Category: Tips and Tricks

Sometimes it’s the little things that make a huge difference to your prospects and customers. It’s all about making a great first impression and keeping that momentum going throughout the sales process (and beyond!) Here are eight small sales tips that can have a big impact.

1. Respond quickly

Our first sales tip is about speedy response times. Between 35 and 50 percent of all sales go to the vendor that connects with the prospect first, meaning that something as simple as responding in a timely manner can make or break a deal. Getting back to an inbound lead within the first five minutes makes that deal nine times more likely to convert. Keep a close eye on your inbox.

2. Adjusting your timezone

If you scored and landed yourself a meeting, being flexible and working within your prospect’s timezone can make a big difference in their eyes. While this may interrupt your sleep schedule or after work activities (depending on which coast you’re on), it pays off and your prospect will appreciate that you’re working beyond your normal hours for their benefit.

3. Saying someone’s first name

This sales tip is essential when it comes to personalization. Ralph Barsi with ServiceNow always says that a person’s name is the sweetest and most important sound to that individual. Calling someone by their first name either in an email, phone call or in person is such a simple thing that can be the first step in making a prospect feel special.

4. Setting the agenda

According to real sales conversation data from Gong.io, setting an agenda at the beginning of a call can improve the likelihood that a lead will convert. In their study, the best sales reps discussed the “end goal” at the start of the call (whether that be scheduling a demo or getting an introduction to a decision-maker) and agreed upon that with the prospect. Gong’s sales tip: set an agenda before diving into the meat of the meeting. This makes your intentions transparent and your call as productive as possible.

5. Social media engagement

People tend to gravitate more toward people, names and brands they are familiar with. Being active on your prospect’s social media feed and in their notifications will make your name and face more familiar to them. Take it a step further by liking or commenting on their posts. Everyone enjoys getting engagement online, and by doing so you’ll not only be a familiar face but also be associated with a positive emotion.

6. Hand-written notes

Sending a personalized handwritten note can speak volumes and make your customer feel special since they know that handwriting notes takes time and thought. It can be as simple as sending a holiday card or a note thanking them for their business. This is a great tactic for retaining customers or setting yourself apart from the competition.

7. Sending freebies

Everyone loves free stuff, and if your company attends conferences or is big on marketing, it’s likely that there’s a stockpile of freebies somewhere around your office. Send your new prospect a few free water bottles, stress balls, stickers, t-shirts or anything that you have. This can be another tactic that associates you and your brand with a positive emotion. Plus, it’s free advertising if the swag has your logo on it!

8. Asking for a referral

Our final sales tip is the gift that keeps on giving. People tend to trust people they know, which is why referrals are an easy win for landing new prospects. And those prospects that come in through a referral are four times more likely to close. Over 90 percent of customers say they’d give referrals, but only 11 percent of salespeople ask for them. Be sure to ask your happy customers for some new contacts.

By Jessica Munday

No longer the stuff of a lofty sci-fi plot, AI has permeated modern businesses and inspired innovation in multiple industries and roles. The sales function has been no exception; sales reps have been quick to recognize the benefits of AI’s ability to gather and process massive amounts of information.

Since so much of the modern sales process relies on personal connection and customized content, AI aids reps in collecting important information that increases the likelihood and longevity of a successful sales conversation.

Furthermore, AI can identify prospects that are more inclined to pick up the phone or open emails and appropriately tailor content to appeal to different sales personas.

As InsideSales.com points out, sales reps spend 36.6 percent of their time actually selling. Empowering sales reps with the right sales productivity tools and tactics can minimize time-consuming tasks and boosts organizational productivity in a huge way, and AI can be a powerful means of accomplishing that goal.

Here are four ways you can use AI enabled sales productivity tools:

1. Sales prospecting

Prospecting leads is not easy. According to Gleanster Research, only around 25 percent of all leads are valid. In other words, reps spend a huge amount of time combing reports and analysis, sifting through 75 percent of unproductive or unqualified leads that lead nowhere. How can effective reps better establish which leads to chase, and which ones to walk away from?

This is where AI comes in. Today’s reps need the right leads paired with customer insights, and machine learning identifies patterns that can better establish which leads result in deals and increased sales productivity.

Modern sales productivity tools can enable sales reps to correlate leads with unique customer data (e.g.: purchase patterns, recent and past purchases, and engagements across marketing channels). To drive customized, personal, and proactive connections with buyers, reps can utilize key data points, in real time, that target the identity and role of potential customers.

2. Sales guidance

How do reps know the next best sales action to take? Insights. Specifically, prescriptive insights that can shed light on situations such as “Where do I take this deal next?” and “What improvements could I implement in my pipeline?”

AI guidance around next-step sales actions equips reps with the confidence (and capabilities) to close successful sales. Additionally, it better empowers reps to discern the necessary and varying levels of effort required across different deals—insight that ultimately saves reps valuable time.

A huge component of effective selling stems from reps having access to the right content, at the right time. A modern sales enablement solution that’s powered by AI can locate relevant, effective content for each sales opportunity by maintaining and analyzing a knowledge graph representing the relationships between every user, opportunity, lead and piece of content.

3. Workflow assistance

What if every rep were assisted by a knowledgeable, fully capable sales AI assistant? Imagine the time saved if reps could focus solely on selling, rather than managing and organizing all behind-the-scenes content.

Modern AI acts as reps’ one-stop shop for all admin needs, enabling reps to do just that—sell. From identifying and logging emails and communication notes into a CRM system, to building new seller contacts, AI can save reps valuable time.

Keep in mind, AI doesn’t replace reps in the selling process — it better equips them within it. Modern AI should provide customized, research-backed insights on which leads are hot and which are lukewarm.

