Considering global volatility in markets, financial pressure on the average buyer and the plethora of choices available to the consumer, it is an understatement that the demand on the salespersons’ confidence and skill levels are higher than ever before. To not only survive but thrive, smart sales tactics have become a requirement in sales and marketing.
1. Hire right!
Invest as much financial and human capital into hiring the right person for a sales and or marketing role in your company. Highly effective Artificial Intelligence is now available to ensure that you hire the right people. Our own biases, moods, preconceived judgments and ideas lowers our capacity dramatically when it comes to hiring the right person.
Business owners know all too well the extreme drain on your energy and financial resources when you get the hiring, onboarding and retention of talent wrong.
2. Train and coach sales performance
Performance does not happen by itself and definitely does not maintain itself. Coach your sales and marketing team towards higher performance consistently.
Harvard research has proven that up to eighty percent of all managers are poor coaches mainly because they tell people what to do. Instead focus on ‘positive inquiry’ – the change management approach that focuses on identifying what is working well, analyzing why it is working well and then doing more of it. This a much more effective coaching tool.
Invest in the masterwork of Chris Voss, for example, and apply at a very low cost. (His latest book, Never split the difference, is a highly practical sales and communication tool).
3. Create a high-performance sales culture
A high-performance culture exists when the right people were hired (people who want to do the job because they truly love selling), who are constantly inspired and empowered by top management and who have excellent communication skills married to high confidence levels.
Within a high-performance sales culture, all salespeople share a common purpose and a strong set of values that drive their behavior and make them feel welcomed in a family environment.
4. Great salespeople are great connectors and communicators
The best salespeople understand the core skill of empathetic listening and can build rapport quickly and effectively.
If your budget does not allow for expert and high proceed sales training, there are excellent free and highly practical information available on various social media channels. Examples will be Dan Lok and Grant Cardones’ sales orientated videos on Youtube.
5. Sales masters first ‘sell purpose’ and then only features and price.
Product or service purpose is how it alters the client’s life experience and what value it adds to their lives.
6. Modernise
Maybe flyering, billboards and other ‘old school marketing mediums’ are still valid within your industry. But as Einstein famously said: “Doing the same things and expecting different results is the definition of insanity”.
Carefully monitor your marketing activities in relation to results. How many high-quality leads are your activities actually bringing in and at what cost to your employees ‘sweat equity’?
If there is still a good return on investment from ‘old school activities’, by all means, keep on doing it, but first thoroughly assess the ROI before blindly continuing with old habits and methods.
It is not a question anymore whether you should have an online presence or not. Of course, you should! Yet it is no use having one that is of poor quality and content.
There is little use in having a high-quality website but one that has a very low ranking on Google, therefore SEO (Search engine optimization) is a critical part of most marketing and sales departments intellectual property.
Have well planned and professional content on your social media platforms. If your budget does not allow you to outsource this, anyone with a natural knack for social media married with passionate curiosity and the will to learn can become a social media expert over time. Excellent copywriting is an essential skill in online sales.
If you do have the budget to outsource your social media marketing carefully, select the agency that you work with. The ultimate KPI that you are looking for before hiring an agency is their ROI to you in terms of high quality leads for your marketing spend with them. Irrespective of how great their graphic designer’s client portfolio is, the ultimate telling factor is whether they can give you a high number of high quality leads that you can convert into customers.
Instead of focusing on and building anxiety over the hard economic and industry challenges, it is advisable to execute practical and smart sales tactics that can uplift your sales performance such as those listed above.
Dirk Coetsee is an international High-Performance coach.
