Pull up more chairs. Sales meetings are seldom one-on-one these days. Multiple decision-makers are destined to show up.
Even worse, their roles won’t always be obvious.
You can expect about seven people to be involved in the decision to buy from you – or not, according to researchers. So you need to make more than one contact, friend and impression.
Selling to multiple decision-makers is the game now.
Your next great sales pitch is hiding on the big screen in unlikely places.
Think Legally Blond. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. 12 Angry Men.
Forget the typical sales movies. Glengarry Glen Ross. Boiler Room. The Wolf of Wall Street.
Those classics (although great in their own right) aren’t on our list.
Everyone is confident the deal will close. Then it doesn’t – and the win rate drops.
It hurts to chalk up a forecasted sale to the “lost” opportunity or “no decision” column.
Every sales professional wants more wins. But they aren’t getting them.
Win rates have been stagnate – at 47% – for about five years, while losses to the competition increased and losses due to no decision decreased slightly, according to the CSO Insights 2019 Sales Performance Report.
“Without a doubt, the one metric that we have tracked over the years that causes the most heartburn for CSOs, CFOs and CEOs is the outcome of forecast deals,” the researchers said.
Put the antacids away. Here are nine ways to increase your win rate.
Everyone is confident the deal will close. Then it doesn’t – and the win rate drops.
It hurts to chalk up a forecasted sale to the “lost” opportunity or “no decision” column.
Every sales professional wants more wins. But they aren’t getting them.
Win rates have been stagnate – at 47% – for about five years, while losses to the competition increased and losses due to no decision decreased slightly, according to the CSO Insights 2019 Sales Performance Report.
“Without a doubt, the one metric that we have tracked over the years that causes the most heartburn for CSOs, CFOs and CEOs is the outcome of forecast deals,” the researchers said.
Put the antacids away. Here are nine ways to increase your win rate.
You were a great salesperson. Now you’re a good sales leader.
Wouldn’t it be good to be great again?
Whether you’re a new sales leader or a veteran, you likely face the same struggles.
Yep, the same.
Why? Because the leadership part of the job is what keeps managers up at night. The people and process issues dig deeper and linger longer than any sales slump.
Buyers want to win just as much as you do. So when it’s time to close, most buyers will come armed to negotiate whether they need a better deal or not!
And that’s OK. As a sales professional, you want what’s best for buyers and you. Everyone should be satisfied – like they got exactly what they should.
Salespeople give into buyers’ demands 60% of the time, RAIN Group researchers found. So you want to be ready to react to their negotiation tactics.
Forget New Year’s Resolutions.
Seriously, why set yourself up to fail as most people do?
Instead, read on for practical advice on how to achieve sales success in the coming year.
We have a panel of experts sharing what’s worked for them, plus insight on the best practices they’ve seen with individuals and teams.
Try one. Try a few. Try them all.
Increasing business with existing accounts could be the holy grail of sales.
Consider this: Revenue from existing customers accounts for more than 70% of total results at companies across industries, geographies and business models, the most recent CSO Insights Sales Performance Report found.
Sales leaders say increasing penetration into existing accounts is one of their top objectives in meeting goals. Why do they rely so much on the potential in existing accounts?
“Revenues are often more predictable than other sources and ideally, as the incumbent, (you) should have an advantage when it comes to renewing business,” say researchers Tamara Schenk, Yuri Dekiba and Seleste Lunsford.
Your accounts are good, but they could be awesome.
You want to retain every single customer next year.
Is it possible?
Sure, it is! (Perhaps except for \the one who dies or goes out of business, which does happen, unfortunately.)
Customer retention is the top priority of most sales professionals, according to RAIN Group research.
Why shouldn’t it be? Loyal customers spend more and make purchases more often. It’s almost always easier to build business with existing customers than it is to acquire new customers.
Beware new salespeople: Prospecting can break you.
Now that we got the hard truth out of the way, let’s get down to why prospecting won’t break you.
Knowledge is power in sales. The more you know about prospecting, the more likely you will win!
Behold new salespeople (and any veteran who wants re-indoctrinated or reinvigorated). Your guide to prospecting includes:
