Marketers are tasked with discovering and establishing the leads that will help get the product in the right hands; sales, puts that product in the hands of the consumer. As such, both jobs directly affect each other. If marketers can’t find where to place the product, sales cannot sell it. Likewise, if sales can’t sell anything, then marketers don’t know which products to pitch where.  

But when times are tough and sales begin to plunge, it’s usually the sales team that is pulled in and read the riot act.

Boss – “Why are we not converting sales”

Sales – “Marketing is giving us sucky leads.”

Marketing – “Sales couldn’t close a door, let alone a new client.”

So herein lies one of the greatest organizational debates of all time: sales continually feeling that marketing provides them with sucky leads while marketing feels sales is just doing a sucky job at converting. Of course, this is nothing new.

While the dynamic between the two has always been complex, it has become even more so with the advent of SaaS. (Software-as-a-Service) SaaS as a business model in conjunction with sales automation has streamlined almost every digital aspect of the business from invoicing to traffic monitoring. Sales automation condenses the menial everyday tasks of a sales rep through artificial intelligence assistance. Now essential business practices like content marketing have never been easier.  With the added simplicity and efficiency of sales automation and the unrestrictive nature of selling digital products and services, anyone can become a Quasi-Marketer Sales God by using these digital tools.

Reporting

One of the greatest features of SaaS marketing tools is its ability to produce vast snapshots of your business’ performances across multiple channels. You can combine all your performance metrics and data into a single, shareable and easy-to-read dashboard. The software can be used to monitor the traffic metrics of your website and determine how many people have viewed the page and how long they’ve stayed on it.  

When it comes to Sales, Revenue and Organizational reporting. Tubular present all this information in the click of a button. Information that previously took hours at the beginning and end of the week can now be seen, visualised and actioned in a matter of minutes.

If this type of reporting resonates with you then book in a call here and I will personally get your sales and revenue reports all set up for you.

Dashboard software allows you to get a seamless overview of different marketing and operational activities of various divisions. Products such as Yurbi are good for companies looking for white-labels dashboards and reports.

Attracting Attention

With the implementation of SaaS services, content marketing has become streamlined and multifaceted. Apps like Buffer allow you to actually schedule your social media content distribution immediately. You no longer have to work on and publish posts one after another. Now marketers and salespeople alike can coordinate all social media outreach at one time with just a click of the mouse. Content creation and dispersion have never been easier.  

Lead Optimization

Leads are the lifeblood of the sales department and should be treated as such. With the rise of email automated marketing leads no longer waste away in digital records. Historical information on leads is also more comprehensive than ever before. A.I and products like Clearbit and FullContact help sales as they scour the internet for all fragments of data concerning users purchasing profiles and history. There are also algorithms for prioritizing leads to determine which still need conversion and which are ready to buy.  

Improved Communication and Collaboration

A lot of SaaS services are geared towards making communication across channels and departments within your business much easier. The digital feature that has benefited the most from this is video conferencing. Software such as GoToMeeting and Zoom allows you to host conference calls with up to 100 people in HD. Some other benefits include:

• Advanced scheduling features
• Screen sharing capability with the added ability to control transference (Another caller can use your keyboard and mouse)  
• One-click recording
• Drawing tools for increased interactivity

SaaS has also done wonders for real-time collaborative work within businesses. Applications such as Canva allow all members to view, edit and comment on pictures, posters, social media posts, infographics, eBook designs, video thumbnails and everything in between. Salespeople can now collaborate on projects instantaneously rather than having to wait until the marketers have completed their research and developed their own leads.  

Note-Taking and Distribution

Sales A.I is perfect for keeping track of all aspects of a business. It can create summary points from a sales rep’s calls with customers, take notes during meetings (in-person or online) and it can instantly distribute call scripts to entire departments.  

Improved User Experience

The key to keeping customers is to keep them happy. Every aspect of their experience with the product should be productive and rewarding in some way. Sales automation A.I allow for efficient flow to the entire customer/user journey with the implementation of chatbots. Chatbots offer intuitive and instantaneous support to customers through their ability to accumulate and analyze customer information in order to offer tailored guidance. Ironically enough, this digital assistance also adds a personal touch to the user’s interaction with the product, which does wonders in retaining them as longtime customers.  