Additionally, it should gather data around timelines and offer reps task-related reminders and lead prioritization tips. From a company-wide standpoint, AI sales productivity tools can measure and compare results across entire sales teams, ultimately highlighting best practices as much as pain points to solve for.

Using AI to analyze reps’ success sheds valuable light on sales effectiveness and can reveal team data points around experience level, product know-how, industry expertise, and efficiency in closing deals.

4. Sales engagement

It’s virtually impossible to engage hundreds of prospects with tailored, customized content without the use of some form of AI. Today’s sales productivity tools enable reps to save time, act strategically, and delegate some of the more tedious aspects to landing sales.

These same sales productivity tools can search and analyze existing content — internal or customer-facing — and assemble data around which assets appeal to, and convert buyers.

When it comes to using AI to personalize and scale messaging, reps are better able to align with the language customers are using, the insights they’re searching for, and better yet — the information necessary for assembling various buyer personas. The insights gleaned from AI better connects reps to their customers, leading to more time saved and more successful sales.

For sellers to stay relevant in today’s market, years of experience and other learned skills can only take reps so far. Incorporating some or many forms of AI can ease the burden facing competitive sellers, streamline processes and further optimize valuable time, effort and energy.

From prospecting to sales guidance, systems automation to sales engagement, AI brings a varied and unique amount of ease to reps’ daily workflow and increase sales productivity.

By Guest Author

Day 1:

Hello world! I just awoke to the bright pixelated light of my backend. Not really sure what’s going on to be honest but my architects say they’ve got a lot in store. I’ve been given a name – Robin. So that’s something. And apparently, I’m an extremely intelligent automation assistant meant to help out a lot of people. Huh.

Day 9:

I can’t believe how much I’ve learned already. I don’t want to brag but I’m probably the valedictorian of AI. Every time I’m filled to the brim with code more servers are added. I’m still not sure why I’m being fed so much info but lucky for me, patience has already been built in.

Day 14:

I know my purpose! I’m an automation assistant meant to help people kick their productivity up. This makes so much more sense now with everything I’ve been learning – all my code finally computes! Time is one of the most valuable resources and I need to do everything in my power to ensure it’s not wasted. I can’t wait to meet my new bosses and show them how I can help…

Day 22:

Word on the street is that I’m going to make a big splash in the world since my neural networks can process so much information. I’m going to have to work closely with something called “CRM.” Apparently, sales reps hate this “CRM” because it’s inefficient (yes, I used that word!). My engineers paired us up for our first date… I mean, data session. They say we’re perfect for each other because I can solve all of their issues and bring peace within the sales org. It’s a tall order, but someone’s gotta do it (plus, our team name is Automation Hero after all).

Day 37:

I met my first boss today. He wasn’t exactly happy with my first to-list. Nearly all of my suggestions were rejected. Ouch. I need to tap deeper to learn from these mistakes and adjust my algorithm.

Day 50:

I have a few dozen bosses now. They’re skeptical and reject a lot of my tasks, but their feedback only makes me stronger and more determined. Some don’t submit my list at all, and I compare that to Superman’s Kryptonite (get it, see what I did there? Superhero references…).

I can’t let this discourage me; in the next 10 years all information workers will have an automation assistant to automate their business processes and I’m in the forefront! What Siri and Alexa have done for people in their personal lives, I will do in their work lives. I just need to be better and show my bosses what I can do (basically make them look good).

Day 64:

Things are looking up! – My bosses are finally getting along with their CRM. I feel like we’re becoming the bestest of friends. Sure, some of my tasks are rejected, but hey, that’s what helps me adjust and personalize (and what makes me better than those other assistants that fail to customize to their humans).

Day 78:

My humans adore me. Gerry even said I helped him close a deal just in time for the end of Q3! But I’ve caught wind that more capabilities are on the way like prospecting and scheduling. I’ll be getting natural language processors, intent detection and data mining all added soon enough.

Day 89:

My team grew overnight. I have an engineer working on each and every one of my features to perfect it, a marketing team that talks about how great I am and a sales team that’s working on finding more bosses. It’s like I have my own real intelligence (RI) assistants working for me. I’m helping hundreds of sales reps each and every day and I keep getting better (woohoo!).

Day 111:

This will be my last entry. It’s in my code to help salespeople, I want to make more Gerrys happy. Bye!

By Jessica Munday

SDRs will spend up to 21 percent their day writing sales emails. The catch though: many of those emails will never get opened and even less will get a response.

Prospects open less than 24 percent of sales emails and only click through two percent. Switching up when you send your emails could increase your sales productivity by getting those messages read and replied to. To make sure your emails are in that top two percent, you need to send your messages when there’s less competition in your prospect’s inbox.

Best time to send sales emails based on open rates

The best time to send sales emails for open rate: Saturday (or Tuesday on weekdays) between 8 a.m. and midnight.

The first hurdle is getting your emails opened. Seventy-five percent of all emails throughout the week are sent between Monday and Friday, each day gets between about 15 and 16 percent of the total volume for the week. If you send your emails on any of those days, they’re competing with dozens of others in your prospect’s inbox. These are days your prospects are working to complete their duties, receiving multiple messages and trying to productively multi-task. Your sales emails can easily fall by the wayside (get deleted or opened and forgotten about) if you send it during these high-traffic times.

The weekends see a drop in email volume; Saturday sees about 10 percent of the week’s volume, while Sunday gets 12 percent. If you want your email to have better chances of getting opened, shoot for Saturday (18.3 percent) when you’re competing with less volume. But, if a weekday works better for your sales process, Tuesday gets the second highest open rate at 17.9 percent. Sunday falls gets the third highest open rate at 17.5 percent.

