In this article:

Productivity Tools

1. CRM
2. Dialer
3. Template Emails
4. Screen Sharing
5. Automated Proposals and E-signatures
6. Social Media
7. Lead Generation
8. Scheduling Meetings
9. AI-Driven Sales Engagement

RELATED: WHAT 3 TOP SDR LEADERS ARE DOING RIGHT NOW

There are constantly new innovations to sales tools. Today it’s possible to check your CRM, manage relationships with your clients, and organize trip expenses entirely through mobile apps (to learn more about the latest and greatest, read Kelly Liyakasa’s “5 Emerging Sales Productivity Tools”).

However, despite these innovations, there are several sales tools that are still necessary for any company hoping to increase sales. The following tools are ones we consider the basics:

1. CRM

It may seem obvious, but having a CRM to organize your leads and information is crucial to your company’s success. There are several leading CRM companies out there, including Salesforce, Oracle, and Microsoft Dynamics. Whomever you choose to work with, finding a CRM that works with your business model is the first step to increasing your productivity and sales. You also can’t use the nifty CRM mobile apps until you have one.

2. Dialer

We don’t mean a phone. We mean a intelligent communication technology, a powerdialer, or click-to-call. XANT, Five9, and Interactive Intelligence all offer dialers for your needs. Depending on your business model, you may choose one over the other, but having a dialer is necessary in order to start calling more of the right people at the right time.

3. Template emails

Another pretty simple one. And not too hard to figure out, especially if you are using a CRM. Template emails make it easier to reach more of your leads, faster. They also make it easy for you to create killer message content, making your emails more consistent and professional. Act-On, Hubspot, Marketo, and Eloqua all offer template emails.

4. Screen Sharing

If you want to sell your product, you’ve got to be able to do remote demos. Being able to offer a demo, instantly, while on the phone with your prospect is a powerful way to get him or her interested in your product. You can’t beat the immediacy of a screen share. GoToMeeting, iMeet, and Glance are all companies that market screen sharing.

5. Automated Proposals and E-signatures:

Automating your proposal process is another simple step you can take to increase sales productivity. Consider hiring someone to create a professional proposal. Doing so will add to your company’s professionalism, as well as make the whole process more efficient. There are many proposal software companies to choose from, among them are TinderBox, Proposal Software, CallidusCloud, and Qvidian.

Another great way to speed up your sales process is through e-signatures, or electronic contracts. Instead of having to send documents to your prospects and wait for them to be returned, you can get instant approval. Docusign, EchoSign, and Sertifi all specialize in e-signatures.

6. Social Media:

This one is less a single tool and more a series of tools. Social Media (including LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, and Facebook) is one of the best ways to keep up with changes in administration or policy in your client’s company which may affect your relationship.

Social Media is also a great medium for sharing your product. To learn about how to create strong social media content, check out this article featuring 3 social media mistakes to avoid or this article about why to invest in Google+.

7. Lead Generation Productivity Tools:

No sales business would be able to generate sales without leads, and the sales process needs lead generation as a basic step.

It’s a vital aspect that creates more traffic leading to higher conversion rates. Good strategies create target groups, finding the right customer for your business.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a sophisticated system amongst many on the market. Using advanced filters, salespeople can reach their preferred leads including B2B sales, offering further information and insights of prospects. Prospective clients can also be approached on LinkedIn without having to connect directly.

8. Scheduling Meetings:

Having a system that negates the need for setting manual reminders, which can be time consuming, means less chance of missing those important meetings.

Schedulers allow for better organization, allow you to plan in advance, and distribute tasks in a smart way. They use real-time data and analytics and allocate resources based on capacity, availability, and project scope.

Tools like Calendly and AcuityScheduling are market leaders who all help to schedule meetings without the ‘back and forth’ emails.

9. AI-Driven Sales Engagement:

Salespeople are notoriously busy, so the main benefit of using an AI-driven sales engagement platform is to minimize the amount of time spent in various applications and manually inputting data in different interfaces.

Although a generic category, and incorporated into many productivity tools mentioned, AI is getting bigger and better at improving sales processes through automation and augmentation.

The XANT Enterprise Sales Engagement Platform is a great productivity tool example that delivers results with productivity, visibility, and prioritization. You can consistently accelerate your sales team’s activities, see who is contributing, and engage with the right customers

Did we get all of them? What other productivity tools do you consider essential to sales productivity? Share your thoughts in the comments below

Up Next:

• HOW TO FIND DIRECT DIAL PHONE NUMBERS WHEN PROSPECTING
• HOW TO EFFECTIVELY LEAD FROM HOME
• WHY EMAIL MARKETING IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR SALES PROCESS

In this article:

1. 1. 1. Embrace the Work From Home setup
      2. Establish a Routine
      3. Prioritize Tasks
      4. Pay Attention to Results Rather than Time
      5. Use Technology to Capture Your Work
      6. Stay Connected
      7. Listen and Learn From Calls

RELATED: 14 Helpful Tips For Working From Home While Social Distancing

7 Tips for Work From Home Sales Representatives

Embrace the Work From Home setup

First things first, you need to start with a good attitude about working from home. If you’re working from home because of unforeseen circumstances, then it may require an initial adjustment period.

Take some time to figure out what works best for you and your home situation. Make the most out of your newfound freedom, but find ways to stay motivated and goal-oriented at the same time.

Managers can try to keep track of their activities through their CRM systems. Still, it’s ultimately up to you to stay disciplined and focused. Here are some things that’ll help you make the most out of your new work environment:

• • • Identify any usual sources of distraction and address them ahead of time. 
    • Set up a dedicated workspace.
    • If you can, invest in the right office equipment like a comfortable chair and a dedicated work table.
    • Don’t skimp on your tech. Choose a fast and reliable internet provider and make sure your computer and phone are loaded with all the programs/systems you need to get your work done. 
    • Put up “do not disturb” signs if you need to.

It may take some time to get used to it, but it’s essential to embrace the strengths and opportunities that come from this setup.

Establish a Routine

If you work from home, you need to be a self-starter. Your manager can’t micromanage your activities (nor would you want them to).

Just like any other work environment, there will be some days where you’re pumped and ready for work and other days when you’re unmotivated and unfocused. In a regular work environment, working side by side with your peers makes it easier to shake it off and focus on the work.

When working from home, though, even the most disciplined workers will be tempted to goof off a little. One way to combat this is by establishing a work routine.

Your routine should include:

• • • Wake-up time 
    • Clock-in time (for work to begin)
    • Mealtimes 
    • Break times
    • Clock-out time (for work to end)

Once you get used to a routine, it’ll be easier to stay productive even on the days when you’re not in the mood. Having a daily routine also helps if your kids or other family members are at home too.

Establishing a clock-in and clock-out time helps your partner or kids know when you’re accessible and when they need to give you space to work. One of the advantages of working from home is having more control over your time, so make sure to design a schedule that works for you, your managers, and your family.

Prioritize Tasks

Once you have a daily routine in place, it’s good practice to take some time at the beginning of the day to prioritize tasks. As sales representatives, you may want to start with essential duties such as:

• • • Strategic planning
    • Prospecting
    • Calling customers 

Otherwise, you may get distracted with non-essential tasks that don’t advance sales. There are IT solutions that can help you with this. 

XANT’s Playbook has a customized scoring feature that helps make sure you spend more time prioritizing the right tasks. It even gives your managers some input so that you’re always on the same page.

RELATED: XANT Introduces Industry’s First Mobile Sales Engagement Solution

Pay Attention to Results Rather than Time

Sometimes, when people work at an office, merely showing up counts as an achievement. This isn’t the case with work from home jobs.

As a remote worker, clocking in helps you structure your day, but it isn’t enough. You need to pay more attention to results.

If you don’t get anything done by the time you clock-out, the time you spent at work that day doesn’t really count. For work from home sales representatives, results are everything. You need the discipline to focus on tasks and get things done as efficiently as possible.

Use Technology to Capture Your Work

Your manager needs to track your progress, especially when you work from home. Your manager needs to know what you’re doing and keep track of the sales you’re making. 

