For the foreseeable future, we live in a new Covid-19-normal way of business and life. Whether we like it or not, the way we sell has to change along with the circumstances. It will be a tall task to gain market share while we are in the eye of the storm, but the activities and actions we take now will be the determining factor to our success on the other end of these times.
As business leaders, now is a time to think about stockpiling opportunity for the future, while maintaining the business we currently have. Those who understand that they may not take market share at this particular moment, but lay the building blocks to taking market share, will be the winners.
To achieve this, every member of your sales team needs to extract maximum value from your CRM and sales enablement software. Your data will contain all of the information you need to build your competitive advantage if you know how to find it.
Today, Alex Witcpalek, US Sales Manager, shares his top practical tips for sales managers using sales-i to do just that:
Tip One – Share the wins and follow the wins.
If you just took a line from a competitor, that story needs to be repurposed to the entire team. Celebrate the win. Once the story is shared, it’s time to hyper-focus on building more funnel in that product line but more importantly tracking activity against this initiative.
Using sales-i you can quickly achieve a targeted list to build on your success. In the CRM, a campaign can be built to identify other potential targets to work on. This can be shared with the team and a list of clients generated and uploaded to calendars ready for them to duplicate the success with this particular competitor’s product line.
Get started now – Customizing your CRM and Spotting which of your customers has reduced in spend.
The power in tracking opportunities extends beyond understanding it against your accounts. The real value is knowing how you can repurpose and replicate your successes.
Takeaway thought
In times like this, it is more important than ever that we spend time where the high percentage wins are.
Tip two – Segment your opportunities by Net New Customers VS Existing Customers.
It is six to seven times more profitable to sell more to an existing customer than it is to sell to a new one. The reason? No credit apps to fill out with existing customers, your delivery trucks are already making the stop, no additional sales call to make and no additional invoices to cut. Plus, they already know you and your business.
On top of this, you are four to five times more likely to win business with an existing customer than a brand-new client.
I am not saying do not target new customers but be well aware of what the pipeline looks like for Net New Customer VS Existing Customers. Know the immediate value of a new customer i.e. what product lines will they be buying today and the TOTAL potential value of the customer (if they bought all product lines you offered).
In sales-i, you can record customer potential and report on it through the CRM reporting functions. You can also record opportunities (recognized winnable revenue with a time frame) against both customers and prospects.
Takeaway thought
By tracking it this way, you will start to understand your win rates Net New Customer VS Existing Customer and create some predictability during unpredictable times.
Tip three – Start to classify every activity that is being taken.
When the chips are down and cash flow may be tighter than normal, it is more important than ever to track every activity and classify it against an outcome.
Why? Because what we think to be true may not be true and data does not lie. You may think that making 100 cold calls leads to more deals being closed, whereas the guy who makes 10 cold calls, closed more business – surface-level data will not tell the story. We need detailed activity reporting. It will save your company.
By utilizing the call spend summary report In sales-i, you can report on the average value per call and quickly see the customers you call the most and sell the least to, in comparison to the customers you call the least and sell the most to. This report, which is combing the CRM reporting with real transactional data from your accounting system, helps sales teams be much more targeted with who they spend their time with.
Takeaway thought
It is imperative to track and classify every activity taken so we can identify what types of activities lead to what types of outcomes.
This might sound like micro-managing to some of you, but, this my friend, is being a data-driven sales leader. In uncharted waters, data beats your gut… every time.
Tip four – Make KPIs and performance against KPIs available to everyone.
Believe it or not, some sales reps are not given access to sales reports.
If a sales representative doesn’t have access to this information, then they have no idea where they stand against expectations.
Every user of sales-has access to reports relating to their associated accounts and regions through the main control panel. These reports enable them to see the results of all their activity, the amount and type of activity they have recorded, the value of the opportunities they have identified and what the potential return as been for the business. As a result, every member of your sales team can measure the impact of their actions and identify areas of improvement.
As a team manager, you can use the control panel for an overview of your entire team’s performance, with the ability to filter and drill down into the data in the various areas of sales-i. With complete visibility of your team’s actions, you can monitor performance, identify areas of success and also areas that require support or further training to maximize the potential of your team.
Tip five – Embrace a data-driven mindset.
It is one thing to track a ton of data and use it sparingly for board reports or only when talking to your manager.
It is more important that management use data with their team and in their daily interactions to steer team behavior and continuously test how inputs affect outputs.
Takeaway thought
Use data-driven decisions to build a new path to new sales, upsells and cross-sell opportunities otherwise hidden in your back-office system and sales-i data.
The teams at sales-i, on both sides of the pond, have ramped up efforts to give support and guidance to help customers stockpile opportunities by leveraging their data during the pandemic. Make no mistake, business in a post-pandemic world will be shaped by how we adapt during it. This isn’t an ending, but a new beginning for how we work.
Alex Witcpalek
sales-i US Sales Manager
Alex has over 10 years of experience in the sales enablement space with the majority of those years being focused on distribution and manufacturing. Alex has achieved accolades for Hardi Distributors 40 under 40 and held positions in many emerging leaders’ programs.
The team at sales-i wants to help every customer come out of this period stronger, as we know they can by digging deeper into their sales-i software.
Keep in touch with sales-i online by following us on social media and being the first to hear our latest advice, software tips, and free webinars.