So who benefits the most from implementing sales automation and digital marketing into your business? The marketers or the salespeople?

The answer is everyone. Correctly implementing any type of new software can help you create comprehensive reports on sales and marketing activity. Now both salespeople and marketers can coordinate content creation and distribution and instantly respond to user queries. Anyone, whether they are in marketing or sales, can now access the business’ leads and reports and use that data to schedule email blasts, phone calls, and even their content marketing.  

All in all, sales automation is a double-edged sword for marketers and salespeople. It makes understanding marketing spend and tracking sales performance incredibly easy but can further blur the lines.

But, who’s fault is it for Q2 closing down?

The post The Rise of the Quasi-Marketer/Sales God appeared first on Tubular.

You know, those customers that give us a call or send us an email asking all sorts of questions, get our hopes up, but just proceeds to waste our time and burst our bubble. Isn’t that just annoying? We call these time-wasters tyre kickers.

Spotting a Tyre Kicker

Customers earn the tyre kicker moniker when they display considerable interest in an item or service and show purchase intent, but won’t ever make the decision to buy. They often ask a lot of questions about the product or service to show that they are a prospective customer but really they just waste everyone’s time.

But it’s not just one type. There are actually several types of tyre kickers you meet over the course of your business career. Here’s how you can spot them.

The Freeloader.

The first interaction you have with a customer is generally free. For those offering services, it’s an initial consultation. For those that offer products, it’s often a free trial. The freeloader will always look for ways to exploit these – ruthlessly. For instance, they might ask for a free quote or set up an initial consultation and just ask for as much information as possible through that initial conversation.

The Shopper.

The shopper can be one of two things: someone who is looking around for the best price possible because they are stingy. Doesn’t have a large enough budget or someone that generally doesn’t have a clue what they should get or do. They can be spotted by asking them about their budget. A value shopper will typically give you a price range that’s unreasonable while an indecisive shopper will have a difficult time coming up with a price range altogether.

The Student.

The student loves to take as much time from you as possible. They will ask you a ton of questions and present you with a lot of problems they are trying to solve. They’ll generally show interest in making a purchase but will steer the conversation back to their own problems just so you can share your expertise. Are generally the easiest to spot because they will literally take no action to move forward with the sale.

The Ghost.

Perhaps the worst kind of tyre kicker is the ghost. Ghosts are those that will agree to make the purchase or agree to give you the job but ultimately reneges on the deal and stops communicating with you. The best case scenario is they go underground prior to delivery of service or product. The worst case scenario is they disappear once you’ve given what they want Worst of all, ghosts are the most difficult to spot. The best you can do to protect yourself is to ask for an initial deposit to make them commit or protect you when they do go underground.

The Impact on Business

It’s easy to think that the only thing we’re losing to kickers is our time and effort. After all, we’re not spending anything to entertain their requests.

While that may be the case, it is also true that the time and effort spent entertaining their meaningless requests would have been better off spent on more productive things. And while it’s true that you’re not spending money, you’re not generating money, either. In fact, you may even be losing money by:

• Stealing our valuable ideas through various interactions
• The loss of opportunities by forgoing income-generating activities
• The loss of income stream by providing free consultations
• Spending resources on marketing materials

Perhaps the biggest damage of all is the damage it can do in terms of your self-esteem. Typically, with any interaction with a potential customer, a feeling of positivity and an overall sense of wanting to help is felt. Those feelings can immediately be reversed as you feel rejected by your kickers.

Getting Rid of Tyre Kickers

As customer-centric businesses, the main priority should be great customer service. Great customer service dictates that you treat each customer with the utmost respect in order to improve the chances of conversion. So how then can we remedy the tyre kicker situation without violating that dynamic? The answer is to create a structure or framework in which to put your clients to sort out the kickers from the real deal.

Call Their Bluff

Most kickers’ sticky point is price, especially for value shoppers. A good way to sort them out is by immediately naming your price. If you’re outside their budget, they will leave you alone. Now, you’re left with those that are still either just undecided or have no intention of buying in the first place. It’s time to give them what they want and say you have signed off on the discount. If the deal isn’t done after giving them what they want, then the deal will never get done. So, just move on.