Without these regular and real-time updates, your manager might think that you’re not getting any work done at all. Sending in daily reports may be cumbersome, and it eats up a lot of time—time better spent making sales and connecting with potential clients. 

Thankfully, there are IT solutions that can help automate all of this. XANT’s sales solutions can help your manager stay on top of your progress. 

It automates a variety of administrative tasks that helps everyone stay on the same page. It can capture the work that you do each day so that your managers can see your real-time progress. 

This won’t only promote accountability, but it’ll help your managers assess your strengths and weaknesses. That way, your manager can provide the coaching you need so that you can keep improving even if you’re working from home.

Stay Connected

It’s easy to feel isolated in a work from home setup, especially if you aren’t used to it. When you work at an office, it’s easy to learn from your peers and managers. 

You can take a break in between calls and swap stories and strategies. These everyday exchanges are valuable, and they help keep you motivated.

Emailing and instant messaging is a convenient way to stay in touch, but they can feel impersonal. On top of that, you can only convey so much through emails or messages. 

There are communication tools, like video conferencing applications, that can help you feel more connected. Regular video meetings can help build empathy between you, your peers, and your manager. 

These touch base meetings are an excellent opportunity to pick up some best practices from your manager and peers. It’s also reassuring to learn that your co-workers share similar struggles.

It may take a little more effort to maintain these connections, but it’s worth it in the long run. Everyone needs a professional support system, even if you work from home.

Listen and Learn From Calls

When you work at an office, you have the advantage of observing your fellow sales representatives’ work. You can intuitively pick up strategies by watching top performers in action. 

This is still something you can do even if you have a remote sales job. There are IT solutions that allow you to listen in on your peers’ calls so you can learn from them. At the same time, your managers can listen in on your calls and provide real-time coaching. 

Remember, your manager and peers are great resources for professional growth. You don’t need to give this up just because you have a home-based sales job.

These tips will help you make the most out of work from home setup. With the right mindset, practices, and technology, sales representatives can remain motivated, sharp, and productive even when they are working remotely.

Up Next:

• • • How To Manage A Sales Team While You Work From Home
    • Time Management Secrets Of Billionaires
    • Sales AI: The Connection Between Artificial Intelligence And Sales

In this article:

1. 1. 1. Ensure Outreach Sales Methods Are Factored into Your Strategy
      2. What is Outreach Sales?
      3. Maximize Inbound Outreach Sales Through Marketing
      4. Adopt a Customer-Centric Outbound Outreach Sales Method
      5. Use Up-To-Date Outreach Software
      6. Maintain Outreach Sales Engagement Platforms

RELATED: KNOW YOUR SALES ORGANISATION INSIDE AND OUT: 7 WAYS TO INCREASE VISIBILITY

Outreach Sales Tactics That Deliver Results

Ensure Outreach Sales Methods Are Factored into Your Strategy

Buyers are now equipped with more resources than ever: – word of mouth recommendations, online reviews, search engine research, and social media groups. Regardless of product or service, people can now make an informed decision about whom they provide their customers.

Therefore, businesses need to adapt to market behaviors, and sales teams should also change to incorporate best sales practices that boost leads and sales generation. What previously were good enough sales methods, might now be out of date practices.

What is Outreach Sales?

Sales outreach is essentially the process of reaching out to engage with customers and prospects in a profound manner. Customers can be new prospects or past clients who are no longer doing business.

Cold calling, in an attempt to sell goods or services, is a relatively outdated and generally unwanted approach. Successful salespeople need to reach out with the right message, in the correct manner, at the appropriate time.

Maximize Inbound Outreach Sales Through Marketing

An inbound outreach sales method is one that attracts prospective customers or leads to you. Usually, some form of marketing has attracted the client who is expressing an interest in your service or product. The client wants to know more and to be contacted by the salesforce. An example of this might be an advert in the press or social media.

Adopt a Customer-Centric Outbound Outreach Sales Method

An outbound outreach sales method is when the salesforce seeks out prospects. This action is necessary to get in touch with new customers. However, it can be harder to master if the clients are not expecting contact.

For sales teams to close sales, they need to establish good relationships with their potential clients or leads and deliver excellent sales cadence. Cultivating a connection with a stranger and building rapport with customers is difficult, and the key is to make them see your value. Having the right outbound outreach sales staff is crucial; people who can have confidence, ability to think on their feet, and who are positive and upbeat.

Outbound outreach sales methods are instrumental in making that first client contact, and we all know first impressions last. Both inbound and outbound outreach sales methods serve different purposes within the sales process, and a combination of both ways is crucial to business growth.

Use Up-To-Date Outreach Software

Door to door salespeople may still come knocking, but nowadays they are generally a sales force of the past. In the digital age, most sales contact is made through email and other digital platforms, with phone contact still a necessary tool for personalized communication.

Changing towards a mostly digital methodology has altered the sales process and, in many ways, has had a significant impact on the way salespeople conduct outreach. New methods of engagement can include email, text, social media, and targeted advertising on tv.

Having the right outreach sales tools can support your sales force to close more deals and, in the long run, create more revenue and growth. Having many channels to engage with customers will connect you quicker.

Maintain Outreach Sales Engagement Platforms

Maintaining an accurate contact database of potential buyers will save time in the long run. Time can be wasted phoning defunct numbers and not getting hold of the right customers. Previous clients who have gone cold are a large part of this group, so regular customer service calls are a good idea. Maintain updated contact information where possible and invest in intelligent software that can pull data from other resources.

Outreach Alternative Methods

• • Having a robust call script, particularly when starting out or for new staff, is an excellent way to reference essential aspects that need to be conveyed to customers. It’s best not to read from the script and instead make the conversation as natural as possible.
  • Some businesses buy leads when they haven’t formed a reliable database of contacts.
  • The nature of cold calling means sales teams will have a high percentage of rejections when phoning and is a natural part of the job. Staff must take the denials with a pinch of salt and, as a learning point, to move on to the next.

RELATED: 15 SALES MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE AND CRMS USED BY SALES TEAMS

Which methods of outreach sales do you or you use? What tactics could you improve on? Share them with us in the comments section below.

Up Next:

• • • HOW TO CREATE AN EFFECTIVE SALES CALL SCRIPT OUTLINE
    • THE TOP 3 SKILLS NEEDED FOR SALES DEVELOPMENT REPS W/TYLER WICKS @HPE
    • XANT INTRODUCES INDUSTRY’S FIRST MOBILE SALES ENGAGEMENT SOLUTION

RELATED: 14 Helpful Tips For Working From Home While Social Distancing

7 Tips on How to Manage A Sales Team Remotely

In this article:

1. Promote Open Communication
2. Invest in the Right Technology
3. Prepare Mobile Solutions
4. Reinforce Best Practices
5. Provide Frequent Feedback
6. Prioritize Organization
7. Motivate Your Team

Promote Open Communication

Consistent and open communication is a must when you’re managing a sales team remotely. To do this, you need to know how to maximize your online and offline communication channels. 

It’s more efficient to streamline communication channels. Still, it’s always best to consult your team before you make any hard and fast decisions. Ask them which applications, platforms, and offline communication modes work best for them.

At the same time, share your own preference with your team. Don’t forget to inform them about the best way to get in touch with you. 

Working from home may have its advantages, but there’s a great risk for communication gaps. So in this context, it’s better to over-communicate.

Tip: Remind your team that you’re there to support them. Encourage them to ask and clarify if they have any questions

Invest in the Right Technology

Make it easier for you and your team by investing in the right technology. There are IT sales team management tools that can automate administrative tasks and keep everyone on the same page. 

When you invest in technology like this, it can help improve your team’s operational efficiency. On top of that, it also helps improve visibility. 

If you choose the right IT solution and artificial intelligence, you can get real-time data and metrics. This can help you give your team timely feedback and course-correct your sales strategies.

Prepare Mobile Solutions

Working from home is sometimes a misnomer because you may not always be at home. Sometimes, other pressing matters come up, and you need to be away from your computer at home. 

