The big 93.2% percentage hook has your attention? Want the elixir for increasing sales productivity? Its…drum roll…big reveal… Use Sales Software!
Okay, so maybe you were expecting something you had never heard of before, a buzzword that you stumbled upon that would change your world forever? Seriously, it’s sales software… but let’s dive into some specifics.
Easy Riders
This is how it is going to revolutionize, revamp and renovate your modus operandi. In other words make your life a whole lot easier by increasing sales productivity –
“Easy like a Sunday Morning” (Lionel Richie)
- It will free you from the shackles of manual data entry. And just like Tom Petty you’ll be “free, free fallin, yeah.”
- You won’t have to keep updating the status of each deal in the pipeline. Can you see the gift of many hours being handed to you on a silver sales automation platter?
- You can put away your data cleaning brooms and brushes secure in the knowledge that there will be no incorrect or duplicated data anymore.
Don’t you love a great statistic that sums up your challenges and hardships in a perfect number? This one is 35%. It’s the percentage of time available to sales people to actually sell their product. You already know this figure – it’s encoded in your cells.
Time Is On My Side – Yes It Is!
You intrinsically know that you never seem to have enough time to actually do your job. Right?
An insightful survey, from CSO, revealed this figure that describes your dissatisfaction to the T. But the antidote is staring you in the face. Sales automation will have you singing Leonard Cohens ‘Hallelujah” chorus.
If you’re looking for sales automation software options to improve sales productivity then check out this LeadFuze list of top sales automation software for 2017.
Rubbing the lamp
When you feed your manual processes to the automation genie you get 5 wishes answered:
- You can go back to your real job of selling
- You can spend a whole lot more time prospecting
- You can focus on lead generation again
- You can actually nurture your leads
- And voila you can close more sales
You have made it through the Ninja warrior minefield of cumbersome tasks and confusing info and have become a true sales hero.
“Life at any time can become difficult: life at any time can become easy. It all depends upon how one adjusts oneself to life.” ~Morarji Desai
Time to get personal
Your customers are going to love you. You will see your popularity rise by 77.5% through customer satisfaction when you’ve got sales software in your pocket. The whole customer journey has become easier.
When you can deliver personalized customer service you catapult ahead of all competition.
You might be up against the big retailers like Walmart and Amazon but if you can offer superior customer experience you’ll be Jack cutting down their giant beanstalks.
The new competitive differentiator is personalized customer service. With more time on your hands you can offer a first class, unforgettable interaction.
Who is getting it very wrong?
Currently, less than a tenth (9.5%) of sales people think that consumers are looking for personalized customer service.
What? Why are their heads buried in the sand?
“I think goals should never be easy, they should force you to work, even if they are uncomfortable at the time.” ~Michael Phelps
Your sales software is stalking your customer – from a respectable distance. It’s your private investigator Jessica Jones or Mike Hammer (depending on your generational TV proclivity).
The findings are in and reveal:
- How your customer has interacted with you across all touch points
- The research they carried out on your website (they were doing their own reconnaissance)
- If they followed you on social media before heading into your retail store.
You now know exactly what they have been up to…
Holding Them In The Palm of Your Hand
You have this information available to you stored in one place ready to jump to attention.
You can quickly call up the findings from wherever you are and on any device so your interaction with your customer is personalized and specific.
It’s like you’re reading their minds and can offer them exactly what they want.
The customer doesn’t end up running away from having to fill out a series of forms that require filling in the same info again and again over all of your different channels over and over and over and over and over again.
Small Business Lead Generation Laundry List
What software features are going to give your small business a boost?
For lead generation you have to start with having all of your customer information in one place. Email, social media, customer service solutions must be integrated with your sales management software to get the big beautiful picture.
“Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy.” ~Lao Tzu
We go together like rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong
You want to get together and collaborate with your team as well as the other departments like marketing and customer service so you’re all in tune. No lead will be left behind if information is shared timeously.
No lead will be left behind if information is shared timeously.
Socializing or Selling?
It is the dawning of the age of…social selling. The world is only a few taps, swipes or clicks away.
Everyone is on their mobile devices and that is where you will find, connect and engage with customers, prospects, clients, colleagues and employees.
In this vast sea of speaking you have to establish trust and authenticity in order to build relationships and start a real dialogue.
Did you know: Social networking takes up nearly a quarter of all time spent online?
You can’t afford not to be actively implementing your social selling strategy.
It where you are going to be selling your ideas, secure any funding, establish your company’s credibility, recruit great talent and win customers.
Your social networking is going to reach more than 75% of global internet users.
I don’t know if I am engaged in social selling at the moment?
You are if you are connecting and communicating with your target audience on any level on any social media platform – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.
If it’s for business development you’re social selling.
If it’s for brand promotion it’s social selling. If you’re online and on a platform you’re on it!!
Slow Socialites
Only 15% of sales people are strutting their stuff. The rest are languishing in old, lost traditions of what they are used to doing and so a huge opportunity is walking out the door.
It’s not a hard sell platform – you have to tread lightly and not stand on their foot in the middle of the sales waltz.
Softly, gently get to know them before you launch into the tango!
Interact across channels and nurture leads politely. Steer your dance partner elegantly around the social selling ballroom.
Getting To Know All About You
Do your research.
Know absolutely everything you can about the target company and the key role players before you start wooing on social media.
Find out the best channel for your opening line.
If their last tweet was a year ago there’s no point in striking up a conversation there. Maybe they spend more time on LinkedIn and you will have a better chance at catching their attention.
For B2B sales teams you have to be even more cautious about not coming across too strong like cheap, overpowering cologne.
Facebook might not be your friend with the B2B gang – rely on your research to lead the way.
You want to enable your sales team to be an unstoppable force, but that is only possible if you equip them with the right gear – sales software.
Without it they are using canoes, competing against powerboats and are not going to make inroads into the online ocean teeming with the catch of the day specials.