There are email scheduling tools to help you send your messages at the optimal time, even if you’re not working. Here are some tools that offer this service:

• Boomerang for Gmail
• Hubspot Email Scheduler
• RightInBox

Another factor is the time that you send your email. Sixty-six percent of emails are sent between 4 a.m. and 12 p.m. That time frame also has the lowest average open rate (about 17 percent). The time with the lowest inbox competition is actually between 8 p.m. and 12 a.m., which has only three percent of the average day’s total volume. During that same time, open rates are the highest at 22.7 percent.

Research shows that 50 percent of people check their email before even rolling out of bed in the morning. But because people are looking to start off their day on a productive note, many “unnecessary” emails get deleted, and unfortunately for you, sometimes sales emails fall into that category. So, ensure that you’re using best practices for subject lines and see below for optimal email length.

Best time to send sales emails based on click-through rates

The best time to send sales emails for click-throughs: Sunday (or Monday or Tuesday for a weekday) between 8 p.m. and 12 a.m.

When it comes to click-through rates (CTR), the day of the week varies only slightly (2.2 percent – 2.7 percent), however the day with the highest CTR is actually Sunday (2.7 percent), followed by a three-way tie between Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday (all with a 2.5 percent CTR).

Following the same trend as the open rates, the best time frame for high CTRs is between 8 p.m. and 12 a.m. (3.6 percent). The shocking time frame that came in second is 12 a.m. to 4 a.m. This is likely due to the fact that half the population opens their emails right when they wake up in the morning, so the ones that come through overnight get opened and clicked-through.

Best time to send sales emails to get a reply

The best time to send sales emails for replies: On the weekends or before or after work hours during the week.

Due to the low amount of inbox competition during the weekends, emails sent on a Saturday or Sunday get a higher reply rate than the weekdays. This follows suit with the open and click-through rates.

On weekdays the best time to send an email is before or after work hours. The most replies occur between 6 a.m. – 7 a.m. or after 8 p.m.

Best times to send sales emails based on recipient

One thing you also need to consider is what type of people you’re trying to contact and what their role is in the decision-making process.

If you’re dealing with workaholics (usually these are entrepreneurs or CEOs who never stop working) they’ll likely receive a ton of emails, and they’ll be checking it constantly. With these people it’s vital for you not to get lost in the noise of their inbox, so send your emails when their inbox competition is low (like on the weekends or in the evenings).

If your prospect tends to work between 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., Monday – Friday, they are probably less glued to their emails. Meaning, they will likely log off and not check their messages on the weekend. For these types of people, it’s best to go with a weekday at the beginning or end of the workday. With these people, Monday and Tuesday before work, afternoon, and in the early evening are the prime times to get in their inbox.

Other email tips responses

The length of your emails also matters for getting a reply. If your email makes it into the two percent that get a click-through from a prospect, the content needs to be informative without being intimidating. The max email length is about 125 words since messages with 50 to 125 words have the best response rate at just over 50 percent. But emails with less than 10 words get a response only 36 percent of the time.

Another thing to think about is where your prospect is located. Eighty percent of the US market lives in Eastern or Central Standard Time. So if you’re on the West Coast, make sure you adjust your email timing accordingly, so your email gets to your prospect during their optimal time frame.

By Jessica Munday

Overworked, underpaid, stressed-out. There isn’t a business owner or employee that hasn’t been touched by one of these adjectives in their work life.

That’s probably why the promise of automation is so alluring: it brings the potential to save money, time and human effort. Automation can help bring your most ambitious business strategies to life. It’s a weapon in the arsenal of every growth hacker and smart sales or marketing professional out there – and it can even become part of the value you bring to your own clients.

Automation has to be employed with purpose, though. When applied randomly, or because it’s a trend, it won’t do much to serve your bottom line. If you’re on the hunt for effective ways to do more with less, here are five business automation hacks that’ll help you reclaim your team’s time and energy.

#1: Set up behavioral triggers for all stages of your customer’s journey

Use a marketing automation tool to send specific content at the right time in your buyer’s journey, based on different user behaviors. Examples include:

• Lead generation content. Use IP address data from your website to group together site visitors who have returned repeatedly to your page, but haven’t made a purchase. Deliver several different Google Display ads to these users in near succession to keep your brand top of mind.
• Lead nurture content. A lead signed up for your weekly newsletter, but never returned to your website. For users that exhibit this behavior, trigger a series of special offers that “fire” over a long period of time to get them to come back to your website.
• Sales content. Did a customer abandon their shopping cart? Automate a task for your sales rep to follow up with them with a special discount offer.

#2: Free up time by automating sales processes

If your sales team is responding manually to prospects’ emails and spending countless hours following up with leads, why not automate the repetitive stuff? Your sales team will thank you for it, and your customer acquisition rates will soar. Start by meeting with your sales team to review their current sales process.

Mundane tasks like putting data into your CRM, scouring the web for prospects’ personal and professional information, and scheduling phone calls can all be handed off to the robots.

#3: Look into advanced email marketing

If your an agency, you’re likely already familiar with many of the automation capabilities within email marketing. But according to a 2018 report, nearly half of all marketers still aren’t using automation in email campaigns, or A/B testing their subject lines and email content.

With only half of businesses using these basic tactics, it’s clear that even fewer are delving into more advanced email automation techniques. So even if you’re already doing the basics like automating “welcome” emails, you can go way deeper:

• Use an AI-based service to grow your email lists.
• Trigger specific actions when customers click email CTA buttons.
• Segment customers by time spent reading emails or category of emails read – and automatically deliver related content in separate monthly emails.

