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.

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.

The new Deal Page, is a powerful interface that has been designed to help you visualise your sales, update deals faster and provide more powerful KPI’s. We know you’re going to love it

Watch the video below to see how it works !

Ginni Rometty CEO of IBM said “When you remove layers, speed and simplicity happen.”

Let’s admit it, if you do something fast its fun. Living life in the fast lane, driving fast, all these actions are synonymous with fun.

Tubular has now introduced our quick actions button which decreases the time it takes to review and update your sales pipeline, all from the same window. From a single click you can now add notes, upload files, log calls and make updates with each deal. Look for the lightning bolt and speed up your sales today!

The post Introducing – Quick Actions appeared first on Tubular.

Like a good investment portfolio, your sales pipeline should be well diversified to increase your chances of closing more deals.

A well-diversified sales pipeline can be broken down by

– Which region the deal is assigned to
– Which country the deal is assigned to
– The division that bought the sale to fruition (sales/marketing)
– How much of your pipeline is allocated to recurring revenue?
– Which advertising channel brought in the lead or deal

But how do you measure and arrange these details to ensure your strategic decisions are spot on when actioning your Sales Pipeline?

Tagging!

Tagging is a new feature update from Tubular to help you organise, review, sort and process your deals quicker than ever!

1.     Your Tags can be found in the colour coded section under the deal name.

2.     To add a tag – Click on the tag (you see where I am going with this)

3.     And type the name of the tag (you can have multiple tags for deals)

4.     Now in the Filter section you will see Tags filter.

5.     By clicking on a tag – it allows you to see all your sales pipeline via tags.

Set up your call today and learn more about the Tubular Feature set!

The post New Feature : Tagging in Tubular appeared first on Tubular.

I’m finally excited to announce this new feature in Tubular. It’s taken us quite some time to get it just right!

Outlook, 365 & Exchange Integration is here !

​​

Our Outlook Integration means no more leaving Tubular when you need to check, read, reply or write emails. Easily reply to your clients from within the deal page.

If you are a Pro or Enterprise Tier subscriber, you will see a new Email tab appear next to the Timeline tab.

​​

If you use Gmail or G Suite for your business email hosting, you can easily sync your Gmail account with a single click.

​​

Once your account is connected, you can use the email tab to email the contact in your deal directly.

​​

No longer is there a need to “cc” everyone in your team on correspondence, now with a single click, you can share emails with your team by Pinning them to your timeline!

​​

Your emails are held in your Microsoft account, so we don’t store your data on our servers, so everything is kept in sync! 

If you have any questions or want one of the Team to help you get started with Gmail integration, drop us an email and we’ll arrange a time to get it all set up for you.

Check it out and let us know what you think.

​Try GMAIL in Tubular ​

Keep closing deals!

 Team Tubular

The post 365 and Outlook Integration is here! appeared first on Tubular.