When this happens, you don’t have to compromise your connection with your team. These days, you can load up most smartphones with most of your business essentials. 

There are mobile IT solutions that can help keep you connected even when you’re on the go. That way, you don’t miss out on anything important.

Reinforce Best Practices

When your entire team is working from home, you need to make sure everyone’s on the same page when it comes to their sales strategies. Your organization may be tempted to do their own thing, especially if they’re used to closer supervision. 

So when you’re managing your sales team remotely, it’s important to remind them and reinforce best sales practices. Remind them of your sales strategy, focus on quality leads, and update their pipeline regularly.

RELATED: 11 Sales Team Management Tips For Success

Provide Frequent Feedback

Even in a regular office setting, good managers give their team regular feedback. When you’re managing your team remotely, regular feedback is even more critical. 

In any scenario, feedback is most effective when it’s metrics-driven and given on time. This is where your IT solutions really come in handy. When you have the proper analytics at your fingertips, you can equip your team with the information they need to become more efficient and productive salespeople.

On top of that, there are also IT solutions that will allow you to listen in on your team’s sales calls even if you’re in two different places. With the help of messaging apps, you can do real-time coaching to help them land the sale. 

It’s also equally important to foster a sense of trust between you and your team. They’ll respond more positively to feedback if they know that your goal is to help them. That’s why it’s also essential to provide positive feedback. 

Being appreciative of their strengths is just as important as identifying their weaknesses. It’s also best practice to have one-on-one feedbacking sessions on top of a general feedbacking meeting with the entire team. 

During one-on-one sessions, you can give specific feedback to each of your team members. In these sessions, you can help them identify opportunities for growth and guide their next steps. 

On the other hand, feedbacking sessions with the entire team is a chance to share any lessons you might have picked up from your top performers. It’s also an opportunity to troubleshoot pressing issues.

All of these feedbacking sessions can be done remotely if you choose the proper online platform. Various video conferencing applications can easily help with this.

Prioritize Organization

Regardless of the work environment, a team manager has to juggle the needs of their team and the goals of their company. This can be trickier when you’re managing your team from afar, so it’s essential to be organized. 

The manager needs to maintain a sense of consistency and make sure everything is in check and on track. If the rest of your team is working from home as well, you need to be flexible and set realistic expectations. 

It’s always best to have a concrete plan but be ready to adjust operational strategies along the way. For example, if the situation calls for it, you may have to be more flexible with your team’s work schedule. 

IT solutions can help keep your team focused on their daily goals and tasks, even if you’re not working at the same time. These tech-based solutions can also help you avoid micromanagement.

What is micromanagement? It’s a management style where there are close monitoring and high control over subordinates. Studies show that micromanagement leads to lower productivity and higher staff turnover. It’s always best to foster a culture of mutual trust between you and your team.

Motivate Your Team

It’s important to keep your team motivated, especially if they’re working remotely. It’s easy for employees to feel isolated and unmotivated, especially if they’re used to the hustle and bustle of an office. 

It’s the manager’s job to ease this transition and help the team keep their eyes on the prize. But how do you go about motivating a remote sales team?

There are extrinsic and intrinsic ways to motivate your team. Promotions and bonuses are effective extrinsic motivators, but your management style can impact your team’s intrinsic motivation. 

As you coach and manage your team remotely, try to do it with empathy. As a manager, it helps if you can see things from someone else’s perspective.

When you understand where your team is coming from, you can help sort out issues more effectively. Practicing empathy also helps foster a more harmonious work environment, especially in a diverse work setting. Remember, studies show that employees with low morale are less competitive and productive. So it’s important to consider their well-being and make sure they’re motivated.

You may encounter unique circumstances, like a global pandemic, that’ll force everyone to work from home for some time. When this happens, there are things you can do to keep your team productive and engaged. It may require some adjustments, but the right IT solutions can help ease the transition and maximize your resources.

What challenges do you encounter when you manage your sales team from home? Share them with us in the comments section below.

Up Next: 

• Do You Know What Your Sales Team Is Doing With Inbound Leads?
• How To Hack Your Team’s Sales Motivation (Or How To Motivate Your Sales Team)
• How To Master Pre-Call Planning With Jeff Boyle At Cision (PODCAST)

RELATED: Cold Calling the CEO – 7 Tips to Get Your Foot in the Founder’s Door

In this article:

1. Cold Calling Tips for Successful Lead Generation
2. Cold Calling Is Dead: Does Cold Calling Work Today?
3. Cold Calling Rules Today
4. Cold Calling Motivation for Sales Teams: What Sales Managers Can Do to Motivate Reps
5. Free eBook: The Art of Cold Calling and the Science of Contact Ratios

Seven Rules of Cold Calling and Responding to Leads

Click here to jump to the infographic.

Cold Calling Tips for Successful Lead Generation

When is the best time to cold call potential clients?

When it comes to cold calling a prospect, there are certain rules that should always be followed. Many of these rules came into existence due to the Lead Response Management Research Study, a breakthrough report that changed the industry.

Cold Calling Definition: The act of calling a potential customer whom you’ve never had contact with before.

The response time, or how quickly you call someone back, should be a no-brainer, but unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Later on, the same study was repeated, on a much larger scale, and similar results were found.

Below are the seven rules of cold calling and responding to leads.

1. Immediacy

The best thing you can do is contact a lead within five minutes of them submitting a web form to present your product or service. If a sales rep doesn’t respond fast enough within 30 minutes, then the chances of contact and qualifying the lead drop 100 times.

You want to make sure that you are there right when a prospect’s interest in your product or service is still fresh. That way, you will be able to lead them further along the sales funnel faster.

2. Persistency

Another one of the cold calling techniques sales managers and salespeople should follow is this strategy: don’t give up!

Sales reps need to make between six and nine phone calls before they stop. Sadly, the majority of sales reps out there are only making one to two calls per lead before calling it quits.

The contact ratio is between 10% and 11%, and with that in mind, the sales rep who is making only one or two calls is only going to reach 10% to 20% of the leads. A word of advice for cold callers to increase your chance of getting positive results — be patient and persistent!

3. Optimize

Sometimes, calling people back isn’t the best idea.

Depending on your company and your customers, some times are better than others to call at. Try to figure out when it’s a good time to start calling prospects, especially if you’re targeting business owners.

They usually have a very slim window of opportunity for cold calling. Finding out the best time to cold call can really help your sales process.

4. Time of Day

If there’s one thing that can hinder you, it’s calling at the wrong time.

Some of the best times to call are between 8:00 to 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 to 5:00 p.m., assuming you’re calling within your time zone (if not, then adjust for where you’re calling). Try to determine when it’s a bad time for your prospective customer and never call during that time!

This is why it’s important to do your research about a prospect before you even start to call them. That way, you don’t waste your time trying to connect with an unavailable prospect.

5. Day of Week

Want to know when the best day of the week is to call? Guess what, it’s not Tuesday (it’s actually the worst!).

Both Wednesday and Thursday are some of the best days to call people, believe it or not! However, it might be different for your own company, so you’ll just have to run some tests and find out which days of the week are the best and worst for you to be making calls.

You can simply collect data by running a trial yourself and seeing the days when you’re making more contact with prospects. After all, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to cold calling.

RELATED: A Guide To Cold Calling Basics

6. Get Direct Dial Numbers

The best way to reach someone is if you have the phone number that is best to reach them at. By making sure your sales reps have mastered this technique, you’ll find that their ability to contact leads will go up!

Sometimes, the numbers you get aren’t for the decision maker of the organization. If this is the case, it might take a longer time to actually get somewhere with that company.

Knowing who you’re calling and the role they play in the organization is useful information that’ll help you qualify leads.

7. Local Presence

This is a technology tool rather than one of the other cold calling techniques.

Local presence is when you are calling leads from one side of the country to the other, and yet, on the lead’s phone, they see a local phone number. If you want your lead to pick up when you call, an area code that shares their area code will increase the chances of them answering.