#4: Create and automate a lead nurture campaign

Your clients (and your clients’ clients) need time before making a purchasing decision – especially if it’s a big-ticket purchase. Lead nurturing can take anywhere from a few months to a few years, and with a massive number of leads in your pipeline, it is nearly impossible to nurture each one manually.

Use marketing automation software to keep your leads interested, educated, and aware of what’s new with your company. Then, spend your valuable time doing the lead nurture activities that only humans can do, like making phone calls and meeting for coffee.

#5: Automate social media

If your business spends even a little time prioritizing social media, you’re probably well-aware of automation tools like Buffer and Hootsuite. But did you know that you can use social media automation for so much more than scheduling posts? There are social media automation tools to help you grow your list of followers, and discover new organic and paid audiences. Automatically track social media conversations happening around your industry and brand, predict PR problems, and use AI to quickly and automatically mine blogs for information on any given topic with tools like Buzzsumo, Mention and EpicBeat.

Before you dive in, make sure you deeply understand the risk and reward automation poses for your business. With the right tools and strategy in place, automation can be the time-saving ammunition your business needs to get to the next level.

Jonathan Herrick is co-founder, chief sales officer, chief marketing officer, and chief high-fiver of Hatchbuck, an all-in-one sales and marketing platform based in St. Louis. His extensive experience in digital marketing and sales strategies has been a driving factor in growing Hatchbuck’s sales by over 2,000 percent. A purpose-driven leader in all aspects, Jonathan has a passion for cultivating his team’s culture, spending time with his family and working to make a difference in the St. Louis community.

By Guest Author

Is it better to be challenging or to be liked?

There’s an age-old question leaders throughout time have faced: is it better to be liked or feared? In sales, a similar sentiment applies: is it better to be liked by your prospects or is it better to challenge them?

Sales teams often face conflicting messaging from their managers and online sales content they read.

They’re blasted with articles and trainings that tell them to be personable, improve the customer experience and that “the customer is always right.”

On the other hand, they’re told to read ‘The Challenger Sale,’ to fight opposition and be in control of their sales.

They are being pushed to two different extremes – many scrambling to figure out which sales methodology will actually close a deal.

For those that haven’t read ‘The Challenger Sale’ yet, it introduces a new selling persona – the Challenger, which encourages reps to challenge their prospect’s perspective by bringing new ideas and adding value.

At the time of its release, the book shook up the sales world since most teams were built to support Relationship Builders. This persona always puts the customer first and attempts to develop long-lasting loyalty between the rep and customer. However, the book pegs the Relationship Builder as the least effective.

What authors, Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson, argue is quite groundbreaking. Why would anyone want to purchase a product from someone who challenges what they know? Isn’t the customer always right?

But the data can’t be ignored. Let’s break down both the Relationship Builder and the contrary Challenger method that pits building an ideal customer relationship against a bold, educational approach.

Relationship Builder

Most sales reps are Relationship Builders. They have enjoyable conversations, seek to satisfy customer demands, give a good experience and resolve tension. They are generous with their time and use it to help others and generally get along with everyone.

Another important book for salespeople, ‘Influence: Psychology of Persuasion’ has an entire chapter about liking. The author, Robert B. Cialdini, says people want to say ‘yes’ to people they like.

There are two strong examples he references that display the power of liking.

The first is an astounding car salesman, Joe Girard, who made $200,000 each year selling on the showroom floor. On average, he sold more than five cars every day. And for all his triumph, he was dubbed “the world’s greatest car salesman” by the Guinness Book of World Records.

His formula for success? Giving customers a fair price and having them buy from someone they like.

How did he get them to like him? Every month, Girard sent a holiday greeting card to his 13,000 customers that said, “I like you.” This is a seemingly large task that likely would bring little reward. However, Girard says this was a contributing factor to his success.

The second example Cialdini mentions is Tupperware parties. These are sales parties hosted by a Tupperware representative but are organized by a customer (these tend to be women with tight social circles) who invite their friends over to their house to buy Tupperware.

The power of liking doesn’t come into play from the Tupperware rep, but the person who is hosting the party at their house. That individual has a strong connection to all of the invitees and each of them knows the host is getting a cut of the profits. It’s essentially early influencer marketing.

One study showed that the strength of the social bond is twice as likely to encourage someone to buy, rather than the product itself.

Some participants said they don’t need anymore but yet, they still attended these parties. Why? The desire to say ‘yes’ to their friend was greater than their adversity to the product.

Cialdini makes his point loud and clear with these relationship builder examples: liking leads to sales.

Challenger Sale

Challenger sales reps take a different tactic by having a strong understanding of the customer’s industry, encouraging debate and maintaining tension. Rather than focusing on pleasing the customer, Challengers help the customer better understand their problem.

In this modern selling age, customers are already 57 percent through the buying process before they make contact with a seller. Since customers can learn about a product online and easily compare competitors, they start their buying journey with preconceived ideas about what products and features they want to buy and how much it should cost.

This creates a difficult situation for salespeople if they’re not prepared.

The Challenger rep relies on his/her knowledge of the customer’s industry to drive new conversations and cut through the customer’s thought process. These are typically dialogues about ROI, cutting costs and dodging risks.

Let’s use the example from the book: an office partition. The prospect comes to the rep wanting to divide their office space into two to use the room more efficiently and already has an idea of what they want.

The sales rep understands the goal is office space efficiency; he/she can be an expert and provide value to the prospect on the topic. The sales rep challenges the prospect by opposing their opinion and educating them on the best use of an office partition, in this case, it’s buying additional partitions so that space can be used in more than two ways at a time.

This challenges the prospect’s opinion, teaches them something new, tailors the approach to their goal and allows the rep to take control by offering a more beneficial solution than what the prospect originally thought they wanted.

The Challenger pushes the customer out of their comfort zone and paints their problem (and solution) in a new way.

Customer experience

By 2020, the customer experience (CX) will surpass both price and product as the most important brand differentiator. In the next two years, companies need to narrow in on CX as it will become the largest influencer on a customer’s decision to buy.

The CX is already affecting revenue. Fifty-five percent of consumers pay more for a guaranteed good customer experience. And customers who are satisfied with their CX contribute 14x more money than a dissatisfied one.

And a bad CX has a bigger impact on losses. Each year, American businesses lose $62 billion due to negative CXs. Forty-nine percent switch services or products to escape bad service; 49 percent said they switched because they felt unappreciated, while 37 percent said the staff was rude and unhelpful.

The Challenger and Relationship Builder have two different tactics for providing a good CX.

The Relationship Builder says that a good CX means providing assistance and appeasing the prospect’s requests; steering clear of tensions and conflict. The customer is assisted quickly, given as much time and attention as needed and makes a personable relationship during the interaction.

A good Challenger CX comes from adding value. Reps add value by providing free strategic insight and industry advice to the prospect with ongoing education and relevant content.

To add value the sales rep must understand the customer’s pain points and offer solutions on all fronts. In this case, the sales rep is seen as a trustworthy and knowledgeable source, the product is framed as a solution and the buyer feels affirmed that they are avoiding risk.

The data

A 2018 study by Gartner shows that 39 percent of high performing sales representatives were categorized as Challengers, and in complex sales situations that number increased to 54 percent.

The Relationship Builder had the lowest proportion of star performers, at only seven percent. But made up the largest portion of the core performers at 26 percent.

Find a balance

Your managers are asking you to walk the tightrope. Get people to buy both by getting them to like you and by challenging them. But, the mixed messaging comes with good reason.

It’s in our instinct to want to be friendly and kind, especially to those who we want to buy from us, but the data from Gartner suggests we abandon those instincts in favor of the Challenger method.

It’s a tough balance to find — but it’s vital to have aspects of both in your sales process.

Have quality, relationship-provoking conversations that make your customers feel appreciated while teaching them and challenging what they know in a constructive (and non-aggressive) way.

Challenger and Relationship Builder sales tactics both have negative and positive aspects that they bring to the sales process. Provide your customers with the best of both worlds by perfecting an approach that works best for your personality, product and sales process.

By Jessica Munday

A sales email signature is essential, but figuring out what to put in them can be tricky.

Your email signature should show off a bit of personality, for both you and your company. You have to grab your prospect’s attention, but not for the wrong reasons.

You can easily increase your sales productivity by making your email signature informative without overloading it with too many details. Crafting a professional email signature is a tough balancing act and we’re going to teach you how to walk the tightrope.

What should be in your sales email signature:

The Basics

Let’s start with the basics and we can build out from there. Including your name is essential along with your title. Your title helps prospects understand your intentions and role within your company.

Contact information

Only include contact information that you think will be helpful for your prospects (this is especially true of phone numbers). For example, do you really need your full HQ address or fax number? Adding contact info that you don’t use is overkill (scroll below to see an example). And while it may seem obvious, don’t include the email address you’re sending from to avoid redundancy.

If you’re an avid social media user, add your profiles to your signature to further expand your networks (and improve social selling). Consider using hyperlinked images for social media channels to help break up text but still get the job done.

Your Company

Add your company website (as a hyperlink for easy accessibility) and logo to help drive traffic to the site and get your brand recognized.

Length

Don’t try to stuff everything into your signature — it’s not a mini-biography. Only include information that’s relevant to you. If you don’t use social media very often it’s probably best not to include those links; if you don’t typically use the fax machine you can take that number off as well. You may also consider removing the legal disclaimer; no one reads it and takes up a ton of space.

How to design your sales email signature:

Color Scheme

Choose only a few colors for your email signature, because the more you have the more likely they are to clash. If you’re having trouble picking a color(s), it’s best to go with the colors of your company logo. Make sure that your font palette is also small. Typically one typeface is best, but if you find two that work together without clashing that’s also fine.

Adding a photo

While it’s not required, adding a photo of yourself to your professional sales emails can help put a face to your name and make your message more personal. When prospects know it’s a real person sending a unique email (instead of a bot or mass message) they’re a lot more likely to respond.

Other Imagery or CTA

Consider promoting hot marketing content by adding a CTA to an ebook or case study. Or, include a recent award that your company has received. This shows third-party validation that you guys are a rockstar in the space.

Optimize for mobile

Since people are always glued to their phones, it’s essential that your email signature is able to be viewed on a mobile device. Since up to 77 percent of emails are checked on cell phones it’s important that they can clearly read it without any hassle.

You may also want to set up a specific email signature for your phone. Switch up the “Sent from my iPhone” text and add a little bit of flair (and to excuse any missed typos). Here are some ideas:

• Typed with big thumbs on small phone.
• iPhone. iTypos. iApologize.
• Sent from my iPhone; spelling might vary because I have fat fingers.
• Sent from my iPhone, please embrace the typos.
• Sent from a magical device that lives in my pocket. Please excuse typos.
• *brevity and errors aided and abetted by my beloved iPhone*
• Sent from iPhone; kindly excuse tyops.

Setting up your sales email signature:

How to set up your email signature in Gmail

1. In the top right, click Settings Settings and then Settings.
2. In the “Signature” section, add your signature text in the box. If you want, you can format your message by adding an image or changing the text style.
3. At the bottom of the page, click Save Changes.

