Do you think sales success is easy? 😣 I’m sure you know deep down you don’t: being successful requires not only persistent and deliberate activities but the ability to adapt to the market.
I’m sure deep down you know better: being successful requires persistent, deliberate activity and the ability to adapt to the market.
We’ve come a long way since the days of door-to-door selling and annoying car salesmen, haven’t we?
While there are many different industries and types of businesses, there are certain principles that apply across all of them.
That’s why we’ve identified the foolproof sales techniques that will help you identify potential customers, establish a trusting relationship and close the deal before the customer turns to another company with better sales techniques (or tools) 😉.
But first things first, why don’t we start by reflecting on what exactly selling means?
What do we mean when we talk about “selling”
Before answering this question, let me ask you one thing: what’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of sales or a salesperson?
Chances are you’ve had some sort of negative association, and honestly, no blame on you.
Most of us have interacted with a pushy salesperson or telemarketer at one time or another and ended up walking out the door with any excuse we could find 😎.
The good news are: What shoddy salespeople do has nothing to do with the actual sales process.
People often think that selling simply means exchanging a product or service for money, but it’s much more than that.
You may buy pasta from a random brand for the first time because it’s the first one you saw on the shelf or because it was cheaper than other options.
But then you may decide you’ll never buy that generic brand again because your favorite brand, which is truly Italian, makes you feel like a Michelin-starred chef: that, ladies and gentlemen, is selling.
Selling means exchanging value for value: like when you sell yourself for a raise or when you interview for a job, or when we try to get a second date with the crush (you sure got lucky… 😏).
Courage makes the world go round, not money (yes, money is a good indicator that things are being done right, but let me tell you it can often be misleading 🧐).
What’s sales training?
Sales acquisition is the process that helps you establish a sales funnel that flows effortlessly and delivers value to your prospects at every engagement touch point.
To do so, your sales team must be equipped with the right training, tools and sales techniques so they can sell effectively and efficiently.
Top sales tips
There are some regularities that apply in every sales process: find an ideal customer, establish trust, present solutions, close the deal and nurture the relationship.
Understanding these effective sales techniques will allow you to sell your product or service in a way that benefits your customers and your company.
Selling may seem easy when you list these sales techniques, but applying them successfully takes a lot of practice. Mastering these skills is not like riding a bicycle, but rather like brushing your teeth: you have to do them every day to see results, even when you’re not in the right mood 🙃
1. Identify your prospects
Practicing sales techniques and scripts is important, but researching the company and the representatives you’ll be talking to is essential.
Today, you can find out just about anything on the Internet, including a company’s number of employees, its public policy and the tools it uses.
Knowing these facts about a prospective client and the company you work for can help you identify what doesn’t fit and save you time working with potential clients who actually do fit 💙.
⭐ Tip:Doing this research also helps you prepare to introduce and talk to a specific person. It’s easier to chat with someone whose age, education, company seniority and location are familiar to you – get to know your buyer persona, and their pain points, and the sale will get easier over time!
And if after getting to know your different buyer persona and potential customers, you are wondering how to find and contact them, we make it easy for you with Scrab.in!
Although you can use Scrab.in in many ways, for B2B customer prospecting you should follow these guidelines:
Sign up for scrab.in and login from the Google Chrome extension. You’ll get a configuration that’s very easy to manage. Here are the steps 😉:
- Connect to your Linkedin
- Select the profile you are interested in prospecting: For example: marketing director in Spain.
You must fill in the field in the search box with the profile “marketing director”, click on “people” and then in “locations” select Spain (or the place of interest you have).
⭐ Tip: Remember to be as specific as possible, always thinking about your buyer persona.
Now, just:
- Select the “second level contacts” option:
- Click on the extension and press the play button inside the “visit profile” tab.
- Let it run for a week or two (remember you should have your computer on and not close the Google Chrome window during your working day)
Now, just relax and continue with your usual work, the bot is responsible for doing the job automatically. - In addition to visiting the profiles, also collects data from them, such as name, surname, company, location, domain, email, etc. Enjoy! 🥳
Don’t forget the most important thing: Download the CSV file at the end of the tracking! Here you’ll find all your leads 😏.
2. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes
Now that you know who your buyer persona is and even have a list of your best leads, the next step is not to spam them with non-personalized messages or emails. Quite the contrary indeed.
Before you start developing your sales techniques, you must understand your buyer persona, and take into account all the real data such as position, sector, size of the company, geographic location, among others.
⭐ Tip:All this information will surely help you to make more personalized and closer contact actions, for example through a cold email.
Cold emailing is a good first contact action, you can use our Email Sender tool that will do all the work for you. 😉.
But before sending anything, let’s look at more sales techniques so we can send the best possible message, let’s move on!
3. Benefits come first in sales pitches
In your sales email, give a glimpse to the potential target customer of how your product or services make the user’s life easier.
⭐ Tip: Try to highlight the advantages of your product or service. Recipients of cold emails can understand the offer and understand how the product or service will benefit them.
These arguments and sales techniques will persuade the potential buyer and make the receiver take action (buy the product in this case).
4. Research and understand your potential customers
There are many ways to make your business stand out from the competition. Some great tips are:
- Understand what makes your product or service different and special.
- Research how people can benefit from using the unique features of your product.
- Your company should focus on how your product or service offering solves customers’ problems.
This is one of the sales techniques that will allow you to connect directly with potential customers at the first contact.
⭐ Tip: If you have a clear understanding of your customers’ issues, your company can easily offer them a solution that will help them. 😎.
Researching prior to email outreach will help the sales and marketing team understand the customer’s problem and easily answer how your product or service offering will be a great solution to their problems.
Once your company knows your potential buyers (because we repeat, it’s very important that they do too), your sales representatives can start performing sales techniques such as creating a personalized email to begin the conversion with the potential buyer and take them further in the sales cycle.
