Know Exactly What You Want In Life And In Sales – Week in Sales, No 19

We know that after Thanksgiving things tend to go more slowly and that’s why we’d like to start off this Week in Sales with some memes that salespeople can relate to all too well.

We particularly like the Lord of The Rings reference, Gandalf being the gatekeeper that will not let you pass through to the decision maker even though you know this company would greatly benefit from your service

Improving Your Skills

Whether you need to brush up your old skills or want to acquire new ones, working on yourself will surely take you places. One of the most meaningful career paths you can take is being a salesperson – but only if it’s the type of sales that’s right for you. So what can you do to be a part of the sales team in some of the most well-known brands and startups?

Be your own brand: use the internet to show who you are and to tell your story – go beyond social media and create a blog or a portfolio site which will allow you to differentiate yourself and show off your experience and achievements. Social media is a good place to share your opinions on current events and share relevant articles to show that you’re up to date with all changes in the sales world. One more thing to consider might be publications like Inc. Entrepreneur, Huffington Post etc. which accept guest writers. If you write a good article you might get accepted and get a huge exposure.

Specify your dream job: you have to know what you want in order to get it. Having a vague goal like “wanting to work for a big company” isn’t really what will help you in the long run. Create a list of companies you’d like to work at, choose those that you can imagine yourself working in. Do their values align with yours? Do you share similar ideas? Have a clear and strong reason when asked “Why do you want to work here?”.

Connect, connect, connect: whether it be social media like Linkedin or Facebook, meetups, startup events, or with a startup recruiter – your goal is to get your name out there.

If you want to step up your game, HubSpot is sharing some tips on how to become a successful consultant.

First and foremost understand your niche – identify your strengths and expertise. Set goals, but set SMART goals: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-based. Besides having an official website that creates a presence for your business online, it is a good idea to have some sort of certification depending on your field of work. You need to keep your eyes on the most important target audience which will allow you to provide a better tailored service to those clients that are a perfect match.

There are things that we can change about ourselves, but there are also some fundamental things that we can’t seem to build upon. That’s why it’s good to have a multitude of people with different strengths, abilities, personalities, points of view, that can exceed in their job precisely because of their uniqueness. That’s why we’d like to share some of the specific behaviors that all the great sales hunters have in common, so next time when you want to hire one – you will know exactly what to look for.

This is going to be the third time we have said this in this article, but – in order to get it, you need to know what you want. You will need to look for a person who is always trying to be the best in whatever they do, someone who’s competitive, confident, full of energy, good at stalking, relationship oriented – all in all, having an extrovert as a sales hunter will get you a long way.

Team Players

Sales managers can be harsh to their sales team at times, expecting from them to work harder and be more productive. Instead of constantly insisting on making more call and more leads, the focus should be moved to strategically coaching your sales team into working smarter.

Measuring the outcome of your team’s activities is the most efficient way to drive productivity – this will allow you to see what efforts bring no results, and also what you need to focus on. You should be data-driven. You should establish a culture of accountability within your team so they will be more prone to measure their own productivity and performance – and this will save you a lot of precious time (and possibly some bad blood). Sales reps are ambitious and competitive by nature, so if you create a competitive environment you could also boost the overall productivity.

Times are changing fast – and your sales team needs to pick up the pace. Sales for Life has written an interesting blog post about how you can prepare your sales team for the Artificial Intelligence implementation. It really is only a matter of time before the AI becomes a part of the sales funnel.

Stand Out

Now that we mentioned Artificial Intelligence, we’ll share some tips on how not to sound like a robot when contacting your prospects. By communicating in an authentic way, and sending emails that someone will actually want to read, you might spark their interest. We’re loving the Mean Girls’ reference: “Remember, you’re not a regular salesperson — you’re a cool salesperson.”

No Excuses Please 

How many times you’ve given excuses when things go wrong? We sure have in the past, but we don’t want to bring that into 2018 with us. Needless to say, it’s not a problem to vent at times – but excuses shouldn’t be a way to cope with failure.

For instance, instead of saying “We can’t find qualified prospects.”, examine your sales process for anything that might be the root of the problem. Or instead of saying “Our marketing team sucks.” try not to blame other departments, and try to resolve the obvious lack of coordination and synchronization between teams.

Back to basics

Okay, there’s pretty high possibility you know when someone has opened your email. But we’re still sharing it, just for 0,1% of those who might be clueless as to how to do that.

We’re again here for the 0,1% and we want them to learn all about Microsoft Outlook Email Template feature which will allow you to easily create predefined email templates for responding to some of the routine emails.

Week in Sales No 19 – Wrap up

Sharing is caring, these are some of the articles we found to be most interesting in sales during this week of sales knowledge sharing.

Did you read or write anything that could help us learn something new?

If so, feel free to contact us and send us interesting links, we’d be happy to share the article with the world.