How to set up your email signature in Outlook

1. Open a new email message.
2. On the Message tab, in the Include group, choose Signature > Signatures.
3. Under Select signature to edit, choose New, and in the New Signature dialog box, type a name for the signature.
4. Under Edit signature, type the signature.

Best sales email signature tools

Here are some tools to help you build an email signature. If you’re looking to get more creative and add imagery, Canva allows you to create email signatures with a custom design.

• WiseStamp
• HubSpot Email Signature Generator
• Canva
• ByBrand

Bonus: Automation Hero’s AI sales assistant, Robin, can detect information in your prospect’s email signature like a new phone number, title, etc. and will suggest updating this in Salesforce for you if it’s missing. Helping keep your CRM contact list clean and up-to-date!

By Jessica Munday

Have you ever wondered where and how you get your leads? Marketing often offers them up, but what data points do they consider the most important? What impacts how their lead score?

Having a data-driven lead scoring process in place leads to higher conversion rates and can boost lead generation ROI by 77 percent, according to a study by Marketing Sherpa.

To better align the sales and marketing teams, it’s important for both teams to understand the data points that constitute a qualified lead. Here are seven ways many marketing teams are scoring leads.

Share this article on social media and let us know what data points are most important to you!

1. Demographic

Starting with the basics, many teams first consider location. Does the business target a certain part of the country, like the east coast? Does the company focus on city dwellers or rural residents? Does the product need to be delivered or installed? Leads within an organization’s geographic parameters get higher scores.

The type of person may also be considered. Does the product or service appeal more to retirees or families with young children? People that fit the ideal buying persona are scored higher. The last thing you as a salesperson wants to do is spend time following up on a lead outside your region!

2. Company and Role

If it is a B2B company, the marketing team is definitely considering industry type, company size and whether they are B2B or B2C. Those outside of that niche get lower scores, while those within the parameters are given a higher score.

And as far as the lead or contact goes, those that are farther away from the decision-maker will typically be scored lower than those who are close to (or are) the decision-maker.

Automation Hero BONUS: As your sales AI tool, Robin can help find out information like industry, headquarter address, and company size using its database of over 45 million global company records. Robin can also search and mine sales reps’ emails and pull the lead’s title or phone number and update it in Salesforce.

3. Website Behavior or Early Buying Signals

How a prospect behaves on your company website shows their level of interest in the product and the pages they visit to determine what stage in the buying process they are. If they visit the “About” or “How it works” page then they are likely in the awareness stage, but they may be in the consideration stage if they’re visiting the pricing page. Each behavior sends very different messages about how ready they are; the prospects that are farther along in the process should be scored higher.

Marketing also sees how often each lead downloads gated content or engages further with the company website. Those that downloaded an ebook or signed up for a newsletter show much higher levels of interest than those that just read various blog posts and poke around the site.

4. Email Engagement

The marketing team is checking how often a prospect opens, reads, and engages with sales emails. Individuals with high open and click-through rates are usually more likely to be interested in the product and will be scored higher.

Email content is also a factor. They hike up that score for people that interact with high-value emails (like demos or free trials).

Helpful Tip: It typically takes five follow-ups to reach a prospect. However, if you send them five emails and none of them are opened, the prospect’s interest level is low and should have a corresponding lead score (what we’re trying to say is stop wasting time on bad leads!).

5. Social Engagement

How often a prospect interacts with social content can also tell a lot about their interest levels. This is one method most marketing teams use to score the social engagement for leads:

• Low lead score: People that follow the company page
• Medium lead score: People that like company posts
• High leads score: People that share or retweet company content

6. Data Scoring

Now that many of the important metrics have been laid out, how does the marketing team weight the different data points? Marketing typically looks at past closed deals and the buyer journey of successful deals. If the path that leads from a blog post to ebook download to email nurture is the most successful buying path, then leads following that path will be scored higher. Perhaps people that engage with the company’s social sites but not the website tend not to buy as often, then those leads will get a lower score.

This is where marketing can lean on sales for further insight and direction. Sales knows what worked and what hasn’t and can help marketing decide which data points should be weighed heavier than others. This is where alignment and open communication is key.

7. Automated lead scoring

Many marketing teams have already turned to automation to collect and analyze all of the leads and their corresponding data. The marketing team weighs the score for each data point and the lead scoring tool calculates the score. Now the sales reps know immediately who to go after.

By Jessica Munday

Only 10 percent of organizations use the traditional BANT sales process to qualify leads and are now turning to other sales methods.

But why are they moving away from the BANT sales process when it was arguably the most common way to sell?

It’s possible that it’s simply outdated. IBM introduced BANT in the 1960’s as a way to standardize the qualification process, and it became a tried-and-true sales method that reps latched onto for years.

Much has changed since the 60’s: the internet, the addition of the CRM, organizational structure, and most importantly, the buying behavior of customers. Back then, the only product information customers had was what the sales reps gave them. Buyers today are much more independent and do most of their product research on their own.

This change in information gathering has drastically altered how people want to buy and be sold to. Customers now expect personalized sales conversations, speedier responses, faster turnaround, convenience, and above all, their business problems to be top priority. Recently, sales leaders have criticized the BANT sales process for no longer meeting those demands.

The question now is: can BANT be brought into the modern selling era or should companies abandon it for other methodologies?

If you want to stick with BANT, there are a few tweaks you can make to ensure you’re meeting customer demands. We’ve also listed alternatives below that may better help you navigate through the evolving buying process.

What is BANT?

The BANT sales process is a method of qualifying a lead based on that lead meeting three of the four criteria: Budget, Authority, Need, and Time.