5. Start with specific goals
It sounds very basic, but it’s extremely important to define your objectives and to be as specific as possible. ⚠️
⭐ Tip:Setting goals in your sales techniques will keep you focused and guide the sales team in the right direction at each step.
Remember that a goal has to be realistic, achievable, deadline-driven and reliable.
Having clear sales and campaign goals will make it easier to stay focused and guide you in a positive direction.
Setting a time frame can also help you track sales progress.
Making your goal measurable will help you identify whether or not your sales techniques are successful.
6. Develop a strong value statement in your messaging
Remember, most buyers will not recognize your brand unless they find some value in your offering, and that is extraordinary in comparison to competitors.
Just so you understand, it’s just like in dating, if you have no value and you don’t communicate it, will there be a second one? Let me doubt it 🙃
Thus, it’s necessary to create a powerful and persuasive message. 😎.
⭐ Tip:Telling customer success and testimonial stories will help prospects resonate with their problem and imagine how your product will solve their problems.
7. NEVER ignore your customers’ feedback
It’s important to listen and take action when customers express their opinions about the products or services you offer. This will help you maintain a healthy relationship with them, which translates into more sales for your company.
By ignoring them, you can make the customer more frustrated and they won’t count on you again!
8.Use the right tools and software
Nowadays, it’s not a secret that marketing automation is an essential tool.
Creating a cold email strategy can provide you with a detailed map of customer behavior, which will help you with the lead nurturing process and save you valuable time.
Sales and marketing professionals can now free themselves from tedious tasks such as sending follow-ups or calling leads who have unsubscribed from emails without explanation.
Our Email Sender tool creates email marketing automation specific to your campaigns in minutes, and most importantly, improves your cold email conversion by 67% with our drip campaigns! 😏
Plus, Email Sender allows you to launch ultra-personalized and automated email campaigns that convert, for sure! 😎
9. Follow-up on a regular basis
The most common sales mistake is not following up after the initial contact 💔.
For example, if you haven’t received a reply, you can choose to send another cold email recalling the first contact you had with him or her. Let’s give you an example 😉:
Reality is the best way to get new customers and make sales is through follow-up.
⭐ Tip:If your outreach efforts are not improving results, it may be time to change your sales strategy and techniques.
10. Be persistent
Contacting potential customers requires both persistence and patience. If you’ve been trying for weeks or months without any success, it may be time to rethink your approach.
Try to find ways to build relationships with your contacts. For instance, ask your current customers for feedback to see if there are any other topics they would like to discuss.
11. Cold leads
Listen carefully 👂🏻,
If a potential lead is not interested in your product or service, put some of these sales techniques into practice, start nurturing them by sending your newsletters about product updates, key features, how your offering solves their problems, customer success stories, blogs, etc.
If you have the right products or services, your brand will be on their mind when they search for something.
And that can allow you to sell them more. B2B sales prospecting is the most vital part of the sales cycle.
BONUS: 4 Closing Sales Techniques
One thing all salespeople seek is consistency. The only thing better than closing a sale is knowing you can close the next one, too. The best way to ensure repeated success is to follow established, proven sales techniques. Once you know how to sell a product, you can repeat your process and repeat your sales.
Without any defined selling techniques, you’re just shooting in the dark. And as we’ve discussed on the blog before, all salespeople know the best way to be productive is to be organized.
As such, we’re sharing our favorite sales techniques to help you close every time.
1. Be Relatable
As humans, we crave connection with others; whenever we interact, we are constantly looking for something in common, whether consciously or subconsciously.
So, how can you use this knowledge to your advantage? Research your lead, and before writing an email or calling, jot down a few key points and possible connections.
For example: when searching for a lead’s email address through FindThatLead you find their Twitter account.
You take a brief look and see that they’ve been tweeting about a particular sports team’s recent game. When you speak to them, you can bring up sports, knowing in advance that they’ll be happy to discuss the subject.
🔥Pro Tip: Identify a customer similar to your sales lead, who had a problem but was able to get it solved thanks to your company’s tools and services. Your lead will connect with the story due to its similarity and already start to imagine themselves in the same position.
2. Closing Sales Techniques – Customer Testimonials
One of the biggest hurdles salespeople have to jump over is getting your leads to trust you and believe in what you’re selling.
What´s the best way to help your future customers trust you? Is it creating a long list of reasons why you’re the best, details about your product or service, and more? Nooooo!
One of the best ways to get your leads to trust you is not by trying to convince them yourself, but by having your current customers do that for you! How can you do that? Easy – with testimonials.
Figure out who are your happiest customers, or the customers that have gotten the most benefit, and ask them if they’d be willing to share their happy stories.
You can do it in many different formats: they could write a simple paragraph, send a quote, send a video interview recording, or you could work together with the marketing team and dedicate a special blog post to their testimonial.
3. Use the Power of Three
Three is a magic number! Don’t believe me? UCLA researchers have scientifically demonstrated that three is the optimal number of claims to make when persuading people (If you need more convincing, feel free to read the study)
The application of this sales technique is quite simple. Every time you contact a new prospect, be sure to include three main points.
For example:
- Your customer’s problem
- Your company’s solution
- Customer Testimonial
4. Close your sales on 1, 2, 3… and deal!
Well, there you have it, folks!
As awesome as these sales techniques are, they’re only useful if you have good leads to contact. Don’t forget that at FindThatLead we can help you to find anyone’s email address in just a few seconds.
What do you think about these sales techniques? Put everything you’ve learned to the test by signing up for FindThatLead!
BONUS:
The Challenge: Join this free course and I guarantee that after 5 days you will have the necessary skills to start generating B2B clients Growth Hacking and Prospecting techniques.