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.

According to countless studies, the biggest concern of any salesperson is closing the deal. Their biggest challenge? Overcoming objections, especially those about price.

In this article, we’ll review the eight types and the remedy for them.

1.The unspoken objection

These are instances where you’re hit with a roadblock because the buyer isn’t engaging with you. They may not be expressing disinterest, but they aren’t showing interest either. To remedy this issue ask the buyer open-ended questions.

Get information about the what, the where, the why, and the how. You should focus on listening more than selling, first working to extracting more information from the client and then assess if your product or service is really the right fit for them. This helps you address what their real concerns may be.

2. The excuses

In this situation, the buyer has excuses for not moving forward with the process right now. They might tell you:

“I don’t think I can afford this,” or “I don’t need it right now.”

You could respond to these excuses in a few different ways, for instance:

“You have a valid point, Ron. Several customers felt the same way at first. Let me give you some examples of how you can fit this into your budget.”

“I understand your concerns about the price. It can seem high at first, but when you look at the cost in the mid and long-term, I think you’ll get very excited about the ROI. Let’s look into it together.”

“I know the upfront price can be intimidating, but once we take a look at the product’s lifetime value, I think you’ll get more comfortable with this investment.

3. Malicious objections

These clients are either unhappy or angry about another situation. The response should be friendly and professional, even if they are unpleasant to deal with. Realize that you are not the target of their frustrations.

To dispute their anger, get them to look forward to the future and focus on a positive note. Sometimes a distraction from the present can be enough to dissipate their personal anger at the current situation they are in. Remember 95% of the time their anger or mood is determined by something external to you the salesperson or your product.

4. The request for information

“I’d like some more information before we move forward.”

Honestly, this is one of the best kinds of objections you can get! It’s the golden egg.

When the client begins asking you questions, that means they are interested, and they are nearing the closing of the deal. This is your chance to seize control and win the opportunity while they are engaged.

You can ask what information they’d like, but it’s much more useful to get into the benefits of the product and how it can help them. Cite some examples and case studies to convince them to move forward to the sale.

5. The showoff objection

These clients feel like they can beat you with their “superior knowledge” of your product and/or industry. The response? Take the low-road.

Pander to their ego. Show them that you are impressed by their knowledge base. Remember, flattery is a great way to make a sale and, ultimately, build a solid relationship.

If they do make a claim or assumption that isn’t correct, however, find a friendly way to address that and put a positive spin on it. Make it seem like a warm, casual conversation. Don’t get caught in a cycle of trying to one-up one another with your experience or knowledge.

6. Personal objections

These situations can be tough to bear because this is when the client is becoming critical of you.  Often this happens if you end up talking about yourself or your own experience. You can avoid this all together by focusing on the customer and their experience.

If they become critical of you, try to change the subject swiftly and politely. Again, take the low-road and remember that it’s just another day on the job. Don’t take personal offence to a stranger’s agitated words.

7. General sales resistance

Often at times, you’ll run into pure sales resistance. So what’s the remedy?

Most people will begin the conversation by being closed minded to your pitches. Only 3% of buyers say they trust sales representatives. That means you have your work cut out for you.

Get back to asking the open-ended questions. These questions will help you qualify the prospect and figure out how your product benefits your client. Start by being polite: “Can I have a few minutes of your time?” or “Would you mind if I ask you a question?” are good ways to get the go-ahead, which encourages them to listen to what you’re saying.

If they say no and you continue on, you might be able to get their attention, but it may be better to offer to call back or have them call you.

8. The last-ditch objection

Now that you have made your presentation, your client has listened to your pitch, they know the value-add, and they are on the verge of making their decision…they want to back out.

This last-ditch objection can be the most frustrating of all because you have put good effort into informing them and trying to make a sale. The remedy is to continue being patient. Listen to their final concerns with respect. You should have a number of testimonials to show that others were happy with the decision to move forward.

The Key Takeaways

No matter what situation you may find yourself facing, patience is essential in any sales game. You need to be patient listening to the customer’s concerns, and you also need to be willing to call back on a few different occasions and devote time and effort into making every sale.

No sale is going to be easy, but following these tips can help close more deals and improve the response rate from your leads and clients.

The post 8 Ways To Deal With B2B Buyer Rejection 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.

Cold Calling is an art-form now more than ever.

Calling someone on the phone, having to strike a rapport with them quickly, convincing them that they need your product, hoping they are interested in talking to you again – it’s a dance that is often eerily similar to dating.

So, with that in mind, here are our top tips to nail your next cold call.

• Don’t be desperate. The best way to sell is to not seem too desperate about selling to them. You will never sell a product, if the person you’re talking to is aware that you’re selling them something. You sell a product when you make the other person feel like they want to buy your product – put yourself in the drivers seat.
• Be a good listener. Remember that this conversation isn’t about you, it’s about your prospective client. On this call, introduce yourself, focus on them, try to get to know them. Try to establish a relationship with them. The more you get to know them personally, the more likely they are to feel comfortable meeting with you in person to discuss more about the product.

• Don’t sweat the rejections. Gordon Tredgold, a business consultant on making 2000 cold calls for a month writes that only 1 out of every 17 calls he made even went through. Half the calls he made went straight to voicemail, where the conversion rate drops further. Only about 6 percentof his calls led to a sale – and he was elite.

• Be confident. Tredgold also writes, ‘Attitude is everything’. Trying to make a sale by cold calling is about earning your prospect’s trust. Would you trust someone with your business who didn’t sound too sure of what they are offering or bringing to the table? Be bold and confident and your prospect will feel more comfortable trusting you.

• Know what you bring to the table. An elevator pitch is a quick, 10 second, 3 sentence, sales pitch to the prospect. Don’t waste the first 10 seconds of the call listing down all the services your company provides. The elevator pitch must be custom prepared for every broad category of your potential clientele and must be delivered smoothly without sounding like you’re reading from a script.In this case, your elevator pitch must be tailor made to their potential needs. Listing down services that are irrelevant to them is a waste of your time and theirs. Use the first few seconds to catch their attention with your elevator pitch and your affability (meta-note: while we love this analogy, please don’t start off your next first date by listing all your positive traits!)

• Know the other person. One situation you don’t want to find yourself in is realising you know nothing about the prospect before you make the call. Make sure to do a bit of light research on your prospect and their industry before the call. This gap in information is something that plagues the entire industry: according to a survey by Lattice Engines, and CSO insights, 42% of respondents and telemarketing reps feel that they do not have enough information to speak to a prospect– good sales pipelines & data enrichment tools will help with this.

• Keep an air of mystery about you. Don’t divulge all your information to the middle man or the ‘gatekeeper’. The gatekeeper could be the PA of the decision-making authority, or a deputy or a junior manager. Given that you’re calling with an expectation of a concrete, tangible outcome, try to reach around the gatekeeper and get a meeting with the decision maker. Once in the call, don’t dump everything right away – slowly buy in more investment by gradually revealing your offering.

• Don’t give up – you can always turn things around! Especially when you’re starting out, it might be difficult to keep focus and give up too easily on facing resistance or when the client is interested but isn’t committing. It might be easy to lose track of the conversation and deflect. Remember that your goal for the call is to make a sale or to get a follow up call or appointment. Be transparent about your goal and don’t forget to ask for it.

• At the end of the day, it’s a numbers game. In their book ‘How to start a business’ written by the staff of Enterpreneur media, Inc. they suggest keeping a goal of 50 calls in 150 minutes. Given that most of your calls won’t go through, will end up in voicemail, or won’t result in a conversation, this seems like a good average goal to have. Don’t waste too much time on dead calls because remember, time is also money. A great way to track these calls is with Tubular’s call logging feature.

• Follow up immediately when there’s solid interest. Don’t wait to do it tomorrow or later when you have time because you may never end up making the call. The relentless pursuit of prospective sales is the mantra of successful sales rep. Some sales take time to close, but as long as they are responding to you, it makes sense to keep on it. According to a Harvard/ Gallup poll, morethan a quarter of B2B sales take more than 7 months to close.

Cold calling is very much like going on a first date. It emulates the tension, the excitement, the anticipation for a second meeting, of first dates. If you’re confident, smart and know what you’re worth, you’re in great shape. And yet, just like a first date, even the best of us face a ton of rejections. Accept that as a part of the process.

Sales is something you get good at through practice. The probability of conversion from a particular call is an instinct that is honed and developed over time. It’s difficult primarily because the high rejection rate is difficult to stomach at first. However, if you keep at it, and slowly yet progressively improve, you start to notice patterns and the whole process becomes much more methodical.

That’s the key to being a great salesperson.

The post B2B Cold Calling Tips (it’s a bit like a first date!) appeared first on Tubular.

Far too many businesses are disorderly when it comes to their lead nurturing process. Most businesses lose nearly 80% of their new leads before the sale (according to research done by Invesp). As search & social saturate and customer acquisition costs continue to skyrocket, the focus must turn inwards.

You might have your lead generation tactics down-pat, but if you aren’t taking the time to actually nurture those leads through your sales pipeline, you are missing out on a lot of excellent opportunities—many of which your business may not be able to get back.

Hot (qualified) leads should take precedence over warm (interested) leads, which should take precedence over cold (unfamiliar) leads. To help your business convert more leads, and avoid the loss of warm and hot leads as much as possible, take this advice to heart.

1. What Can You Control?

As a business owner, you have to face it: some things are simply out of your control. Rather than getting scared because of those unknowns, focus on what you can control instead and tailor those aspects to perfectly fit with your lead strategy.

2. Be Prompt With Your Communication

Imagine someone walks into a physical store you own and expressed interest in one of your products. Are you going to ignore them until you’re finished with whatever it is you’re doing? Of course not, so why would you allow a warm or hot lead to sit in your system untouched as they slowly lose interest in your company?

The moment that a lead expresses interest in your business, you need to begin nurturing them. Reach out right away so that you can build upon that interest. As soon as you’re in touch with them, you can gather the information you need in order to qualify them before pushing them on to the sales team.

3. Qualify Leads Early

There’s no reason for you to waste your time trying to work with a lead who is never going to convert. To help you save time and be more efficient with your lead nurturing, qualify the leads you get early on.

Qualified leads should be at the top of your priority list each day. They should be the first leads you check in on and follow up with as they are the most likely to convert into customers. You can qualify a lead in under 60 seconds by asking yourself:

• What’s their profile? Does it match the criteria you’ve laid out previously? For example, maybe they’re an executive and you’re looking for directors.
• Do they have interest or intent? There is a difference, and it’s your job to determine the answer to this question for each lead.
• Do they have purchasing power? Don’t push an intern to your sales team, no matter how qualified they are as a lead. You need to be selling directly to a person with purchasing power.
• Have you seen their website? Looking at a lead’s website is perhaps the most powerful qualification step you can take. Will your product or service be compatible with their offerings? What specific ways can you pitch to them when thinking about your product in the context of their business?

When qualifying leads, you should also keep a close eye on your CRM to make sure that no one else on the team is working with that lead. It should be one representative per lead to keep everything linear and organized, and it will also help the lead build a stronger business relationship with that team member because they’ll feel like they have dedicated assistance.

Remember those businesses that are losing 80% of their new business before any kind of purchase? Those same businesses managed to increase sales 50% by just adopting a more refined sales nurturing process. We should know: Tubularcustomers are cracking heads on solving the nurturing problem daily.

4. Dump Bad Leads Quickly

Don’t spend your time trying to nurture a bad lead. If someone isn’t the right fit for your company, dump them immediately. There are plenty of good leads that are more deserving of your time. Nothing more needs to be said!

5. Add The Human Touch

An automated sales process can save you a lot of time, but it can also end up feeling cold and disconnected. If you are automating anything in your business, make sure you add a human touch to it.

Are you going to automatically send a follow-up email after they request a quote on your site? Delay it by a few minutes, add a profile picture to the sender, and make sure to include a name. People always need to know who is on the other end of their communications. It will help your business build a stronger reputation and a closer connection with your leads.

The human touch can come in many forms, but putting names to all types of communications (and faces to those names) will help a lead feel like they know your business and the people behind it a bit better, and it beats an auto-responder any day of the week.