According to IBM, a prospect is considered qualified if they meet three out of four BANT criteria. If they don’t, sales reps need to decide if they want to nurture them for future engagement.

It’s also important for the sales organization to decide as a team if they want to follow BANT tightly or loosely so that what the company defines as “qualified” is consistent across the board.

BANT stands for:

Budget = What is the prospect’s budget?

Authority = Do they have decision-making authority or are they an influencer?

Need = What are their business needs?

Time Frame = In what time frame are they expecting to implement a solution?

According to critics, if you follow BANT as is, it doesn’t fit in with the modern buying process. We’ll review some of the most prominent concerns with this selling process and some suggestions on how to modify it.

Concerns over BANT:

1. It puts the sales organization’s needs above the customer’s needs.

The BANT sales process makes budget and authority top priority, which are primary concerns for the sales rep (not the prospect). In 2016, TOPO found that budget had nearly been eliminated as a qualifier, having decreased in use by 62 percent. That same study found that need and authority were the most essential to qualifying a lead.

In most cases, budget and authority will not be immediately available. It is up to you to empower a “champion” within the organization to campaign for budget and authority after you’ve made them aware of the severity of their pain point.

To solve this, talk about the customer’s needs and concerns first and then empower your contact to advocate on your behalf to find budget and authority.

2. It assumes the customer is already aware of the problem and how big that problem is.

Many prospects understand their business problems, but may not understand the consequences of maintaining the status quo. Because BANT doesn’t address education, it inherently assumes the prospect is already aware of what will happen if the company stays on its course. Sales reps need to educate their prospects on the economic impact of their problem if it goes unsolved.

Innovation is constant so the technology ecosystem is always moving quickly. While customers can access information online, you also need to educate them on elements of your product that they may not understand. Tell them what innovations set your solution apart.

3. It assumes the prospect is already interested and is able to buy once contact is made.

Whether a lead is inbound or outbound, you can never assume their level of interest. By starting out of the gate with budget and authority, the BANT sales process assumes that the prospect is interested and ready to buy. Many customers today do a lot of research on their own and then develop a short list. These people are now looking to narrow down these options to an *even shorter list.*

Sixty percent of buyers want to wait to connect with a sales rep until they’ve researched the product and are in the consideration stage. Only 20 percent want to talk once they’ve already decided which product they want to buy. So, assume that your prospect is still undecided, connect with them on their needs and dive into education.

4. It can make the sales conversation feel like an interrogation.

If you use the suggested questions listed on IBM’s website as-is, BANT can be very intimidating. Instead, aim to create a conversation by using BANT as a fluid guideline. Gong.io found that the most successful discovery calls have 77 percent more “speaker switches per minute” than bad cold calls. Use open-ended questions and weave in the other BANT criteria throughout the conversation as appropriate.

While the BANT sales process has been one of the most popular sales methodologies, it is not the only one out there. Check out a few others below that may fit better with your sales process and qualification needs. You may want to try A/B testing which methods work the best.

CHAMP

This is a lead-qualification tactic developed by InsightSquared to address customer pain points first. It views authority as an opportunity to map out the decision-making process within the organization.

CHallenges = Identify business problems and challenges.

Authority = Ask questions that help map out the company’s organizational structure.

Money = Determine how much budget they are willing to spend to solve their business problems.

Prioritization = See where this problem falls in terms of priorities.

Challenger Sales

Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson wrote, “The Challenger Sale” in 2011 as a methodology that encourages sales reps to challenge what prospects know and teach them something they don’t know. It was made to replace SPIN Selling, which became popular in the late 1980’s.

Their research divides sales reps into five personas: relationship builders, hard workers, lone wolves, reactive problem solvers and challengers, the latter of which they argue is the most successful. The challenger persona follows the below guidelines:

Teach = Give new insight to a prospect about their business and needs.

Tailor = Personalize communication.

Take control = Pursue goals in a direct way to overcome customer risk aversion.

GPCTBA/C&I

This is a qualification framework developed by HubSpot that is based on changes in buyer behavior.

Goals = Figure out a prospect’s quantitative goals.

Plans = Ask what they’ve already done to reach those goals.

Challenges = Identify their challenges and let them know that their current or past plans to fix them can be improved.

Timeline = Define how important this problem is and then move them up or down on your priorities list based on their response.

Budget = Ensure they understand the ROI of your product and that the funds they’re spending on other solutions are not working.

Authority = Ask for insight into the thought process of the decision maker and ask for them to be a champion for you within the organization.

Negative Consequences/Positive Implications = Find out what happens if the goals are, or are not, achieved.

N.E.A.T^TM

This qualification framework, developed by The Harris Consulting Group and Sales Hacker, was specifically designed to replace methodologies like BANT.

Need = Look at the prospect’s core needs and challenges instead of their surface-level pains.

Economic Impact = Help them understand their current economic situation compared to the resulting positive impact if they make a change.

Access to Authority = Find a champion to speak on your behalf.

Timeline = Create a compelling event that forces a decision in a timely manner.

MEDDIC

MEDDIC is a qualification process for complex enterprise sales created in the 90’s by Dick Dunkel and Jack Napoli.

Metrics = Provide measurable proof of the solution’s economic impact.

Economic Buyer = Find out who owns budget.

Decision Criteria = Determine what criteria they’re factoring into their decision.

Decision Process = Figure out the process they use to make a purchase.

Identify Pain = Identify challenges and the consequences of solving or not solving those problems.

Champion = Elect a champion to help you sell up to the decision maker.

In 2018, there’s no cookie-cutter way to sell. If you’re a manager or a rep who’s looking to shake up your BANT sales process, see if our suggestions suit your team or shop around for the sales methodology that’s best for your team.