XANT‘s tool, Playbooks, offers Global Local Presence to calls placed to the U.S., Canada, and Europe.

Cold Calling Is Dead: Does Cold Calling Work Today?

Some articles these days have headlines such as “Cold Calling is Dead,” or the like. Among the reasons they include to justify this are:

• Some claim the younger generation don’t want to answer unsolicited calls, especially from a number they’re not familiar with. This makes it hard to cold call.
• Another reason cited for the “demise” of cold calling is because the caller doesn’t want to make what they’re scared might be viewed as “nuisance calls.”

If the reps themselves don’t want to do the cold sales calls and no one wants to receive calls unsolicited, then is cold calling really dead? Not quite.

Instead, it’s safer to say that cold calling has changed.

Cold Calling Rules Today

How has cold calling changed? Well, it’s simply moved one step down the sales process.

• Unwanted telemarketing calls are no longer your best bet for connecting with prospects. Sales professionals need to learn that sales prospecting won’t go any better for them if they continue going for cold calls as the first step in their sales process.
• Instead of an outright cold call, you should “warm” things up a bit first. So, the more modern take of a cold call is a warm call.
• Before you connect with a prospect through a call, you should establish an initial connection with them first. You can do this either through a cold email or even through a message on social media.

Cold Calling Motivation for Sales Teams: What Sales Managers Can Do to Motivate Reps

Aside from changing how you normally do your cold calling campaign by moving it a little further down the sales process, sales leaders should also motivate your sales team to make more of these calls.

Since a lot of newer sales reps might be more hesitant of making calls, you can encourage them to do so in many ways.

• You can do it yourself, then show them how to do it. Demonstrate how you’d do it, which will give them an idea of what they should be doing when it’s them on the line. Some reps just need a little bit of guidance to give their confidence a boost.
• Another way to motivate sales reps is to make more cold calls is by showing them the statistics that cold calling still works. Once you’ve provided them with evidence that cold calling still works, they’ll feel more inclined to do it, too.
• Sharing the value of research to them. Reps may feel demotivated to do cold calling since they’re scared of rejection or bad conversations. However, if they do their research on the lead or company first, it’ll be easier for them to develop a rapport with the person on the other end of the line.

Don’t forget to download, save, or share this handy infographic for reference:

Check out the video below to learn more about 5 rules of cold calling and responding to leads:

So when is the best time to cold call? I’m sure there are other ways out there to increase the success with cold calling leads and prospects, and what I have shared with you are just some of them.

I hope this guide to cold calling helps you understand how to make the most of your cold calling efforts so that you can successfully generate leads and get more conversions.

Free eBook: The Art of Cold Calling and the Science of Contact Ratios

Gain access to cold calling best practices from industry experts Ken Krogue and Kraig Kleeman.

Get Cold Calling eBook Now

What are some of the ways you have found that have increased your own success? Share your own cold calling tips with us in the comments section below!

Up Next:

• Cold Calling is NOT Dead: How We Built 1.1M in Pipeline Using the Phone
• What Is Cold Calling? | Everything You Need To Know
• Salesperson Skills Of Top Performers [INFOGRAPHIC]

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on March 22, 2013, and has been updated for quality and relevancy.

RELATED: Social Selling And The Law Of Reciprocity

In this article:

1. Why Asking a Good Question in Sales Is Important
2. Open Questions
3. Closed Questions
4. Follow-Up Questions
5. Categories of Questions to Ask
6. 5 Ways to Ask Better Sales Questions
7. The Value of Asking Questions

Best Practices In Asking Questions In Sales

Why Asking a Good Question in Sales Is Important

Asking incisive sales questions is essential for success.

The questions you ask help you uncover buyer needs and desires, connect with them, and demonstrate your expertise.

By asking questions, you can discover the buyer’s buying process. It also allows you to qualify the sale and ensures that you and the buyer are on the same page at any given time.

A lot of sellers do too much talking and presenting, then when they do ask the buyer questions, it’s always the same old “What keeps you up at night?” clichés.

The questions you ask not only provide you with a treasure trove of important information, but they can also differentiate you from the sea of sellers vying for the buyer’s attention.

To help you make the most out of your buyer meetings, let me share with you the different types of questions you can ask. Here, you will also learn why they’re essential to use in your sales conversations.

Open Questions

Using thought-provoking open questions for a great sales conversation

Open-Ended Question Definition: A type of question that can’t be answered with a simple “yes” or “no.” These types of questions require further explanation to be answered.

Open-ended sales questions get buyers talking. These are the most commonly talked about types of sales questions, and they play an essential role in a conversation.

You need to understand what’s going on in the buyer’s company, their needs and desires, and their expectations so that you can propose the best solution.

There are no “correct answers” with open questions. If you need more information about a particular point, you can ask follow-up questions.

Asking open-ended questions is a great way to get vital information. The problem is, too many sellers rely on these questions alone while there are other kinds of questions that can be just as valuable.

Closed Questions

Closed-Ended Question Definition: A type of question that will elicit a “yes” or “no” response.

Closed-ended questions are rarely talked about in sales, and they are often shunned. After all, your goal as a seller is to get the buyer to open up, right?

Asking questions with yes or no answers surely won’t accomplish that — or can they?

Closed-ended questions are particularly helpful for diagnosis and ruling things out (or in). You can gather a great deal of information by asking a series of closed-ended questions.

For example, when talking to a sales leader, you can ask them the following:

• Are you convinced that all your salespeople maximize the revenue and business you can capture from your existing accounts?
• Have you ever thought your sellers might not be knowledgeable enough to be comfortable or credible talking about the other products or services your company offers?
• Do you think your team leaves opportunities on the table by not uncovering needs that are actually there?
• Are your salespeople able to recommend the right solutions?
• Do your people waste their time and energy on leads that aren’t likely to pan out, or provide the revenue or profit that you need?
• Do your sellers get beat up and cave during negotiations?

This is only a sample of great questions you can ask. As you can see, asking specific closed-ended questions can help you determine what’s going on relatively quickly.

It also gets the buyer thinking about the different areas that could affect their sales team’s overall performance. They might not have properly pondered these types of closed questions before.

By asking questions like these, you can quickly hone in on what’s essential and explore further. If you want to turn these into open questions, simply ask, “How so?” after they answer. That is one of the many follow-up questions you can use.

You don’t have to look for great questions to ask every time. You’ll be able to discover which ones are good once they answer questions. From there, you’ll be able to assess the client’s situation and offer them the product or service that best fits their needs later on.

RELATED: Five Myths Of Prospecting

Follow-Up Questions

Don’t take what your buyer says at face value. Ask them to dig deeper.

Question why they think a certain way. Ask them how they plan to accomplish what they intend.

Follow-up questions allow you to get to the underlying cause of a problem so you can address the root of the issue rather than just symptoms. It’s extremely important that you understand the full picture of what’s going on in order to craft the most comprehensive and impactful solution.

You can only do this by asking follow-up questions and gaining greater insight.

Follow-up questions can also push buyers to think in a different way. They may be basing the direction they want to take on a set of assumptions, and you know that one of their assumptions is false.

Only by digging into the topic can you understand why they’re thinking the way they are, then you can steer them in the right direction. They can be leading questions to help you understand the situation better.

Lastly, follow-up questions show that you’re listening and you’re engaged in the conversation. You can demonstrate your expertise and build your credibility by sharing insights on how you’ve seen other companies address a similar problem.

All these are important elements to win the sale.

Categories of Questions to Ask

Asking useful questions for better sales conversations

Aside from the types of questions previously discussed, it’s also important to note the areas wherein you need to ask questions. The purpose of asking questions isn’t only to uncover needs, though that’s a major part of it.

Think about the questions you need to ask across the RAIN Selling methodology for leading masterful sales conversations:

• Problem and Possibility — The “needs discovery” questions are always essential to find out the buyer’s aspirations and afflictions.
• Process — If you don’t uncover the buying process, you will have trouble qualifying the sale, facilitating the purchase, and actually getting a win.
• Page — These confirming types of questions ensure that you and the buyer are doing the right things at any time in the sale so that you’re “on the same page.”
• Perception — At various times you should ask questions to check the buyer’s perception about how things are going. Sample questions include:
  • Is this discussion meeting your expectations?
  • Does this solution make sense to you?
  • How is the process progressing on your end?
  • Does anyone seem to be hedging, and do we need to get them on board?