Constantly Review Customer Profile

Always do your due diligence when interacting with a new customer. Take a look at your prospective customer’s profile and see if they are within your sector, job, role, or organizational profile. That way, you get a good idea of the chances you have of making the sale or closing the deal. Chances are, if they are far from your target sector or market, your chances of closing the deal is little to none.

Make Sure They Have Buying Power

Before performing any delivery of product or service, make sure your customers have the capacity to pay for the purchase. Take a look at your customer’s purchase history with other providers and see how reliable they are when it comes to payments. If these are unavailable, set up safeguards to protect you from ghosts like collecting partial payment, drafting a contract with payment terms, and regular invoicing with regular follow-ups for late payments.

Don’t be Afraid of Going Above Them

Especially for B2B transactions, there will be times when your time is being wasted by tire kickers. If this does happen often, don’t be afraid to go above them and communicate with their manager/superior about your time being constantly wasted. They’re not that hard to find on LinkedIn.

Create a 3-Call Policy

Why kick them to the curb when you can just keep them in your garage? Deploy a 3-Call Policy (Prospect, Offer, and Follow-up) that can help nurture all your leads – even those that need extra time for convincing. Identify your prospects and give them an offer that’s just too irresistible. Don’t forget to follow up regularly. If this doesn’t work in converting them, put them back in your funnel. But instead of placing them on your sales funnel, put them back to your marketing funnel and give them extra incentive.

The post How to Ignore the Tyre Kicker appeared first on Tubular.

We are asked many times at Tubular, “What made you build a sales funnel CRM software in an industry that seems busy.” The answer is frustration. Frustration that CRM and sales software appears to be a control mechanism inserted into organizations without any particular division seeming to understand, or really care for, the organization objectives from adopting a CRM. From the thousands of conversations we’ve had with our clients since developing Tubular, we have learnt that many people shared our frustration. The most common question being…

Why are the existing CRM softwares so complex and difficult to use, and why does CRM implementation detract from the job many companies have to sell?

Those who follow the latest trends in sales will know that the traits which contribute to a successful sale tend to be resoundingly personal traits that can be attributed to the learned or natural skills of the sales person. Included are these traits:

• Confidence

• Tone

• Trustworthiness

• Authenticity

All of these personal characteristics are not features within a CRM. Yet stumble upon a CRM landing page and you are given the false impression that implementing a CRM will convert sales just by merely opening up an account.

Wrong!

A Sales CRM systems provide a platform to engage, prospect, nurture, and gather intelligence which a salesperson can combine with positive personal traits to build great rapport and convert leads, prospects and clients into sales.

So let’s take five points that sales CRM’s are incredibly useful for:

• Capturing leads
• Engaging
• Prospecting
• Nurturing
• Gathering intelligence

These are all activities which you would prefer to be doing faster. It’s a no brainer, but if you were to ask a company if they would rather spend one minute accurately prospecting leads as opposed to 20 minutes prospecting a lead, you would choose the faster option, as long as accuracy is not lost in speed. Speed and accuracy can be a deadly combination.

With that being said and as a huge inspiration for building Tubular.io, we continually asked ourselves,

Why is the CRM industry a throwback to 90’s-looking database industry, with little navigation providing an enjoyable User Interface (UI) or User Experience (UE)?

We set ourselves the following benchmarks.

1. Can we build a CRM where any analytical statistic relevant to a sales pipeline can be obtained in under 14 seconds, and in no more than six clicks?
2. Can we build a CRM with a minimalist interface that provides enough detail to engage, prospect, nurture and gather intelligence on a lead without looking like a Beethoven manuscript?

The answer is yes – but not overnight, and not without pouring hours and hours into updates and feature releases to ensure we never get away from our ethos. Updating your CRM should never be more than a few clicks away. After creating our benchmarks, we put ourselves to the test.

To test our benchmarks, we set up a list of tasks the people find a nuisance to perform in their CRM, the ones commonly forgone and that form organizational information silos. Can we create and complete these tasks in a matter of seconds? Can we make CRM software relevant and fun?

The following set of tests measured average number of clicks and average time it takes to complete each of the following tasks.

The Results

1. Creating a lead  

There are a number of triggers you can set up through Zapier to automate lead creation.

Adding one manually:

• Average No.of Click : 4
• Average Time (mm:ss) 00:14

2. Add a task

In Tubular, tasks can be added to Leads, contacts or deals.

• Average No.of Click : 3
• Average Time (mm:ss) 00:12

3. Add interaction/note

Within Tubular Deals and Leads portal – you can email, store notes and add tasks.

• Average No.of Click  : 3
• Average Time (mm:ss) 00:07

4. Set reminder to follow up

Reminders can be added to deals, contacts or leads.

• Average No.of Click  : 4
• Average Time (mm:ss) 00:14

5. Change lead status to “qualified”

In Tubular, leads are qualified and in your sales pipeline when they have a deal added to them.

• Average No.of Click  : 6
• Average Time (mm:ss) 00:18

6. Attach a document

In Tubular, PDF’s and or Google Docs can be added in the deal flow.

• Average No.of Click  : 4
• Average Time (mm:ss) 00:14

7. Generate a report

In Tubular, multifunction reports can be drawn up in the click of a button. The options available are endless to assist you in obtaining the financial and performance breakdown of your activity within your sales funnel.

• Average No.of Click : 3
• Average Time (mm:ss) 00:12

A unique interface!

In building Tubular, we realized that we had to keep a minimalist interface that provides enough detail to engage, prospect, nurture and gather intelligence on a lead without looking busy, or becoming too cumbersome for multiple divisions within a company.

How do you structure deal stages, deal tags, deal values, forecasts, forecasted weighted average, payment terms, emails, to-do’s calls and documents associated with a deal in one place – with no information overload?

The answer is yes, with the correct use of modals, drop-downs and infinite scrolling, you are able to remain concise yet provide detailed deal information to stay informed and on top of your sales pipeline.

Tubular is a UK based Sales Pipeline CRM that puts User Interface and User Experience at the heart of every feature. It has numerous awards for its UI/UX design, including being ranked in Capterra’s top 10 most user friendly CRM software.

The post Why UI/UX matters when choosing your CRM appeared first on Tubular.

Stats like these back up the predictions:

• 9 million active weekly users
• 2 million paid accounts
• 60,000 teams
• An impressive annual recurring revenue of $200 million (USD)

Great! Good news for Slack. But how can your business best utilize the app?

Firstly, stop seeing Slack as a messaging app. It’s a platform for increasing business productivity, which, when used correctly, will change the way you manage your business strategies and operations.

Here are some tips to create a killer Slack strategy.

1. Keep it transparent

The days of sales professionals guarding their leads as though their lives depended on it are dying fast—software now manages leads and promotes transparency. This prevents the classic case of Sales Agent A leaving company X, and taking their address book of contacts and leads with them (in all likelihood to your competitor).

Firms are waking up to the fact that sales funnels are collaborative. In the agency world, designers, copywriters, and account executives work together to submit prototypes, wireframes, and mockups to the client before contracts are even signed.

We recommend syncing the Tubular and Slack webhook, so your entire lead generation platform is online, and your team receives notifications whenever a lead comes in via a website, cold call, exhibition, or whatever lead generation strategy you have in place.

2. Strategize on a Monday

Keep your team focussed and incentivized by pulling in daily, weekly, or monthly sales funnel statistics.

This provides a great instant snapshot to see where your sales funnel has any potential bottlenecks. Recognizing the bottlenecks makes it easier to create and implement a strategy to improve them.

Organize group meet-ups on Mondays, so you have the rest of the week to implement plans and efforts to nurture clients through the stages of your funnel.

If you need any tips on strategies to prevent a bottleneck, book a call here.

3. Unify your tasks, to-do lists, sales pipeline reports, and internal communications on one platform.

In a day and age when marketeers own your email inbox, it’s worth using Tubular and Slack as a platform to keep internal communication, tasks, to-do lists, and sales funnel reports together.  This one act should streamline the huge volume of company email “chit-chat” that clogs up your inbox.

Imagine: no more inbox overload.

Book a free 20-minute session to discuss how best to use Slack and Tubular.

The post Leverage Slack and Tubular to Jumpstart Your Sales Pipeline appeared first on Tubular.

Its great to use your Sales Pipeline software to visualize your Sales Funnel. The real magic happens when you use this data to forecast cash projections, forecasts, and cash flows. Performing these activities on a daily, weekly and monthly basis takes seconds within Tubular, and may very well save your company from overexerting themselves cash flow wise.Here is how you can

Performing these activities on a daily, weekly and monthly basis takes seconds within Tubular, and may very well save your company from overexerting themselves cash flow wise. Here is how you can utilize cash flow projections within Tubular to improve the control you have over your business.

In the above – I have 4 deals, all with a value of $100,000 with a close date of Q4 (October 2017)

A total Payment Value $ 400,000 is expected to reflect in your sales account in October 2017.
No Payment Terms are attached to the Deal
No Forecasts are attached to the Deal.

This is how it reflects in your reports:

As per above – $400,000 should reflect in the cash flow forecast in October – Kaching!

A little description:-

1. Remember we are Forecasting
2. 6 monthly Forecasts look good!
3. Total Value = The total value of closed business
4. Closing October Q4 – 2017
5. Again Total Value closes $400,000 – Remember no forecasts and no payment terms

Weighted Payment Value = Remains Empty
Total Payment Value = Remains Empty
Weight Value = Remains Empty

So – Let’s change a variable:-

4 deals, 4 deals all with a value of $ 100,000.

1. Showmax Deal  – Has a 10% Probability closing. (Forecast label)
2. Huku Deal  – Remains the same
3. Sprint Deal  – Remains the same
4. Roku Proposal  – Remains the same

In Settings, I have allocated a 10% Probability Value to my Downside Forecast.

So I expect:-

1. Showmax Deal  – 10% of $100,000 = $ 10,000 USD if I remember from Grade school!
2. Huku Deal  – $100,000 in Cashflow closing October
3. Sprint Deal  -$100,000 in Cashflow closing October
4. Roku Proposal  -$100,000 in Cashflow closing October

This is how it reflects in the Reports Tab.

1. Because you have a Forecast label on one deal – but no others- you are expected to forecast $10,000 as a Weighted Value.
2. Weighted Value = $ 10,000
3. This presents itself as a Weighted Value $10,000 in anticipated cash flow.

Next step –

Our Hulu Deal closes in October (same as before) but the client pays –

50% in January (2018) and

50% in February (2018),

Your reports will look like this.

1. Total Payment Value shows the Recurring Payments, or payment terms – associated with your deals in which you have staggered payments
2. This reflects in January and February’s expected income.
3. This reflects in the total payments expected through deals with payment terms.

Use these quick tricks to get your sales pipeline and cash flows in Sync!

The post Sales Pipeline meets Cash Forecasts appeared first on Tubular.

Sales don’t occur in isolation; they happen when you have a great product being pitched to customers by an engaged and enthusiastic sales team. However, managing a sales team isn’t easy.

There can be a fine line between trying to encourage and push for greater results and becoming overwhelming, suffocating and setting unattainable KPIs.

We completely understand at Tubular that getting the balance right is every Sales Manager’s dream. So how do you go about doing this?

Leadership v management

There is a key difference between these two concepts; management is about looking at metrics, key performance indicators, deadlines and results to drive performance. This can lead to sales teams being over-managed, which can have negative repercussions when staff feel like they’re never doing anything right. While these are important aspects to keep in mind, an effective sales team usually has a manager who is ‘leading’ the team. They are acting as a guiding force, showing their team how it ought to be done, encouraging them to achieve their potential, and motivating them with rewards along the way. It doesn’t have to be anything overly fancy – perhaps it’s a case of bringing donuts in for when people hit their targets. It’ll soon boost team morale, which can go a long way towards gaining effective sales.

Keep everyone on track

Using simple sales pipeline software such as Tubular can play a key role in managing a sales team. Using a single easy-to-use platform, your whole team is able to instantly visualise your sales pipeline without needing to spend endless time trying to update it or decipher it. This will help them in their interactions with clients, turning cold leads into paying customers. It means more time selling, with greater energy for closing deals. With a clear sales forecast and revenue stream, your entire sales team can get on board with achieving your company goals.

Team culture

As a sales manager, it is your job to create an office environment that people want to work in. The atmosphere and mood can be a huge player in how effective your team are. If there is one negative person in the room, this can serve to bring down everyone else around them. Likewise, if there is a productive and motivated buzz, this energy will help to keep momentum high. Often this culture will trickle down from the top, and can be reflective on how the management team engage, communicate and interact with staff. However, if any negativity does arise, it is important to nip this in the bud quickly.

Build your team

Your team is only as good as the staff you hire. Find the best talent and get them on your team now. The saying goes “Pay peanuts, get monkeys” so don’t scrimp on getting the right people for the right price. They may cost you more up front, but in the long-run they will get you a huge amount of extra business, most likely won’t need so much training, will be easier to manage effectively, will make less costly mistakes, and will be easier to retain, meaning you won’t need to spend unnecessary money on compensation packages or re-hiring. Getting the greatest team behind you will be your strongest asset, and will be an investment that pays off over time when seeking to reach your organisational goals.

Put in place standards and schedules

When a company has a clear routine, set structure, and guidelines that need to be followed, everyone on your sales team will be able to work from the same page. It will drive expectation and also ensure there is no misunderstanding about processes or what needs to be done. A sales team will thrive in an organised environment with clear sales and management processes. There will also be less time needed to review their work, especially if real-time tracking and instant feedback is in place. This means more time selling, less time dealing with paperwork.

Get in touch

Want to find out how Tubular can help you improve in managing a sales team? Sign up for a Free Trial Today

The post Managing a sales team effectively appeared first on Tubular.

With much of today’s top sales software, however, it’s becoming a lot easier to complete sales management from home or any other part of the world. Today you can complete sales management from home with sales funnel software and here are some of the tools that make it possible!

Cloud computing:

Through a secure connection, you could potentially log into your sales management software and manage your team entirely from home. With the help of customer service data which is all kept on secure cloud servers, you can make adjustments to your sales strategy and advise your team at any time.

Mobile support:

Much of today’s top sales tracking software can be accessed on mobile devices as well. With access to a mobile phone or tablet, you can enjoy the idea of accessing the entire software platform wherever you are. Sales management can be done with the help of one on one meetings out in the real world and with all of the analytics in front of you as well.

Collaborative digital teams:

if you have an excess demand for callbacks or for a new marketing campaign, you can work with freelancers online in collaborative digital teams. By recognizing a need for your sales team in the analytics you have at home, you could reach out to other individuals through freelance networks to satisfy peak demands and to change sales analytics. You don’t need to massively hire a bunch of temporary employees to work in an office today. Modern sales software makes the process of sales management much easier especially in today’s modern age.

If you are tired of working in an office, remember that many sales teams are able to work at generating sales leads, lead tracking and more using sales tracking software while they are on the road or at home.

The post Can you manage a sales team from home ? appeared first on Tubular.

Identifying the need for training: Through the advanced metrics in sales tracking software, it’s much easier to identify potential employees who could be having problems with converting leads. Creating individualized profiles for every one of your staff will identify potential needs for training with a variety of performance metrics.

Better collaboration tools:

By having information on sales tracking software and lead tracking at their fingertips as possible for staff to collaborate to make sales. Multiple team members could reach out and contact the same customer with the same sales information on hand. They can have all of the loyalty information from the client, the orders that they’ve made to the company as well as a previous record of the contacts made to that customer. This means better customer service and collaboration between professionals.

They can change strategies:

If a particular campaign or script is not working on one platform, it’s relatively easy to identify without having to work over a month. With up-to-the-minute analytics, it’s possible to see some of the highest converting content for your company as well as which sales strategies are working the best.

They can work more efficiently and in different environments: sales funnel software can allow your staff to work very effectively with managing data as well as have the ability to work in many different environments. Mobile software ensures that staff could be out in the field still continuing to use the software or even making new contacts in their off hours.

Consider some of these top reasons and more on how sales funnel software can work in improving the capabilities of your sales staff.

The post How Can Sales Pipeline Software Improve The Capabilities Of Your Team: appeared first on Tubular.

Managing your leads in every campaign:

Lead tracking software can help you to manage prospects not just in one area of your marketing campaign, but it can help your prospect multiple marketing areas to build up a list. Whether you are creating a list of leads from Mailchimp, Autopilot, by phone, through email or Twitter (in blog how to generate leads online we have covered this topic) you can put together all of these leads together and have faster response times through a giant database of searchable results. Through faster lead management and the ability to set reminders for your sales staff to reach out to various leads, you can become far better with customer service.

Amazing analytics:

By putting together all of your leads in one place, you can analyze your marketing campaigns and set regular goals. Tracking information on all of your leads and analyzing analytics can be a process that your team only does weekly if not monthly. Rather than setting these long-term goals for your business you can now have daily goals with all of your leads available in the same platform for tracking. You can adjust your strategy more quickly and create useful activities for your sales team through the analytic support in lead tracking software.

Scoring your leads:

CRM lead tracking software can help to score the best-qualified leads based off of their previous levels of engagement with your company or your products. By picking out leads which are of most concern for tracking and responses you can make sure the bulk of your marketing might is placed into the prospects were most likely to become customers.

Consider some of these top reasons and more for using lead tracking software with your business this year.

The post Top Reasons To Use Lead Tracking Software: appeared first on Tubular.

Anyone who has been lucky enough to visit South Beach, Miami, will know there are three parallel roads to the beach front: Ocean Drive, Collins Avenue and Washington Avenue. There is a distance of 200 metres between each parallel stretch of tarmac, with each road having a distinctly different feel.

In general, all-night Latino cocktail bars line Ocean Drive; Washington Avenue is showcased by popular American diners and luxury brands; while Collins Avenue is littered with numerous “To Let” signs and abandoned shop space.

It appears the old expression “location, location, location” rings very true in South Beach, Miami. Could it be that a large portion of business success can be defined by location, rather than marketing, sales, product and price?

The answer to the question in isolation is simply: no! However, location and the position of your business is just as important as marketing, sales, product and price.

Follow these tips to increase the positional awareness of your business and brand in 2017.

1) Embrace technology

Technology is a great leveller. I loved the story that I heard recently about a struggling New York family-run Italian pizza restaurant. As a last ditch effort, they signed up to Seamless, the on-demand food delivery application. This simple move transformed sales overnight. They couldn’t keep up with demand.  

It turns out people did want to eat their pizza; they just didn’t want to eat in a small, cramped restaurant.

2) Never lose a chance to network

Think no one wants to hear about your work whilst catching up during the weekend? Well, think again!

I was once invited on safari to a beautiful part of South Africa. It just so happened that a BMW sales executive and a former English international footballer were visiting at the same time.

They did not stop talking about work!

I soon learnt they were effectively networking on holiday – it was genius. The footballer left his holiday with a new car, and the sales executive left with a sale.

As it turns out, other people do want to hear about your work. They just don’t want to hear about it all the time. I suggest working on a short 140-character “Twitter” version of your work or job description, then tell people about it. Take your cues from a few body language visuals, and soon you will know if you can stop after the 140 characters, or if you are talking to someone genuinely interested in what you do.

3) Invest in your website

It still strikes me as strange that a business will invest huge amounts of money on boardroom tables and coffee machines to impress the seven customers who visit their offices each day, while a $3,000 upgrade to a website that attracts 8,000 visitors per week is neglected or deemed too expensive.

It’s simple – invest as much on your website as you would on your office. More people visit your website, after all – plus, they don’t complain about the coffee.

4) Visit trade shows

I know: trade shows can be tiresome events. It’s easy to dread a forum where you rub shoulders with ex-clients and your competitors.

But, if you get the opportunity to visit a trade show, I recommend you take it. You don’t need to invest huge amounts exhibiting at a conference to see the benefits.

I made this mistake once. We exhibited at a large trade show for a decent cost, and a supplier came up and introduced his value-added services to me. I figured it was good to give the guy a go, so gave him my business.

I drove home that night and realised I was spending big sums of money seeking new clients, and he had parted with $30 for a day visit, and walked away with a new client. Talk about a good customer acquisition cost compared to mine.

5) Create contact points

Did you know that for 27% of purchases, the client was not ready to make the purchase at the first available contact point of opportunity?

Therefore, you need to create contact points for your clients and sales team to educate them and guide them towards the benefits of your product or service.

With Tubular you can create task templates for your sales team, assigning repetitive tasks to allow your deals to progress with momentum.

This will ensure that when the client is ready to purchase, your business will be their first stop!

The post 5 Tips to Ensure your Business is in the Right Place at the Right Time in 2017 appeared first on Tubular.