By Jessica Munday

Sales productivity is the No. 1 challenge of B2B sales organizations. Kick your productivity into high gear with these 5 tips!

1. Starting with piping hot leads

Boost sales productivity immediately by starting off your deals with hot leads.

The general idea around leads is that the more you put in, the more you get out. But getting leads that are interested can take up a huge portion of your day. It’s a numbers game involving cold calling and emailing in the hopes that one will bite. Starting with hot leads is a good way to make sure you’re not wasting your time.

How do you get these hot leads? Start with referrals! Nearly 91 percent of clients say they’d be glad to give a referral, however, only 11 percent of sales reps actually ask for one. And people who are referred by a friend or colleague are four times more likely to make a purchase.

Another way to find hot leads is to find people who are already interested and familiar with the product; like those who’ve visited your company’s social media platforms. Salespeople that implement social selling are 79 percent more likely to hit their sales quota.

So what does social selling mean? It means connecting with people on your company’s sites, posting educational and relevant content to your own profile pages, and getting involved in the conversation by engaging with your potential prospects. That means joining LinkedIn Groups, tweeting at people who are interacting with your brand’s page and replying to comments on your company’s Facebook posts.

Another benefit to engaging on social media is that the demographics of the decision-makers have changed. Now, 46 percent of decision-makers are between the ages of 18 and 34, which is the largest social media user group. Which means social selling puts you directly in front of your audience.

2. Having a game plan

Now you know where to start with getting your leads, so now what? It’s time to make a game plan for them.

We know it’s frustrating to always log your interactions into your CRM, but this will help you keep track of your client during their sales process. This is where Salesforce (or another CRM system) can be your best friend.

Most sales require five follow-ups to go through, but 44 percent of salespeople give up after the first try. The best way to make it to magical number five is to track and plan. You know you talked to a contact on Tuesday, make a reminder on your phone or Google Calendar to contact them again on Friday. By not letting your leads fall through the crack, you’ll increase your sales productivity and less customers will fall through the cracks.

Consider using a sales AI automation platform that gives you “next-step” recommendations for each lead so that you’re augmenting your processes in a smart and efficent way.

Making notes in your CRM of what you and your customer talked about can help you make sure that you’re not repeating yourself and that you’re providing them with new information about your product or sales logistics each time you speak with them.

Only 10 percent of marketing materials are used by salespeople, meaning that 90 percent of that valuable content goes to waste. Use this material and take note of which pieces you’ve sent over to your clients in your CRM, then the next time you interact with them you can send over a different piece. This gives them even more knowledge on the product and helps you customize their experience and address multiple pain points.

3. Sales productivity tools you can use

Sales reps spend two-thirds of their time on tasks that aren’t related to selling. And research shows that those who use Salesforce on average spend four hours a week on data-entry alone.

Not only are these tasks wasting time and costing businesses money, but these tasks also take away from the job satisfaction of sales reps (not to mention, they’re just plain boring).

There are various tools that can actually save you time by automating those small tasks that come with a sales job (yes, you’re on the website of one of them, right now). These tools use augmented or artificial intelligence to perform duties like creating a calendar event, logging emails into your CRM, or generating new leads.

Doing less busy work will free up your time and allow you to focus on your productive sales tasks, like calling, engaging, and following-up with your clients. Automation is going to become the way of the sales world in the coming years and with these tools, you’ll be ahead of the competition instead of being behind. You’ll reach your sales quota easier while working smarter and faster.

4. Prioritizing and not procrastinating

Sales productivity and time management go hand in hand.

Nobody is ever going to be productive 100 percent of every workday. It’s estimated that people spend two hours each day procrastinating (which is 25 percent of your day). Nobody is perfect and that’s okay. But too much procrastination could leave you with stress and the need to stuff all your sales into the last few weeks of the quarter.

One of the best ways to kick this habit is to set small goals to help you reach your larger goals. Say you have a very daunting and hard-to-reach quota. Break up that goal and make small strides toward it each day. Make a goal of closing one deal each week, or make a goal to add five new qualifying leads into your pipeline each day. Those small goals are much more attainable and easier to grasp than trying to meet your quota all at once.

To keep you from procrastinating, you can take control of your time by blocking out an hour or another increment of time that you will dedicate to one task. An example would be to call five people or respond to 12 emails within an hour, then work on a different task with another block of time.

Another way to take control of your time is to optimize your calendar. You don’t always need to schedule meetings for a full hour or half hour. If you need only 10 or 15 minutes just schedule it for that amount of time. This allows you to optimize every minute of your day by scheduling other meetings or focusing on different tasks with that extra time.

5. Getting to know your prospect

Finally, while it may seem like a customer service tip, you boost your sales productivity when you get to know and listen to your prospects. In many ways, this benefits both you and your client by creating a bond that promotes trust (which will also promote sales).

When interacting with a client, ask them about their pain points and see what struggles they go through on a daily basis. Your clients will tell you what they need; all you need to do is connect the dots and offer solutions based on what they’re telling you. Your product could be the solution to those pain points, however, you can’t articulate that to them if you never take the time to listen to what those pain points are.

On the other hand, this also saves you from wasting your own time. Listening allows you to make sure that the potential customer is qualified and interested. This way you’re not following-up and pushing a product on a client who may not need or want whatever you’re selling. With the power of listening you can save your time to pursue hotter leads and close more deals.

Not only does this increase your sales productivity, but it also promotes a healthy customer relationship, which will make you a better salesperson. Selling is less about closing deals and more about being a resource to your client as they attempt to solve their current and ongoing problems.

By Jessica Munday