It’s important to ask questions in each of these categories. If you want to know which specific questions to ask, check out 50 Powerful Sales Questions.

5 Ways to Ask Better Sales Questions

1. Ask Open and Closed Questions in the Right Order

Open-ended and closed questions can help you but, if you haphazardly incorporate them in your sales script, it may just be counter-productive. Thus, you should learn the right timing to ask each type of question.

When Do You Ask an Open-Ended Question?

Asking an open-ended question is best during the beginning and in the middle of the conversation. That way, you can keep the conversation with your potential customer going.

When Do You Ask a Closed Question?

Given the nature of a closed question, it can depict a sense of finality to the conversation. If you’re not careful, it can make the conversation seem cut and dry.

Therefore, if you plan on asking closed questions, you should probably only do it if:

• You ask them in succession, like a diagnosis.
• You’re nearing the end of the conversation.

That way, you don’t end up closing off the conversation sooner than you’ve planned.

2. Ask Questions One at a Time

Sometimes, sales reps end up asking probing questions all at the same time. Their usual justification is that the questions are somewhat related to one another.

However, this can be frustrating for your prospect because they wouldn’t know which question you want them to answer. Thus, it’s more ideal to ask questions one at a time.

Just make sure you ask related questions within a close range of one another. In that way, the conversation is cohesive and you don’t make things difficult for your prospect.

3. Adapt Your Questions to the Conversation, Not the Other Way Around

You know you’re asking great questions if the prospect doesn’t feel like you’re leading up to a sales pitch.

Don’t hyperfocus on making a sale, since this conversation is also an opportunity for you to find out whether your products or services fit them and whether they fit you.

Overall, you’re there to give your prospects a solution to their problems.

If you have a sales script, avoid getting caught up in it. After all, your interview questions should be something you use to supplement the conversation, not to dictate it.

At its very core, it’s still a conversation between two people, so be in that moment and respond to what’s happening.

4. Ask Questions, Even If They’re Not (Directly) Related to Your Sales Pitch

If you’re not used to talking to your prospects without a sales script, then you may tend to only ask questions related to your product or service. This isn’t the most effective way to ask questions in your conversations.

To make the conversation more engaging, you need to have a genuine curiosity about your client. Be curious about anything they’re involved in.

Ask questions about their opinion on something that’s unrelated to your sales pitch. That way, you can get a better understanding of who you’re talking to.

Learning more about who you’re talking to will help you ask better questions. At the same time, you’ll be able to create more insightful questions, even without a script.

5. Avoid Following-Up Your Sales Question with Your Own Answer

Of course, you’d want to brand your product or service as a solution to their problems. However, that doesn’t mean you have to solve their problems with your answers on-the-spot.

When asking questions, don’t be impatient and let them think about their answers. Even if you think what you’re offering can help them figure out a response, it’s best to let the question hang in the air.

It is a conversation, after all, so let it flow. Let the pauses be part of it instead of it being something you want to fill.

The Value of Asking Questions

Sometimes, all you need to do is ask one question, and the buyer will share all the information you need.

More often than not, you’ll need to lead several lines of inquiry to get the full picture. Don’t limit yourself to one type of question. Conducting an interview with a potential client should help you understand the whole story.

Leverage the three types to cover each of the key categories. This will allow you to lead the best conversations and ultimately win more sales.

Asking questions is a vital part of a salesperson’s job. This will help you, and the buyer, figure out if you’re a good fit for each other.

Knowing what kinds of questions you need to ask will help you better understand your buyer and their needs. Armed with this knowledge, you will be able to serve your clients in the best way.

Among the types of questions discussed, which one do you use most often and why? We’d love to hear from you in the comments section below.

Up Next:

• Stop Pitching — Start Solving Problems For Your Customers
• 5 Best Practices To Deal With Phone Anxiety As A Sales Rep
• How to Win at Sales Development – 27 Tips from the Experts

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on February 6, 2019, and has been updated for quality and relevancy.

RELATED: Only 28% Of Business Deals Are Forecasted Accurately, Shows New Research

In this article:

1. Creating Sales Best Practices Based on Sales Data
   1. Do Bonuses Enhance Sales Productivity? A Dynamic Structural Analysis of Bonus-Based Compensation Plans
      1. What They Did
      2. What They Discovered
      3. Key Research Sales Takeaway
   2. Rethinking the Extraverted Ideal: The Ambivert Advantage
      1. What They Did
      2. What They Discovered
      3. Key Sales and Market Research Takeaway
   3. Drivers Of Sales Performance: A Contemporary Meta-Analysis. Have Salespeople Become Knowledge Brokers?
      1. What They Did
      2. What They Discovered
      3. Key Takeaway
   4. The Influence of Goal Orientation and Self-Regulation Tactics on Sales Performance
      1. What They Did
      2. What They Discovered
      3. Key Takeaway
2. Getting Sales Down to a Science With Sales Lead Research

Sales Analysis | Using Data to Help Teams Sell More and Sell Smarter

Creating Sales Best Practices Based on Sales Data

Want to know what makes a high-performing sales team? Science offers valuable insights for sales leaders at companies of all sizes.

Using data as a starting point, sales managers can create easy to use guides for sales best practices. Aside from that, they can also help their teams sell more and sell smarter.

Here are the key findings from four fascinating sales research papers, covering:

• Sales compensation and bonuses
• Personality traits of top performers
• Key performance indicators
• Performance goals vs. learning goals

1. Do Bonuses Enhance Sales Productivity? A Dynamic Structural Analysis of Bonus-Based Compensation Plans

You want to improve sales, and you want your team to crush it. At the same time, your team also wants to crush it, but only if they’re compensated appropriately.

But what sort of carrot should you dangle in front of your sales reps to bring out their inner sales superstar?

Do bonuses actually inspire salespeople to go above and beyond, or do they make no difference in the long run?

And is it better to offer smaller, quarterly bonuses, or one big bonus at the end of every year?

Business scientists from Yale and Harvard tackled this critical question in their Do Bonuses Enhance Sales Productivity? study.

What They Did

The researchers examined 348 salespeople at a Fortune 500 company from 1999 to 2001.

The company sells a wide range of equipment, from cheap machines purchased by small businesses to massively complex instruments that cost six figures.

They tracked the performance of each salesperson, then they compared that information against the compensation structure.

What They Discovered

The main discovery during their sales analysis was that the promise of a bonus does actually motivate salespeople and increase revenue. Specifically, when used with a compensation plan that included a base salary, commissions.

Additionally, there should also be bonuses for sales reps. These bonuses are the quarterly bonuses, annual bonuses, and overachievement bonuses that help create inspired salespeople.

In fact, it inspired them so much that they were able to raise revenue 17.9% over salespeople who were commission-only.

Additionally, the sales analysis report also found that quarterly bonuses are more effective than annual bonuses.

“In the absence of quarterly bonuses, failure in the early periods to meet targets cause agents to fall behind more often than in the presence of quarterly bonuses. Thus, the quarterly bonus serves as a valuable sub-goal that helps the sales force stay on track in achieving its overall goal; such incentives are especially valuable to low performers,” the paper explains.

They also uncovered a fascinating fact about the behavior of salespeople. When they’re far away from a quota, they tend to give up.

However, when they burst through a quota, they rarely stop there. Especially if your team is offered bonuses for overachievement.

Key Research Sales Takeaway

If you want your salespeople to reach for the stars, you’ll need to build a bonus structure to help launch them there. Preferably one that rewards them every quarter.

Although informal rewards are acceptable every once in a while, they aren’t a replacement for monetary rewards like bonuses.

Aside from that, your comp plan should include accelerators that encourage and reward overachievement.

