subject: Salesperson 2.0 - Coffe is For Those Who Give Great Service! [print this page] Salesperson 2.0 - Coffe is For Those Who Give Great Service!
Gone are the days where first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado, second prize was a set of steak knives, third prize, well.... you're fired. In the very masculine world of Glengarry Glen Ross, only "closers" get the good sales leads and everyone else was fired. Web 2.0 and Sales 2.0 have changed the "game".
Gone are the days when you had to "buy, beg, or bug their way in" via paid advertisements, issuing press releases that will hopefully get picked up by the trade press, or paying high commissioned sales people to do this for you. Replacing all of this is inbound marketing (coined by Hubspot) where business get found on the Internet by your best customers through blogging, social media, SEO, and lead conversion.
Similar to how Web 2.0 applications like Facebook and Twitter have changed how people communicate and interact within personal social networks, salespeople in this 2.0 world need to change how they interact with clients. In the past it was those who where "closers" who got the coffee. In the 2.0 world, it goes to those who offer outstanding, knowledgeable, and timely customer service.
I have had numerous opportunities to work with different organizations as they adopted and implemented web and sales 2.0 tools into their systems to develop an inbound sales and marketing process. During my experience, the one thing that I have found to be very consistent is that the sales people who can time manage, give great service and follow the customer's buying process made the most sales.
Many sales managers and directors with whom I have worked with and talked to, and who have years more experience than I do, find this hard to believe. They make comments like "there is no reason why this individual should be selling so much!" "They do not trial close, they do not use the alternative close, heck they do not even "close"." What they do is answer the customer's questions and help their clients move through their buying process. What you have to remember is that in the web and sales 2.0 worlds, it's no longer a hard sell, outbound, dial by numbers world.
These prospective clients already want to buy, the need does not have to be created, what you do have to do is help them get informed. With the advent of the internet, the sales person and consultant are no longer the most knowledgeable people. Prospective clients can very easily research a wealth of information, and find the majority of answers for themselves. Thus, the job of the sales person is to now facilitate this discovery, and provide great service in order to close the deal.
I have seen very new sales people achieve 50, 60 and 70% closing percentages in hyper competitive industries. They have cut the sales cycles down from 2 months to 10 days. How did they do this? They give great service. One organization was able to double their closing ratio, by providing immediate service and efficiently responding to their clients. The key to this accomplishment: implementing just two simple 2.0 tools. Often these deals do not even get into competitive price scenarios. Not only did this close the deal quicker but it also helps protect price and margins.
The great thing about all of this is that it actually increases margins. According to Hubspot research, inbound marketing-focused businesses experience a 61% lower cost per lead. In addition, I have found that the compensation packages for the sales people are less. I worked with one organization to decrease the sales person cost of sale from 15% to 10%. Now I know what you are saying: "no way, our sales representatives will revolt". Surprisingly, they did not. What we did find was that they love it. No longer will they have to make those dial by numbers cold calls that they hate. Instead, they will be interacting with prospective clients that are in active buying mode. This means they will be having great conversations, with more client interaction, and selling more. Moreover, there is nothing anyone in sales loves more than closing, and what this can do for a sales room culture is unbelievable. Therefore, even though their percentage will decrease, their overall revenue will be way up. All this will save the organization up to 10% on their bottom line.
Wouldn't you love to get back 10% to your bottom line and have a sales culture that people love to work in? Want to learn more download our free e-Book: How to Convert Inbound Leads into Sales Performance.
