360 Consulting

December is a good time for checking exactly how much product or service knowledge your reps have – from youngest talent to seasoned pro! Why not make this fun with a variation on a Christmas quiz? Let's divide the topic up, starting today with features and benefits – we'll look at other aspects another day. So – you could get the team to dream up some questions a prospect might ask about features and benefits. Think broadly. Gather 20 or more. Then switch to being reps and see what answers your team can come up with for these questions. The more, the merrier in both cases. However bizarre the suggestions are, it reinforces the point of the exercise and makes sure there is no way anyone can trip your team up. To set your creativity off, here are a couple of possible questions the prospect might ask: "How will this product help me solve [specific problem]?" "Can you explain in detail how this feature works?" "Why is this specific feature better than what other people are offering me?" Bonus: When a task involves fun, the brain remembers it better. Just saying! #workgoals #teamgoals #leadership

"Assess, build, drive, tune..". Are we talking about assessing our current guitar and the need for a new one? Building it to order, driving it to the venue, and tuning it before the performance? Not exactly! But it's a pretty accurate process – except for the guitar bit. We're talking sales engines. But you guessed that – it's what we do! 🎸 However, no musician would dream of ditching their favorite instrument for a new one without first assessing where it works and where it falls short. Then, building or sourcing the new one to their personal specifications. It's the same with a sales team. You don't want a replica of what someone else ordered. So, we assess and design your systems around you and your unique business value. 🧾 But it will still be a sales engine, it will still drive your sales, and we'll still fine-tune it for you in every way – from accountability and optimization to recruiting, onboarding, coaching, and all the other things that help push your sales through the metaphorical roof tiles. There's one month to New Year. You know where we are! #BusinessGrowth #BusinessGrowthStrategy #SmallBusinessGrowth

As a sales leader, have you thought of assessing your sales team members? Obviously you "sort of know" what they do, their abilities, and their outcomes. And you meet with them regularly. But what about an overall assessment? This would cover... ⭐️ Whether you have the right staff abilities in the team. ⭐️ Any task overlaps that create confusion. ⭐️ If there are roles no one is covering. ⭐️ Where the chain of accountability lies. ⭐️ What the expectations are for each team member. We could go on. And of course, we discuss these and more when working with you to lay down the Sales Xceleration Framework™ in your business. But you get the idea. To make things easy and clear for everyone, we have a tool to enable these considerations to take place. Because, although this is nitty-gritty stuff, it's essential in order to avoid chaos and ineffectiveness on a day-to-day basis. I guess that's why we thought of asking today, as 2025 approaches: Have you assessed your sales team recently? We're happy to help. https://lnkd.in/gy5cXbas #businessdevelopment #salesxceleration #SalesLeadership

Today we'll revisit a third way to qualify leads – following from BANT and CHAMP we talked about earlier. Anyone using ANUM? It prioritizes finding the decision-maker (AUTHORITY – good point. Now rather than later saves time-wasting), assessing the NEED, creating a sense of URGENCY, and confirming they have the MONEY. At a time of year when you want qualified leads to act before the end of year, creating a sense of urgency with the right leads seems good. This could be the difference between a stalled deal and a closed one in competitive markets. BUT – ‼️ Creating urgency doesn't necessarily mean offering a sale price that runs out in five hours with a count-down on the website! However, it could look and sound like this: ✔️ "We've been getting a lot of interest in this solution lately, and our implementation team is booking up quickly. I’d love to ensure we can reserve some time for you if it’s a good fit." ✔️ "The longer teams wait to adopt this, the more I see them missing out on key efficiencies, especially with how fast the market is moving right now." What do you think? Comments welcome! Or call us for a free consultation on how we can help you find more qualified leads to improve your sales funnel. https://lnkd.in/gjHWXKPc #Urgency #ANUM #SalesTactic