2. Rethinking the Extraverted Ideal: The Ambivert Advantage

Everyone knows how salespeople appear in movies and in the imaginations of people who don’t talk to actual salespeople that often.

They’re slick hucksters with boundless confidence who can work a room with ease and persuade anyone to do anything. They’re, in a word, extroverts.

What is an extrovert? An extrovert is someone who takes energy from the presence of other people.

Basically, people believe that if you want to thrive as a sales professional, you have to be a bit of an extrovert.

But is that too simplistic?

A report published in the journal Psychological Science suggests so.

Despite a lot of research into the topic, no one has been able to find a strong correlation between high extroversion and sales performance.

Rethinking The Extraverted Ideal: The Ambivert Advantage proposes that the business world has been thinking about sales personalities the wrong way.

What They Did

The author of the study, Adam M. Grant, sent a personality questionnaire to outbound call center representatives. He examined the answers from the 340 employees who filled out the survey in full.

From the answers, the employees were assigned a level of extroversion on a scale of 1.0 to 7.0. In the scale, 1 will be the highest level of introversion, and 7 will be the highest level of extroversion.

What They Discovered

The introverts in this study earned an average hourly revenue of $120.10. The extroverts earned an average of $125.19 per hour.

However, the “ambiverts,” those who scored between 3.75 and 5.50 on the personality test, blew both groups out of the water. Data analysis shows that they were earning an average of $154.77.

Additionally, those who scored a “perfect” ambivert score of 4.0 earned an average of $208.34.

Grant observes that, while sales require socializing and assertiveness, it also requires the salesperson to consider the “needs, interests, and values of customers.”

In this case, ambiverts have the most advantage. This is because ambiverts have enough extroversion to seek out prospects and get their attention.

On the other hand, they have enough introversion to consider how their behavior and words affect others. This one-two combo makes them the ideal sales performer.

Key Sales and Market Research Takeaway

Stereotypes about salespeople may be all wrong. Trend analysis shows that star performers aren’t always the brashest, loudest people on the sales floor.

Sales data shows that they’re often people who love socializing but are reflective enough to sympathize with the needs of clients. Thus, a balance between extroversion and introversion are valuable traits for sales operations.

RELATED: Case Study: Fortune 500 Company Uses AI To Boost Revenue 28% In 3 Months

3. Drivers Of Sales Performance: A Contemporary Meta-Analysis. Have Salespeople Become Knowledge Brokers?

What factors influence sales performance most of all? Is it a salesperson’s mindset, or is it their selling ability?

“Selling” is often categorized as a skill or a talent, but really it’s a collection of skills.

However, which selling-related skills are most vital for performance? Also, which skills are overrated?

In this sales trend analysis and report, you’ll find which set of skills matter the most.

What They Did

In Drivers Of Sales Performance, the researchers examined a broad swath of published research from 1982 to 2008. For the sales data analysis and report, they looked at the effect of around 20 performance indicators.

Then, they identified the performance indicators that actually have the most significant impact on sales success.

What They Discovered

Based on the analysis report, they found that five factors significantly correspond to sales performance.

1. Selling-Related Knowledge

According to sales analytics, having a set of knowledge of sales had the most significant impact. The researchers discovered that the relationship between sales performance and selling-related knowledge, when measured as a standardized coefficient, is .28.

Selling-related knowledge simply refers to a salesperson’s ability to size up a sales situation. Someone with a high amount of selling experience can answer critical questions.

For example: Who are the best prospects? Who are the real decision-makers?

What solutions are the prospects really looking for?

Having the answers to these questions makes a salesperson better at constructing strategy. This makes them better overall at selling.

2. Degree Of Adaptiveness

The relationship between the degree of adaptiveness and sales performance is .27.

Does the salesperson make the identical pitch every time? On the other hand, do they adapt their pitch to the prospect?

Salespeople who have displayed a high degree of adaptiveness were found to be more successful. The reason being that they show responsiveness towards each client that they deal with.

Adaptiveness makes an experience with a salesperson feel more personal. Thus, this may be contributing to their successes with their potential customer.

3. Role Ambiguity

Role ambiguity is a lack of clarity about your role. This was the only factor in the top five to show a negative correlation with sales performance. The significance was calculated at -.25.

When salespeople don’t know what they ought to do, they (understandably) perform much worse. After all, this significantly hinders their ability to adapt.

Aside from that, ambiguity isn’t directly related to selling-knowledge at all. Thus, the sales rep’s performance and sales strategy will suffer when they have role ambiguity.

4. Cognitive Aptitude

Cognitive aptitude is raw brainpower. How well can the salesperson think, use words, and understand numbers?

In this case, the significance here was measured at .23. This proved to be necessary, but not the most essential factor for successful salespeople.

5. Work Engagement

How enthusiastic and motivated is the salesperson? Not surprisingly, salespeople who threw themselves into their job performed much better.

Additionally, this factor was found to have an identical amount of significance as cognitive aptitude.

The researchers state that this model can account for 32% of the variance in sales performance.

Key Takeaway

The ideal salesperson understands the sales process inside and out, is flexible, knows exactly what is expected of them, is smart, and loves what they’re doing.

Data from the analysis has shown that knowledge is a potent tool in sales. Thus, you should try and research as much as possible about your target market.

4. The Influence of Goal Orientation and Self-Regulation Tactics on Sales Performance

No one knows the importance of goals better than salespeople. However, what kinds of sales goals really drive revenue?

The Influence of Goal Orientation and Self-Regulation Tactics on Sales Performance tested two kinds of goal orientations against each other.

The first is performance goals, or goals that achieve specific outcomes. These are outer goals.

People who value performance goals want to hit big numbers that impress their managers and colleagues.

The second is learning goals, or goals to achieve a certain level of skill or knowledge. These are inner goals.

What They Did

The study examined salespeople from a medical supplies distributor in the Southwest. During a quarterly meeting, the sales team completed a questionnaire that asked them about their goal orientation and self-regulation tactics.

The researchers then compared their answers to how the salespeople actually performed by the end of the quarter. They also tested how well the salespeople performed on three key self-regulation tactics: goal setting, effort, and planning.

What They Discovered

Surprisingly, a focus on performance goals was not positively related to sales performance and self-regulation.

However, those who focused on learning goals performed much better.

In other words, those who were dedicated to growing their talents outshined those who merely wanted to put up big numbers.

According to the abstract, “a focus on skill development, even for a veteran workforce, is likely to be associated with high performance.”

The learning goal orientation was positively related to the level of goal setting, with a standardized coefficient of .30. However, performance goal orientation was not, with a standardized coefficient of .11.

The metrics also show that people who valued learning goals also put in more effort.

Those with a performance orientation fared a little better when it came to territory and account planning. The researchers actually found that it had a positive relationship in these areas.

Territory planning had a standardized coefficient of .17, and for account planning, it was .20.

However, the relationship was much stronger between learning orientation and planning. The standardized coefficient for the relationship between learning and territory planning was calculated at .44.

On the other hand, for account planning, it is .37.

Why is this?

According to the researchers, “Individuals with performance goal orientations view a challenging task as a threat because there is the risk of failure that would demonstrate their inadequate ability.”

On the other hand, “Individuals with learning goal orientations … view a challenging task as an opportunity for growth and development.”

Key Takeaway

If you want your team to do their best, it’s not enough to give them ambitious quotas and praise their success. You should also provide training opportunities and give them opportunities to grow professionally and intellectually.

Your most valuable team members are the ones who are humble enough to know that they don’t know everything. However, they still need to be ambitious enough to stretch themselves at every opportunity.

If a team member relies too much on external recognition, it may stifle their ambitiousness. Fear of a challenge may deter them from taking on more complicated tasks.

Thus, they must be encouraged to reach their sales target because they want to grow and improve. Not just to get the recognition and praise of others.

Getting Sales Down to a Science With Sales Lead Research

Sales leaders usually draw from three sources to make decisions for their teams: their experience, their gut, and hard data.

The next time you’re unsure of how to guide your team, you can turn to the data in these four valuable sales research studies for answers.

