Setting yourself up for success in 2022

As high performing salespeople, we understand the key to success is knowing your market and typical behaviours, so you can quickly adapt and find opportunities to deliver greater revenue. 

It’s also about understanding the landscape we find ourselves in. Navigating the past two years has reminded us of the need to be adaptable. We’ve witnessed a complete restructuring of sales strategies as we’ve adjusted to ongoing Covid-19 realities.  

So how can you set yourself up for success in the year ahead? 

 

Recognise buyers are always evolving

Buyers are able to do a lot of research before they need to engage with a business online or in person, prior to making a purchasing decision. They can go to review sites, speak to peers who have tried your solution, and they can see what your business is sharing on LinkedIn. 

It means your sales message needs to be consistent and have absolute clarity. 

You need to be clear about how your solution will assist them and why they should buy it.  You must ensure they understand how to buy from you. 

 

Learn to sell without selling 

By taking a consultative approach, salespeople become the trusted advisor. 

Just as a doctor makes a diagnosis and prescribes a treatment, salespeople consult with the prospect assess their situation thoroughly and offer the best solution. They prescribe the aligned solution. 

When they provide a perfectly aligned solution, the time they have invested in asking the right questions and deeply understanding their client will pay off. This establishes trust. 

 The prospect believes the true intent of the salesperson is to help them solve their problem – not just sell them an ‘off the shelf’ solution.  You can become a trusted adviser if you treat every conversation and every deal with a partnership mindset.  This allows the prospect to be open to taking your advice.  In doing so, there won’t be a need to push, persuade or use manipulative tactics to close the sale. 

The most successful salespeople will be the ones who are present, have a genuine intention to be helpful and look beyond their paycheck.

 

Embrace short timelines and quick turnarounds

Ask yourself, how agile is your sales team? 

By the time a buyer consults with you, they may have already performed some research and are on the verge of making their decision.  Therefore, the lead time for your sales team to ‘weave their magic’ is drastically reduced.

Your team needs to be able to adapt and think quickly on their feet.

Here are some tips for sales success:

1. Act quickly by having a productive, explorative meeting with your prospect and then a powerful alignment in your solution proposal.
2. Listen carefully and ‘read’ the client.
3. Assume who they are talking to is the decision maker, and that there are also other key decision makers/influencers in the buying decision.
4. Create alignment as soon as possible by clearly demonstrating the intention to help in order to establish trust.  Strongly convey authority with your product / service

 

Understand Millennials 

Millennials are one of the largest generations, and they’re hitting their prime spending years. Born between 1981 and 1996, they have considerable buying power and understand the media and how it works.  As consumers they exhibit specific behaviours.

Why is this generation so interesting?  

They are the first generation to be born into a world where accessibility and immediacy are the norm. They expect instant gratification – no need to wait for food, there’s uber eats!  

Millennials are native technology users, meaning as salespeople they may type directly into a CRM system, rather than use a notepad. 

They’re accustomed to change, with products rapidly evolving around them. 

They don’t have the baggage of older generations of ‘this won’t work, I tried this once.’ Millennials are also big on product reviews. 

They may find picking up the phone to speak to someone and building relationships over the phone more challenging than older generations. 

Millennials as a generation want to be heard. They’re interested in aligning what they do on the job with their purpose, they’re interested in flexible hours and progression plans. 

 

Tap into the influence of the finance department 

In many businesses, one of the key decision makers is the Financial Director – they are responsible for making sure budgets are adhered to there is clear ROI and value for money. They’re also one of the many influencers in a B2B sale, including the HR Director Learning & Development Manager and company trainer. 

What does this mean for your sales team? 

• Understand that even if they aren’t selling directly to the Finance Director, they need to know their pain points and address these in the proposal.
• Be highly skilled to get a meeting with these influencers or – at the very least – ask enough of the right questions to understand what is important to them to address this in the proposal.
• Be highly adaptable to different needs from the array of decision makers in the business.
• Know how to sell to one person while equipping that person to be able to ‘sell it on’ through the business.

 

Keen to learn more?  Grounded in robust, proven methodologies from a sales expert with over 30 years’ experience – Smarter Selling sales training ensures you/your team gain enhanced sales skills across the entire sales process to achieve quick and lasting business growth.

We deliver highly customised, innovative, sales training courses to empower people in sales roles to be confident and dynamic opportunity seekers and operate across Australia and internationally.

Find out more about our life changing training programs by contacting us here.

See regular masterclasses designed to assist you as a sale leader drive a high performing team:

 

 

Piece written by Charmaine Keegan,  author of over 20 eBooks, is a sought-after guest speaker, panellist, and keynote. She is a Certified Trainer Extended Disc System, of Situational Leadership, of NLP (how we operate), Hypnotherapy (unconscious communication) and Timeline Therapy (recognising your beliefs about sales and money – and recognising that of your customer). She has studied the psychology of human behaviour and is considered an absolute authority and true expert on sales techniques. She has ‘walked the walk‘ so her content, programs and key notes are highly practical and focused on results.

Smarter Selling is sales and mindset coaching for high performing leaders and teams