6. Follow-Up With Old Customers

You probably already know that it costs substantially more to try and acquire a new customer than it does to keep a current one. That’s why your business needs to be on the top of its game when it comes to the follow-up. Not only will following up improve your customer’s experience with their purchase, it will also lower the rate of refunds/returns and give you the chance to address any issues or concerns they may be having.

When you follow-up with a customer, you can also open the door for repeat business. And, the great thing about a past customer is that you don’t have to prove anything to them. When you have a product or service that you think a past customer could benefit from, shoot them an email or give them a phone call to discuss. Make sure you start out the conversation by asking how __________ is working out for them and listen to their feedback.

You’ll also have an easier time with your follow-ups if you follow-up frequently. Don’t allow six months to pass and then randomly contact them out of the blue trying to sell them something else. To improve your customer relationship and keep them loyal to your business, follow-up with them regularly.

7. Keep it Simple

Ultimately, the keys to lead nurturing usually boil down to common sense: keep it simple. While building Tubular, we quickly realized that most sales teams had extremely convoluted and inefficient pipelines. It’s why we designed Tubular in the first place – to completely automate, simplify & streamline the sales pipeline.

The most important thing you can do is take a step back, look at your overall processes from a birds eye and find the bottlenecks you can solve. You might be surprised not only at the inefficiencies in your sales pipeline, but the gains you’ll find in lead retention.

The post Stop Losing Your Best Leads appeared first on Tubular.

In fact you don’t need over a thousand templates – it’s too confusing, for you…and your customers.

So let’s dive in and discuss how we can learn from the influential tactics relayed in Robert B. Cialdini’s book, Persuasion, and how we can incorporate these into your email campaigns. The goal is to tap into Emotional Reasoning to create a KILLER email campaign!

These tactics can be customized and tailored to your products or services so your templates retain your brand’s identity rather than looking like another downloaded email template or blog page.

Here are three Free Sales Email Templates Your Clients Simply Can’t Resist.

Hack One : Reciprocation

The Old Give and Take…and Take

This theory suggests that our engagement is better when we are offered a little something “for free.” Psychologically, our guards drop if we first receive something for free, then we feel an overpowering expectation to give something back which overrides cognitive thinking. We become complicit to the desires or needs of the person who at first did the giving.

Think about it, we don’t like to say “no” to someone who has just given us something out of the kindness of their own heart.

Applying this to your email campaign will help you create a winning strategy. Offering something for free can be a great lead generation tool for building your audience and it can also be used to win more clients or re-engage clients who may have slipped away. This is why so many companies offer “free e-books,” “free-quotes” and “free SEO audits.”

Industry Examples

• Marketing Company, SEO Firm  – “Free SEO Audit”
• Legal Firm – “Free consultation”
• Gym, Personal Trailer – “Free Introduction session”

So how do you word these Hacks into your emails ?

SEO Firm  – Example

Hi Larissa,

 

The common phrase goes, “Where do businesses go to die? The second page of Google!”

 

Whilst not strictly true, there is a huge difference in the success of companies that rank higher in Google than those lost in the midst of search engine anonymity.

 

As specialists in SEO, I did a quick dive into your website and thought you would be interested in the results.

 

Attached is a quick review on the results – it’s all free from us JP SEO agency.  – (The Old Give and Take)

 

We like to give back, and this is our way of saying “Stick in there because there is a lot right with what you are doing (The friendly thief), but some tweaks will go a long way.”

 

I am available to chat if you have any queries you have about this report (and take).

 

Kind regards,

Chris at Tubular.io

Hack Two : The Friendly Thief

This emotional play emphasises that we are all humans who like and seek praise. It is a fact we are easily complimented and we are primed to be influenced by someone who gives us this admiration.

NB: Note that this tactic can backfire if the praise giver does not seem genuine or comes across as manipulative. Think of the smarmy salesman!

Practical Examples:

Selling to friends through interpersonal relationships. We purchase from people we like and trust. This is why homebound selling worked for companies like Tupperware in the 1990’s. I hate saying no to friends.

Hint – Give this tactic a modern day spin by mentioning names of mutual friends in the email.

Hi Larissa,

 

Despite us being in different circles, it appears our worlds do meet as your name came up in conversation with a mutual friend, David Handersen.

 

David is an old friend and ex-colleague of mine. We also did some design work for him. (You might have seen his new website!)

 

He mentioned you were looking for a brand refresh and said it would be a good idea for me to reach out to you. He was really happy with the quality and delivery of our work.

 

Do you have time to hop on a quick call this week ?

 

Thanks,

Chris 

Hack Three : Scarcity, The Rule of the Few

Picture this. You just ordered a drink at the bar and you are a quarter of the way through your current drink. Then the bartender says, “Last Call.”

Guess what – you buy drinks at last call even when you’ve already had enough. The last call has introduced a time restriction, a finite period of time which is a cue to us, the fun might stop. Whether you want or need another drink, you inevitably end up buying one.

Cialdini concludes that scarcity hinders our ability to think.

Hint – Trying to incorporate time based scarcity into an offer is a challenge when your email is a request to get in the door. It is hard to claim you are pressed for time (time-based scarcity) while sending cold emails. A good play would be to offer time-scarcity to current or retaining clients.

Industry Example

Hi Larissa,

 

How is the new business going?

 

I am not sure if you know, but every year we hand pick four clients who can apply for 50% off our loyalty rewards programme. The first three places were provided to our platinum members, however, one slot has just opened up and my manager has said this can be offered out to our loyal silver members.

 

Would you be interested in accepting this invitation?

 

Kind regards,

Chris 

 

Writing, creating and managing your templates can take hours upon hours. Having a common identity, structure and method to your emails will be a winning factor in scaling your business.

This week, we are releasing a new feature within our email integration called “Templates”. It allows you to simply write sales emails, save them as templates, share them with your team and blueprint your winning strategy. No more copy and paste!

During April, we are offering all new subscribers our Pro and Enterprise tiers free customized templates. We’ll sit down with you and create the perfect cold email campaign for your business that you can use in Tubular.

Win-Win!

If you have specific questions, or want to hear about something related that I didn’t cover, add a comment and I’ll be happy to share more details.

Thanks for reading!

The post Three Free Sales Email Templates Your Clients Simply Can’t Resist appeared first on Tubular.

A sales pipeline is a visual representation of where your leads, prospects and clients are positioned in different stages of your sales process. The objective of a sales pipeline is not purely visual; it should be used to positively identify steps that can be taken by your team on how to close more deals and increase the performance of your sales division.

Sounds simple, right ?

Wrong!

Research conducted by Vantage Point Performance and the Sales Management Association revealed over 44% of executives think their organization is ineffective at managing their sales pipeline. The same study revealed that companies with a formal sales process closed 28% more business, than those without it.

So simply, most people think they their sales pipeline management is incorrect, but those that master it close more business. Let Tubular help by putting you in the 28% of companies closing more business. A healthy sales pipeline should create processes and structure which lead to actioning a winning strategy for your business.

The different stages of an effective sales pipeline management are as follows:

Prospecting/Lead Generation

Identifying prospects and collecting data is the first step to mastering your sales pipeline processes. Study the prospect, engage with them and record their personal details.

Hint – Or you can take drastic shortcuts by using the Tubulars DNA function to do this.

• Is your lead a hot lead, warm lead or a cold lead?
• Does the contact have a value to them?
• What interests them outside the workplace?

These details are important pieces of information which define how your business is answering your clients pains. It will help you in your proposal-making and follow-ups.

One common mistake salespeople make is to neglect the client. They are so busy selling a product or service they actually spare little time for the person buying the product. People love talking about themselves and their pain points so be clear and precise in asking your prospect questions. Gauge the response and assess the prospects intentions. This will lead to valuable insights into how your product can address their needs.

“Sales Meet Marketing”

And marketing meet sales – The next step is to provide your prospect or client with the information they need to feel that they (not you) are making the sales decision. Nothing helps your clients feel more comfortable in a decision making process than by seeing other clients reaping the rewards of a similar purchase. Therefore, be sure you have marketing collateral in the way of past performance, testimonials, specifications, and product and pricing information at the ready for your client. Be sure to add everything that you can offer that would interest your prospects.

Follow-Ups

Remember that follow-throughs are super important. Schedule appointments with prospects and leads and respond swiftly to their queries. Make sure you call and email the day before scheduled appointments. Additionally, follow-up after appointments. Prompt follow-ups will ensure you are on the ball. Remember – No one buys anything from someone they term as being aloof.

Tip – Sync your To-dos with your calendar to make sure nothing slips through the net.

Measure

Track and measure your sales flow, whether successful or unsuccessful. This will help you forecast your sales and revenue, as well as improve your business planning.

Tubular has the most advanced features to track, measure, and analyze your sales pipeline growth leads, customers, deals, etc.

Evaluate

Evaluation of results helps to figure out areas you may be lacking. How good is your conversion rate? Are your customers satisfied? How long does it take a lead to convert into a customer? Questions like these determine where you stand in the market. Create a feedback mechanism. Ask your former prospects how their experience was. Importantly, ask your sales representatives if they think anything can be improved in their pitch. Are they being backed up by marketing? Are there any loopholes?

So how can you start taking action on your pipeline? First of all, by training your team in what is expected of them. Sixty-one percent of companies do no training on sales pipeline management. It doesn’t need to be formal training but make time in your week and start with these questions to begin creating a sales management framework

• Am I prospecting my leads?
• Am I letting them talk to me as opposed to me talking to them?
• Am I prompt in getting the client product information and pricing?
• Am I following up in a prompt manner?
• Am I measuring my deal values?
• Am I evaluating the deals?

Just by asking these questions you will put your firm in the top 28% of companies implementing a formal sales process.

To see how Tubular can make this a seamless transition for you, start a 14-day free trial and begin using one of the easiest-to-use sales CRM’s available.

The post Sales Pipeline Management – You are doing it all wrong! appeared first on Tubular.

We give ourselves excuses or reasons to hang in there and over-exercise our patience often rewarding ourselves for hanging in so long.

Terms such as “in it for the long game” and “patience, persistence and perspiration” litter the conversation when a sales team has their weekly sales reports.

It’s true; you do need another level of patients in a B2B sales environment. Here are a few simple hacks to shortening any deal lifecycle.

1. Widen the funnel

It sounds simple, but it’s right. Statistically, you can only close a percentage of what you quote. It’s impossible to close more than you quote.

We are not advocating spending time quoting poor quality prospects. We know bonuses are paid on closing ratios, not how much you quote.

Spend time analyzing your sales funnel in weekly meetings, applying adequate time in weekly sales meetings going through your deal stages, and critiquing the ratio of your funnel.

For example, the following funnel would raise alarm bells for being bottom heavy, too much in the negotiation stages, and not enough at the top of the funnel.

Let’s solve that!

2. Start prospecting, or prospect more efficiently.

A lot of companies consider prospecting as a quick Google of a company or individual. Think again!

Companies spend hours prospecting their leads drawing up organizational charts, calculating the right angle of attack when prospecting new clients so they do not spend hours and hours of time selling to the wrong person.

By getting behind the companies or prospects, DNA informs and assists you in gathering pain points and an angle to sell them your service or a product.

Don’t know a potential leads role in the company? Check out our DNA feature which works as a data enrichment tool saving you hours and hours mapping out organizational data.

3. Sell to the right person

Email signatures make life tricky – they can overstate role importance that might be over and above the position held by the person within the company.

Now consider you spend 12 months selling to this prospect when they are not a critical decision maker in a purchasing opinion. Not ideal!

Overcome this obstacle by becoming a bit more relentless, (every successful salesperson has a ruthless streak) research people within the same company, reach out to them and ask for a meeting. Get the conversation going at a higher level so you can push on through the organizational barriers preventing you from sealing your deal.

4. Reward small victories  

Yes, sales is a bottom-line business, but pause and celebrate deal progression and measure this success.

With Tubular, you can see instant visual reports on what took hours and hours of formatting on Excel (and no more Copy of Copy.Final draft.xls files).

Now you can measure week-to-week reports, month-to- reports, quarterly, six-month and twelve monthly reports to see exactly how you are progressing in real time.

Measure your improvement! Start celebrating small victories now by signing up to Tubular here.

5. Be personal

Widening the funnel, organizational mapping, reports, and prospecting will help shorten your B2B sales cycles, but let’s remember –  B2B sales is a personal game! King of Sales (for the right and wrong reasons), and the original Wolf of Wall Street Jordan Belfort, claims one of his top sales tactics is to be…

1. Sharp as a tack

2. Enthusiastic a hell

The good news is, these two skills are free!

Think about it; you wouldn’t choose a doctor who isn’t sharp. You want him to be sharp. Your clients are looking for the same traits.

Bring enthusiasm to every pitch and every meeting and you will quickly see the difference in engaging with key clients.

The post Five Alarmingly easy hacks that shorten the sales cycle in B2B Businesses appeared first on Tubular.

A quick answer to this would be to sell! If you think you have a bigger fish to fry than to follow up with your prospects, then you’re wrong. Immediate follow-up with your potential client is imperative to master the hustle. Being able to close many deals and customer relationships depends on follow-ups. It serves as a constant reminder in a deal that you are trying to crush it and win to your benefit.

When to follow up?

Always have a plan because the person with the highest clarity and persistence in the room always wins. The best way to follow up with a prospect is by situating yourself well before  encountering them and formulating an effective follow-up line.

• If the prospect was a referral from one of your existing contacts, then it makes sense to follow up with them, not only because of their interest in your product or service, but because of the existing relationship with your other client. If you have scraped the person from a database, then you should avoid aggressive follow-ups because it can irritate the prospective contact. It is still good to follow up at least once to make sure that your email didn’t get lost in their inbox.
• Some people do not respond at all even after a follow-up email. The  best thing that you can do in such situations is to not push, and leave things to their discretion.

In the instance of a prospect showing interest in your offer, but not replying to emails, the best thing to do is to try reaching out to them through a phone call rather than email. Humor is one of the best ways possible to relax a prospect and make them more inclined to respond  to your emails.

Have a reason to follow up

There must be a reason for follow up. The most effective emails are the ones that create a sense of urgency. Think about ways to make them feel good about your product/service. The better you position your product in their eyes, the more likely they will reply back.

Putting their needs before your product is essential. Consultative selling is one of the most effective selling techniques. It makes you appear more concerned about their problems rather than selling your product.

Have a call to action when following up

It is imperative for you to have a call to action after the follow-up. Set up a meeting. Suggest meeting dates that are the most convenient for a prospect. This will advance the likelihood of closing the deal. Another call to action could be an offer that you have for them. Have a reason and a clear purpose.

The whole point of the follow up message above is to create a sense of urgency. You need to inspire an atmosphere of impulse.

Use Tools to Automate Your Follow up

There might be instances when you have to deal with a lot of prospects. But there are tools designed to remind you of follow-ups which are very useful. These convenient tools can help you avoid missing on-the-job tasks.

Tubular.io – This is a great platform for following up. It is affordable and worth the investment if you’re planning to scale up your outbound efforts.

Followup.cc — Simply add this to your CC and it will remind you to follow up. Old school, but still effective.

Boomerang — Most sales people love this because of how it sends you inbox reminders and it’s simple to choose the times you want to follow up.

Trello — You can set notifications and notes with this. As budget friendly as it gets since it’s free!

When Not to Follow Up

Relentless following-ups can ruin things for a company. You should know when to pull the plug. The most simple explanation  for this is that the prospect gets irritated  by the number of messages from you that flood their inbox.  This shows desperation on your part, which can crush the deal and put your product/service in question. Ticking someone off is definitely not the correct way to approach sales. Subtlety  is fundamental to sounding like someone who has a high-quality service/product to offer and doesn’t need to sound a lot of bells and whistles.  Pushy behavior always backfires. Tact and timing is everything.

Timing for follow up

Never disturb prospects who are busy on weekdays. Timing is critical  in this process. You have to sound like you are adjusting in the process of developing a bond with them. Calls and meetings are most often conducted according to the comfort of the prospect rather than yours. Don’t schedule a meeting on a weekday because your prospect might already be swamped with work. A meeting at this time might be  the least valuable to them in the midst of their hectic job.  Saturdays and Sundays usually work best for such meetings or calls.

Following up on other platforms

Following up doesn’t necessarily have to be on email. You can try social media, their blog (comment/follow them on their blog), LinkedIn, phone call and even snail mail, which might strike prospects as old fashioned but charming.

Following up is, at the end of the day, telling your prospect that you remember them and that you will always be the one leading them towards their interests via your product or service. A correct way of following up entails choosing an appropriate time for interaction, taking immense care in how you communicate, writing messages and never missing out on opportunities to send them praiseworthy or urgent emails. All your actions count and most of the time your endeavours will pay off.

The post A Definitive Guide to Following Up with a Prospect appeared first on Tubular.

The elements that constitute a perfect sales meeting in 2018 are:

Purpose
It is imperative for the team leader to identify the objectives of the meeting. If the team leader is not clear on the aims and objectives, it is easy for him or her to veer off-track; this could then defeat the purpose of the meeting and reduce your team’s attention span. Therefore, a good habit to get into is to state the objectives of the meeting at the very beginning so that items that are going to be covered are understood by all those in the room. This will ensure that everyone stays focused and that the meeting is productive.

Agenda

The agenda is a schedule designed to inform everyone of the relevant topics and times so that they are dealt with in good order. It informs the participants of the purpose and the flow of the meeting. This helps them prepare for the session and enables them to make reasonable contributions. If you still feel that the meeting is going off the set course, add 2-3 minutes breaks at the end of each segment allowing contributions from your members.

Tips to avoid digression:

Ask members who may “over” contribute to keep their comments concise and minimal;

Avoid topics that might give people the opportunity to digress, unless necessary; and if a topic that interests only a few attendees comes up, keep it for a latter segment.

Energiser and Check-Ins

An energiser could be an activity or any anecdote that inspires and pumps the members. It will also help the team leader grab the members’ attention and set the atmosphere for the meeting.

Check-ins are another way to capture the attention of attendees. It’s a way of registering one’s presence and can help express the mood or state-of-mind of the attendees. This will help the leader or chair understand the mood at the table and can then choose to move forward accordingly.

Work Updates

Updates are an important way of tracking the team’s and individual member’s progress in terms of targets. This will give members a fair idea of their performance as well as their team’s performance. It is based only on these whether the team will be driven by urgency and/or focus in the days to come. Updates are not necessarily limited to targets. Individual updates can and should also involve themes such as key learnings and future points of focus.The team can then analyze their priorities and risks.

Priorities: Tasks that need to be focused upon.

Risks: What could be the possible obstacles in the completion of these tasks? What can be done to avoid them?

Rewards and Recognition
Psychological studies have shown that reward and recognition can stimulate positive behaviour. Do not miss an opportunity to acknowledge the efforts of your members and make them feel appreciated. Rewarding individuals for meeting targets with corresponding incentives can fuel the team’s competitive drive. This will also induce a sense of excitement in your members and motivate them to push the boundaries and go the extra mile. Tubular’s Leaderboard allows your team to set targets, and encourage healthy competition. he best salespersons are highly motivated and goal-oriented.

Coaching

Having taken the updates and evaluated the performances, it becomes easier for the team leader or the chair to identify issues and develop appropriate training strategies for the members.

It could also be that another department in the company has developed a new strategy that could directly or indirectly affect sales. In this case it becomes important for the team members to made aware of this so they can extract the maximum benefit. There’s always room for some improvement. Even if you feel that the team is on the right track, look for newer skills that the team members could learn. Do a recce for the next time your members go on-field. It could also involve role-playing. You could also choose a well-performing member to walk the team through their sales pitch. 

The Way Forward

Last but not least, the way forward. This should include a brainstorming session where each member contributes what they think can and should be done in the days to come in order to achieve the targets.

By the end of the meeting, your team should have a list of tasks to work through. Each member should be clear on what tasks need to be done and a deadline. The team should have clarity on their way forward and everyone should be on the same page. You can utilize this space to run everyone through the decisions taken and address any queries or concerns.

To ensure that the meeting results in fuelling your team members’ spirits, make sure that you end it on a positive note. Motivate them through a personal experience. Lastly, ensure that the minutes of the meeting reach your members so that the action items are fresh in people’s minds.

Want to find out how Tubular can help you and your team close more sales ? Sign up for a 14 days free trial today.

The post 7 Key Elements Of A Perfect Sales Meeting in 2018 appeared first on Tubular.