After all, acting on a gut instinct may be okay sometimes. However, it might more productive and less risky to act based on sales strategies that have been proven by science and data to work.

Free Inside Sales Industry Research

Gain access to additional inside sales industry research, including the original Lead Response Management Study.

Get Research Now

Which of the sales strategies mentioned in these studies will you use for your sales team? Let us know why and how you think this will impact your team’s performance in the comments section below. 

Up Next:

• Top Sales & Marketing Priorities For 2019: AI And Big Data, Revealed By Survey
• Artificial Intelligence Solves Sales Challenges, But Not Widely Accessible, Study Shows
• How Chatbots Are Changing The Way We Sell W/ Billy Bateman @Chatfunnels

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on October 26, 2015, and has been updated for quality and relevancy.

Learning how to map accounts is a useful sales strategy that can help businesses improve their connections with prospective clients, to land better deals and higher revenue. In this Sales Secrets episode, Dan Cook joins us to discuss how to boost your team’s productivity through this technique, so keep reading to learn more.

RELATED: How to 10x Your Sales Productivity by Mapping Your Account Contacts

In this article:

1. Quick Career Tips
2. What Is Account Mapping and How Can Mapping Accounts Help Sales Teams?
3. How to Map Accounts and Use Account Maps to Improve Sales Strategies 
   1. Gather All Your Contacts
   2. Utilize Readily Available Information
   3. Incorporate Different Sales Prospecting Methods
   4. Monitor How Your Teams Utilize Account Mapping
   5. Set New Sales Strategies Using Account Maps

How to Map Accounts to Help Sales Teams Create Better Strategies

Dan Cook is currently the Senior Vice President of Sales at Lucid Software. They build sales and customer success teams through Lucid Chart, which is their flagship product.

Through its diagramming functionalities, Lucid Chart aims to help businesses enrich their inter-company communication process. Apart from his experience at Lucid, Cook also has extensive knowledge in investment banking and venture capital, from his previous roles.

Quick Career Tips

Before we start, I first asked Cook to share quick tips for our listeners who are just getting started in their career. He started by stressing the importance of the theory of compounded interest.

“This theory is the idea that you put money in earlier in your life. And, while your savings compound over time, its value becomes more as compared to the value of your money if you choose to save at a later time. A similar concept can apply to careers.”

It’s that early investment in your career that matters. Oftentimes it’s quantified by more hours, but more effort and working hard earlier in your career can set you up for long-term returns and outsized opportunities relative to your experience level.

Find people who can give you time and let you ask dumb or basic questions. These are the people who can impart wisdom to help you avoid the mistakes other people made.

What Is Account Mapping and How Can Mapping Accounts Help Sales Teams?

To begin the discussion, I asked Cook to expound on what an account map is. According to him, it’s a map that allows you to navigate through different stakeholders or org charts of companies.

It ensures you’re not just dealing with one or two connections per organization. It actually forces you, by looking at the map, to say, “Who else should I be talking to at this particular company?”

You can use diagramming applications, such as Lucid Chart, to map out different contacts and account names from your existing clients. Different teams, such as accounting and marketing, can benefit from this tool too.

You can easily pinpoint who the decision-makers are in the company you are eyeing. In this way, you can:

• Develop your own sales strategy according to the people you should be talking to more.
• Set customized sales techniques per prospective client.

How to Map Accounts and Use Account Maps to Improve Sales Strategies 

1. Gather All Your Contacts

Looking over contact information to begin contact mapping

The first step is to gather all your contacts. Sales teams usually rely on their counterparts in product marketing and even accounting to help them figure out target personas in your prospective customer, then the sales managers set the tasks for those involved.

But, from a sales perspective, the process really starts with understanding who you already know, right?

To map an account, first, identify on the account map the people your sales and marketing teams have already engaged with. Identify that universe of known contacts, whether or not they’re friendlies. Then, assign that contact to sales reps and give them the right tools, such as Lucid Chart.

You can also include their position, company role, and what they already know about your business. Before you know it, you’re you’ll be plotting and managing different individuals that work at that company.

RELATED: Mapping The Sales Process: 6 Steps For Success

2. Utilize Readily Available Information

Most businesses, in this day and age, will publish their management and leadership team.

• If it’s a public company, you can obtain a whole host of information from their public disclosures.
• You can even download useful information such as a company’s org chart, accounting metrics, revenue, and cost of sale.

Using all this public information, you can easily map out all C-level officers and all other senior-level management to your account map.

Even if you don’t think you’re ever going to engage with them, just try and put as many people in the account map, because you never know. From there, you can start navigating and start connecting the dots during the prospecting process.

Before you know it, you start to piece things together. The context your account map gives you can also help you have more relevant conversations and even fish for more information from a prospect.

3. Incorporate Different Sales Prospecting Methods

Each sales training methodology has something different for kind of each type of buyer persona. So I asked Cook if there’s a way to feed all these different sales strategies in the account map during prospecting?

Interestingly, the answer is yes. When you map accounts, you can have unique tags to show the kind of buyer they are.

You can also set a unique tagging for not-so-helpful contacts, for those who can’t really help you during prospecting. Make sure to add notes for each contact during account mapping so you and your team can remember key details about their personas.

4. Monitor How Your Teams Utilize Account Mapping

Sharing the benefits of account mapping for improved sales

Lastly, Cook shared some of the best practices to ensure sales teams utilize account maps well during sales planning. He shared two methods:

1. Inspire collaboration. One way to stimulate cooperation and rapport among your sales professionals is to make account mapping a team activity. The ability to get everything into one account map really becomes a valuable process to retain information for a key account.
   • Use it with your peers and customer success managers.
   • You can also use the account map with your SDRs or BDRs that are supporting you. That can easily drive a spirit of collaboration.
2. Use the account map as one of the walkthrough tools during sales pipeline planning or even during a demo. During meetings with managers or higher-ups, a sales rep can use the account map as a discussion platform. All they have to do is download the account map and drag and drop a key account for discussion.
   • It’s a great way to help sales reps develop confidence in presenting, and it also helps address unique and valuable sales strategies and ideas.
   • It also allows your senior management to see who is really on top of the accounts.

5. Set New Sales Strategies Using Account Maps

Cook also gave insights on how you can recommend sales strategies with account maps.

Through deal reviews you include on the account map, your sales professionals can evaluate the contacts and the prospective clients you’re eyeing. Doing an account map is a step that can help everyone in the team visualize the whole sales pipeline and all the initiatives your team can do.

Different platforms such as Lucid Chart can be a great way to jumpstart account mapping. To begin, just pick one account and start mapping it out.

See if that doesn’t help you think through how you’re going to engage compared to your other accounts. Hopefully, your reps will start to see how account mapping can help them communicate more efficiently to the right people, which can impact your sales.

Learning how to map accounts can stimulate cooperation and encourage collaboration across different sales professionals in your business. It can help you see the bigger picture and evaluate if your current sales strategies for each prospective client is helpful.

It can also open your eyes to the contacts you should be focusing more attention on. Try it, and see how it helps everyone work better with all your company’s engagements.

What are your go-to sales strategies to reach out to more prospective customers? Share your tips and tricks below.

Up Next:

• 7 Most Common Mistakes In Sales Process Mapping And How To Avoid Them
• How To Get Your Account Executives To Commit Better w/Michael Tuso @Chili Piper
• How To Build Your Brand Story w/Amiet Chevrier @Digital Brew

Learn from OutboundView CEO Blake Johnston on what an agile inside salesperson is and how creating a culture of experimentation can improve your sales team. Read on to find out more.

RELATED: Creating a Culture of Experimentation in Inside Sales

In this article:

1. What an Agile Inside Salesperson Is
2. Why It’s Important to Be an Agile Inside Salesperson
3. The Qualities of an Agile Inside Salesperson
   1. Why Inside Sales Is Not as Data-Driven as Marketing
4. The Important Quality That Inside Sales Teams Must Have
5. Creating a Culture of Experimentation Within Your Inside Sales Team
   1. Create Your Own Experiment Board
6. Look for Agile Salespersons During the Hiring Process
7. What Hinders Sales Teams from Having an Experimentation Culture?