There are few arenas more competitive than sales. Stiff competition and an ever-evolving marketplace mean long-term success only comes to those who are truly up to the challenge! So – are you up for a sales improvement challenge this week? To help you in the pursuit of continual improvement, we’ve compiled a list of six ways you can improve things. Why? Because we're passionate about helping you exceed your goals, and because they're foundational factors in most successful businesses. Take a look and see if just one of these can help push your sales up a notch this week while it's still 2024. https://lnkd.in/ddxbz3a3 #SalesGoals #BusinessGrowth

Sales infrastructure – bor-ring?? Well, here are three immediately important benefits we've rattled off in 30 seconds – and there are many more! Give us a call for a free consultation. We'll partner with you to provide a rock solid sales infrastructure that supports and exceeds your sales goals long-term. https://lnkd.in/gjHWXKPc #SalesInfrastructure #SalesGoals

Since the downturn in the economy, and perhaps even before, as many as 90% of small to mid-size businesses have struggled in areas of industry positioning, competitors, and value proposition. These are not insignificant problems! And if it's recently gotten harder to solve the challenge, you're not alone. After all... ❓ How do you position yourself in the industry when people have fewer dollars to spend? ❓ When trends change like stoplights, how do you determine who your competitors are for any length of time? ❓ And when customer preferences and ideals lead the way, how does this affect the strength of your value proposition? We've found that starting with the Sales Xceleration Framework™ can be the perfect first step in building a superpower foundation to create a consistent sales strategy for your team. The reps are then able to take these extra challenges in their stride – because the basics don't change. https://lnkd.in/gy5cXbas #businessdevelopment #salesxceleration #SalesLeadership

We looked at BANT two weeks ago when thinking about how to qualify leads. But maybe your reps think more along the lines of CHAMP (is alliteration common in sales??). Let's revisit this one... CHAMP stands for CHallenges, Authority, Money, and Prioritization. Authority rears its head again, of course, because if the person you're talking to is keen and the finance people say no, you're inviting an unnerving failure. Budget/Money are in both BANT and CHAMP because there's no point in pushing leads to buy if they can't afford it. Time is more wisely spent on those who have pockets the right depth for what you're selling – or stretchy enough to expand when they see your value-add! Champ puts challenges first, however, which is quite common these days: Identify pain points so you can supply the only effective balm. Prioritization is an interesting one. You'll have prioritized prospects with your own lead scoring system – which is why you got this far. But how much priority is your prospect giving to following through with your calls and meetings? So, prioritization here means you have to gauge how serious they are at this point in the funnel. If they seem a bit "flimsy," move on. In a competitive world, you need buying customers, not loiterers. So, CHAMP still makes sense in lots of ways. What's your take on it? #BusinessGrowth #BusinessGrowthStrategy #BusinessTips #CHAMP

Earlier this month we looked at two problems in B2B selling at this time of year: longer sales cycles and price sensitivity. Today, we'll look at the final problem we're targeting: sales and marketing misalignment. As you know, lack of coordination between sales and marketing teams can hinder lead quality and conversion rates. In a season when you want to sell more not less, these are serious issues! You can't afford to have reps wasting time on unqualified leads or failing to capitalize on some market insight. Their efficiency plummets like a meteorite in a lake. ℹ️ The way out of this dilemma – as quickly as possible – is to ensure you have one, and one only, source of data and information. And yes, it goes right back to the importance of a modern integrated CRM. 👥 If yours is falling short, now's a good time to set up a new system so it's ready for 2025. In the meantime, why not have joint meetings every week or even more often, to ensure your teams are swapping hot information that can be used immediately to best effect? Even in the slow-moving B2B world, a tip-off about who's nearly ready to buy or a trend worth jumping on with an email to a contact would be a seasonal gift to your business! We're happy to help with all sales problems. Our passion is to bring you exceptional growth and success. https://lnkd.in/eNzNaBWs #BusinessGrowth #Tips

Remember how we started the month with some complaints about how data disorder and misalignment makes everyone's work less effective? Well, we've assembled some evidence that proves the benefit of tidying things up! Have a read, and let us know in the comments if it resonates with your own findings. We'd love to hear about your own experience. Or give us a call if we can help. https://lnkd.in/gjHWXKPc #360Consulting #Data