it’s essential that sales managers understand how to manage both sales reps and sales engineers.

The primary goal of every sales executive is to maximize sales productivity. It takes time to research new prospects, make cold calls, and do sales prospecting. In today’s business climate, more leads are coming in through the internet, which means sales representatives also need to react to sales queries—whether they’re qualified or not.

Today’s customers live online. If you want to fill your lead funnel, you must use digital media sales.

My leadership philosophy is a combination of my own experience and that of watching and being mentored by key contributors at MarketStar. What have I learned? A sales leader is an individual who isn’t afraid to roll up their sleeves to accomplish goals and lead their team to success. But we all know leadership takes more than barking orders!  I try to lead my teams with empathy, performance, and transparency as my guideposts. I don’t want to scare new hires away after their first week on the job!

As the sales industry continues its rapid evolution, sales reps will need a higher level of technical competency to sell complex products, services, and solutions. Technology has created a demand for sales teams to stay up to speed on the wants and needs of their customers and the pulse of their respective industries at large. Not only is technology changing how teams operate and interact with their customers, but products are becoming increasingly complex. This requires a rethinking of sales knowledge and skill sets.

There is a general misconception that companies create their own brands. This simply is not true. A brand is created by the way others perceive your company, its products, and the services it offers. A brand becomes the way they feel and think about you. Even though companies don’t create their brand, they influence it by their actions.

To illustrate, let’s examine two examples, Volkswagen and Kia. Volkswagen launched the brand strategy “working with you” in 2013. Their goal was to establish the idea that they were meeting their customer’s needs. When news hit in 2015 that they had installed a cheat emissions devise in their U.S. vehicles, the once premium car manufacturer quickly lost credibility and confidence in consumers and their customers. Their customers no longer felt like Volkswagen was “working with them.” They perceive the brand as cheaters and dishonest. Not only have they experienced significant job cuts over the last few years, but they have lost revenue as a company. In 2016 sales in the United States dropped 8% in one year.