According to Sales Benchmark Index, salespeople are 56% more likely to reach their sales goals if they are proactive in exchanges with their prospects.
But how can you be proactive in practice? 😀 Discover in this newsletter the best habits adopted by Business Developers:
⚡️ Ritualize slots dedicated to researching prospects;
⚡️ Prepare content that provides value in advance;
⚡️ Carry out follow-up actions (Follow-up);
⚡️ Keep learning.
This Bootcamp photo Sales & Business Development was taken yesterday when it was launched (See the LinkedIn post !).
Do you also want to take the plunge and embark on a new career? La Next session starting in just a few weeks!
Let's dive right away into this week's tips to help you succeed.
The niches dedicated to research
The famous Paretto's law applies to many fields, and prospecting is no exception. Only 20% of new leads found have a real chance of being transformed into customers. So, be careful about your approach with these people by learning about them before contacting them.
The excellent Business Developers They are therefore adding to their agenda 2 more types of slots of their prospecting ritual. They provide for:
Opportunities to select the most promising prospects and learn about them.
These time slots make it possible to optimize the sales process and maximize the chances of winning the deal.
The information to be collected is:
👉 Business decision makers
👉 Their psychology (fears, frustrations, and personal ambition)
👉 The occurrence of events that could trigger a sale
👉 The problems they encounter
Opportunities to refine the selection of high-potential prospects
Take time to analyze the profiles of your client companies and the people associated with them. The objective here: to identify their common points and add them to the criteria for selecting prospects with high potential.
Then start the discovery phase by focusing on the relevant information to be collected:
👉 Their strategic priorities
👉 Their current needs
👉 Their budget
The FOCA method is also an excellent sales technique for framing discovery interviews.
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One Business Developer proactive doesn't just sell, it brings value to customers before they're even ready to fix their problem.
Content that provides value
Regularly share informative content, case studies, or webinars with your prospects.
The aim is to educate them and help them resolve points of frustration.
By doing this, you will begin to build a relationship of trust and credibility with them. Your business will rely on it during the negotiation phases.
Of course, it is not a question of writing this content entirely yourself, but of obtaining it by working with your marketing and product teams, for example.
This multidisciplinary collaboration will help you better understand the products or services you sell, and to better value them with your customers. Content creation can also be part of a Social Selling strategy.
The best Sales rely on senior profiles to progress even more quickly. So here is another area where you can be proactive.
Sound Manager
Managers often have expectations when it comes to managing their teams' time. So make sure you respect the deadlines and manage your time effectively.
Ask for regular feedback on your performance as well as advice to develop your skills. This proactive approach Show your desire to progress and strengthens your relationship with your manager. Create moments” In off ” around the coffee machine!
Finally, get in the habit of note the actions you are taking and your progress in view of these. Then take time to optimize your approaches.
Having a career plan is also a great way to show your proactivity. We present the different Sales jobs in one of our webinar replays.
If a Sales team had to rely on only one lever to show their proactivity, it would be this one.
Follow-up actions
Most beginner profiles neglect follow-up actions.
Or realize them Within 24 hours that follow an interaction with a prospect increases the chances of turning them into a customer by 14%, and speeds up the sales process by 11%.
So use proactivity to sell more and more quickly. And for even better results: restart in a period of between 5 and 10 hours after interaction.
So for example:
👉 If your prospect did not accept the invitation you sent them for your first appointment, Start it again. Even better: call him 2 minutes the day before the appointment to confirm the appointment. 💡 The famous “no-shows” will decrease drastically.
👉 If you don't have an answer on a prospecting sequence, return another one that focuses on different benefits.
However, limit your reminders in number of 6 for cold prospects (those who have never heard of your business).
Space them out by one week for the first 2, then an additional week each time for the following ones. The duration of the spacings also depends on your target. Modulate your approach depending on whether it is a CEO or a target with different time constraints.
If you reach a level of one reminder per month, stay there. 💡 CRM software makes it possible to automate these actions.
Finally Be original : vary your content (videos, audio messages, emails, emails, photos, emails and a phone call if relevant). Focus on the communication channel that works best for your target audience and always be brief.
Keep learning
To improve, to always improve, here is our last tip of the week. The tech industry is changing rapidly. To stay professional, do the same. Invest in your development :
- Find and attend conferences & webinars;
- Read books, summaries and/or newsletters;
- Listen to podcasts;
- Follow Sales people who create interesting content on social networks (for example: These influencers Sales, and the author of the post);
- Engage with the Sales community to discover new, high-impact practices and experiences.
The ultimate proactivity consists in Anticipate problems likely to be encountered by you or by your prospect, long before they happen and to prepare actions accordingly.
You can learn a lot from your daily actions if you analyze them regularly, so never stop questioning yourself and to try to do better 🙂. To help you remember our tips for business proactivity, we've created a list for you!
And for all your questions about Akimbo, the team agenda is available below.