Creating a Culture of Experimentation in Your Sales Team

Lean Startup Definition: This refers to the methodology used in developing products and businesses. Its goal is to shorten development cycles by predicting the viability of a proposed business model. Lean startup methodology combines experimentation, iteration, and validated learning to achieve its goal.

Blake Johnston is currently the CEO of OutboundView, a sales and marketing consultancy. Their business has two sides to it, which they both specialize in.

OutboundView focuses on outbound marketing strategy and appointment-setting. They also offer services for inbound marketing strategy and demand generation.

Johnston admitted that the company didn’t really expect to become an appointment-setting company. Yet, they discovered that many times, after setting up infrastructure, their customers want a quick influx.

That is why appointment-setting became a part of their offerings, and it’s also something they “do a good amount of.”

What an Agile Inside Salesperson Is

Johnston experienced working with a lot of inside salespeople. He observed them and discovered the behaviors of an agile salesperson and successful sales teams.

According to him, it always goes back to the basics. The best inside salespeople and inside sales groups are:

• Focused on learning
• Curious
• Actively taking action
• Working with a growth mindset

As Johnston said, you can look for these characteristics when you’re hiring. Yet, you should also strive to create this culture within your inside sales team and manage them accordingly.

Why It’s Important to Be an Agile Inside Salesperson

It’s important to be an agile salesperson because, as Johnston said, inside salespeople are like chief experimenters. That is also why creating a culture of experimentation is important.

We don’t develop a campaign, then simply throw it out there without making iterations. We make adjustments constantly, whether in messaging, personas, subject lines, offers, etc.

There’s always room for improvement on what we send out to people. You very rarely find campaigns that don’t need improvement.

Inside salespeople who don’t kill bad ideas and don’t scale good ones are only wasting their time.

Personally, one thing I try to do is to get salespeople to think like marketers. People in marketing think through a full campaign, they do A/B split testing, and they’re often more data-driven.

In inside sales, you don’t just build relationships. You also come up with effective ways to reach your target audience and close the deal with them.

Johnston agreed and also gave his own advice, especially because inside salespeople make a lot of small decisions.

If they’re struggling with an activity, apply good exercises with them. For instance, observe how they prospect and have them verbalize why they’re making those decisions.

Some questions you can ask them are:

• Why does this person look like a good persona?
• What type of messaging would you send them?
• What type of offer would you give them?

Making decisions like these is difficult for those who are new to the inside sales industry. That is how you can help them understand the right intent and lead them to make the right decisions.

The Qualities of an Agile Inside Salesperson

Finding agile salespeople for inside sales

Johnston took us further and described the qualities that make an agile inside salesperson.

First, they focus on learning and iterating. You can see this if they’re willing to constantly make adjustments and if they’re asking questions.

They’re learning not only in their trade and business, but they’re also learning outside of work. They have what we call the “growth mindset.”

Second, they have a bias towards action. They don’t waste their time waiting for their manager to give a go-signal on their next step.

Instead, they take action and ask for forgiveness later, if needed. This usually works out better than sitting and waiting, and that’s why Johnston encourages salespeople to have this attitude.

The third is assumption recognition. This is something we don’t often talk about, but every marketer and inside salesperson makes random assumptions.

Making assumptions is fine as long as you call it out, test, and experiment on it. That is also something managers can reinforce in their teams.

Why Inside Sales Is Not as Data-Driven as Marketing

Compared to marketers, salespeople are not as data-driven. For instance, marketers don’t propose actions without follow-through analytics or details.

Yet in sales, we can do whatever we want as long as we hit the target number.

Johnston thinks the difference lies in the recurring costs of maintaining marketing versus sales. For instance, you run paid ads in marketing.

Due to the recurring costs involved, there’s bound to be stricter accountability. This forces marketers to rely on data to support and justify their costs.

With inside sales, the technology is already provided for. There’s no recurring cost incurred to maintain the technology needed by inside sales reps.

That’s why they have more lenient accountability compared to marketers. Their productivity and effectiveness are not measured as strictly compared to marketers.

The Important Quality That Inside Sales Teams Must Have

We also asked Johnston which single quality of a salesperson stands out above the rest. He revealed that this quality is curiosity.

This is because curious people are typically better with customers. They’re interested in what they’re saying, and people enjoy talking to them because they make others feel like they’re the star.

Curious people constantly ask questions. That is a very important practice, especially in sales.

As Johnston said, toxic team members are the ones who are dead set in their ways. They aren’t curious and are unwilling to learn.

RELATED: How to Create a Cultural Transformation for Your Inside Sales Team

Creating a Culture of Experimentation Within Your Inside Sales Team

Working as a team to experiment and learn

If you want to have agile inside salespeople in your team, Johnston encourages creating a culture of experimentation. Your team should practice A/B testing, which is critical when you want to test out processes.

If you’re an inside sales manager and want your team to experiment more, consider building an experimentation platform. This means integrating experimentation into your weekly processes and into your culture.

Johnston shared that he and his team conduct a weekly meeting that revolves purely around experimentation. They track all of their experiments in one place.

They do this using an Excel sheet, which he calls an “experiment board.”

It’s an hour-long meeting, and in the first half, they talk about results they achieved. The second half is where they build new experiments.

During the meeting, people also call their shot beforehand. As Johnston said, it’s one thing to A/B test something, but if you don’t do anything with the results, they become pointless.

The experimenter calls out what success looks like, and this acts as the benchmark for the experiment results. It could be something like a 10% response rate or a certain meeting percentage rate.

When they have this meeting, inside salespeople detail why they’re experimenting. They show the whole team what they’re working on, and they call out what success looks like.

It’s a very valuable meeting, and one of the best ones your sales team will have all week.

Create Your Own Experiment Board

Experiment boards get people thinking and the creative juices flowing. If you want to know how to design an experimentation platform, look for inspiration on the internet.

You can use a project tool for tracking, but Johnston recommends using an Excel sheet. This is something often used by product teams.

When you research online, you’ll see different types of Excel sheets that can help you track all the different experiments you’re running. All of them go back to the lean startup methodology principles.

Look for Agile Salespersons During the Hiring Process

If you’re aiming to have an agile sales team, start by hiring people who exhibit the qualities of an agile salesperson.

Big firms, for instance, give their applicants complex problems to solve during the hiring process. They use these to see how good the applicants are in coming up with solutions.

There are a lot of ways on how you can figure out if the applicant has the qualities you’re looking for. You can determine this by asking the right questions and having them solve situational problems.

Remember that individuals who are curious, take action, and ask questions are the ones who will do fine on the job. Those who sit around and wait for the next instructions are the ones you should worry about.

What Hinders Sales Teams from Having an Experimentation Culture?

If creating a culture of experimentation is the best practice, what’s stopping companies from moving to this direction?

Johnston believes that the problem is the leaders. They can take the first step towards building an experimentation culture, but they don’t reinforce it and establish a safe zone where it’s okay to not succeed with everything.

The key is to learn. Building a safe environment that actually allows experimentation is very important.

Of course, there should also be accountability. Experimentation ends up being a huge time-waster if you’re not doing it correctly.

If there’s no accountability during one-on-one sessions with your team members, chances are, no one is going to do anything about their experiments.

If you want to learn more about this topic and Blake Johnston’s company OutboundView, you can visit their website.

Creating a culture of experimentation is something you should intentionally and constantly work towards. This encourages your sales team to take risks and learn to deal with the results.

It’s good to have an experimentation platform where people can safely discuss their ideas. This way, everyone can work together and learn from each other along the way.

What challenges hinder you from having a culture of experimentation? Let us know in the comments section below.

Up Next:

• Next Gen Sales Technology Powered by Collective Intelligence w/Dave Boyce @XANT
• How to Optimize an Inherited Sales Team w/Brad Moore @PersonifyCorp
• Inside vs Outside Sales: What’s the Difference Between the Two