Faiz Ahmed Shaikh’s Post

6 Common Ways Sales Professionals Waste Their Time (& How to Avoid Them), According to Real Sales Leaders https://lnkd.in/e-YFaQA3

We've worked with 76 sales VPs and their teams over the last year. Here is the single most common mistake I see them make... There are no rules for what they want to have happen & not happen in the sales process. Here are some examples of what good rules look like: Rule: No open deal should go more than 7 days without a touchpoint. Rule: When prospects go dark on us, we contact them 5 times before we move them to lost. Rule: New inbound leads get contacted within 5 minutes. Rule: No lead goes more than 7 days without a touchpoint. Couple reasons why these rules matter: 1. It means there's a bet - You're saying "if we meet these rules, we'll drive more revenue." That means you know what to look for to see if your bet is right, and can adjust faster if it's wrong because you can see it. 2. The rules above are not based on manual data entry. No lead status. No priority. Just facts based on activities. Less manual data entry means more accurate data and more time spent selling. 3. It's super easy to find your revenue leaks. For example "number of leads not contacted within target", "Open deals not touched in 7 time". Incredibly simple? Yes. Incredibly effective? Yes.

6 Common Ways Sales Professionals Waste Their Time (& How to Avoid Them), According to Real Sales Leaders https://lnkd.in/ev9DvC3q

From being “compassionately aggressive” in order to increase conversions, to having sales teams trained to handle various aspects of both marketing and sales in “centralized systems,” many providers are making significant changes to their #seniorliving sales practices. -- Check out some of my takeaways from our recent sales and marketing summit and what it means for the industry in 2024.

𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝗯𝘆 𝘁𝗿𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀. I can hear the pitchforks being sharpened already, because “selling more” is usually the first place companies go to when feeling the effects of an inefficient sales organization. There’s pressure from above to increase revenue yesterday, and anything that doesn’t directly tie back to more sales feels like a waste of time. Unfortunately, focusing on improving sales while ignoring (or being blind to) a deeper sales efficiency problem can make the situation worse. In yesterday’s 📰𝙍𝙚𝙫𝙊𝙥𝙨 𝙒𝙚𝙚𝙠𝙡𝙮 📰 Newsletter, Revenue Operations Strategist Joel Arnold dissected the most common traps sales leaders fall into when trying to fix an efficiency problem with a sales solution. So what does a 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 look like? This excerpt from yesterday’s newsletter provides one example: Now that we’ve gone over the things you shouldn’t do, let’s talk about the things you CAN do to improve sales efficiency. There are two ways to go about this: 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘁-𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝘀: things that will immediately make you more efficient. 𝗟𝗼𝗻𝗴-𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝘀: processes throughout your org that increase foundational efficiency. My favorite short-term sales efficiency tactic – one that often gets overlooked despite its simplicity – is to have clear SLAs at the beginning and end of the sales process 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺. This means: - Following up on leads in the right time - Having a consistent process to your sales flow - Having an organized sales handoff and smooth kickoff Everyone on your sales team should understand these expectations and follow them, even before a contract is signed. If you do this, you will immediately improve your efficiency and revenue potential. 𝗡𝗼𝘄, 𝗹𝗲𝘁’𝘀 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺... Want more? You can read the full newsletter on-demand in the 📰𝙍𝙚𝙫𝙊𝙥𝙨 𝙒𝙚𝙚𝙠𝙡𝙮 📰 by clicking here⬇️ 🔗https://lnkd.in/esRhPj75 🔗 ✌️

Debate me. The MOST important skill to have to be successful is….. Sales. Everyone should learn sales or at the very least, work with someone that does. If my son learns only one thing, I’m making sure he learns sales. The funny thing is, sales isn’t even that hard. It’s not manipulating somebody to buy something they don’t need… It’s simply believing in your product so much, that the customer can feel your passion, and they want a piece of it. I’m lucky enough to be sponsored by Pipedrive who help me manage my pipeline, and smash our sales goals at HelpBnk. Pipedrive is the first CRM made by salespeople, for salespeople, and new users average 28% more deals in their first year. You can try Pipedrive free for 14 days via the link below 🚀

“If the kid can’t read because he doesn’t know enough words - that’s momma's fault. If the kid can’t read because there’s no lights in the house, that’s daddy’s fault.” Famous words from world-renowned philosopher Chris Rock. Though you may not realize it, this is actually a secret metaphor… Describing the traditional (and often bone-headed) relationship between sales teams and marketers who silo themselves off from each other. Marketers gather the (allegedly) qualified leads, give them to the sales team, and say, “my job is done.” Kind of like a surgeon who forgets to sew the patient back up. Predictably, the sales and marketing teams blame each other when sales start to slow down. One of my big upgrades over the past year was understanding that sales and marketing are meant to be symbiotic instead of siloed. When I’m heading up a client funnel, I spend nearly as much time obsessing over how to help increase back-end sales conversions as I do on increasing front-end sales and booked calls. And I can only be successful by working hand-in-hand with the sales team. Case in point... By analyzing sales calls, regularly talking to the sales team, and carefully tracking the result of each call, we were able to: Cut the unqualified lead rate in half... Make the offer more attractive... Change our messaging to attract the segment most likely to buy... Which ultimately increased our monthly back-end sales by $100,000. And if you’re still not convinced, remember the words of another philosopher, Lily Tomlin: "I always wondered why somebody doesn’t do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody."

6 Common Ways Sales Professionals Waste Their Time (& How to Avoid Them), According to Real Sales Leaders https://buff.ly/3YelrlD

We've created sales battlecards for Fortune 500 technology companies, startups, and early-stage companies across technology - hardware, infrastructure, enterprise software, and services. There are some essential elements in creating competitor battlecards, so they're valuable, insightful - and used by sales. Competitor battlecards must be: > Compelling. While it may be interesting to know how many people a company employs or where they are headquartered, the meat of an excellent competitive battlecard is core questions to raise, discussion points to have with prospects, 'gotchas,' facts, field insights, and points of differentiation to address real-world relevant issues, objections, and opportunities for your sales teams. > Easy-to-use. No offense, but that dusty old sales playbook, longer than War & Peace, isn't helping anyone, especially not time-pressed salespeople. Our battlecards are concise, either one- or two pages, presented in blocks so facts can be found at a glance. > Created in collaboration. Yes, we do the heavy lifting: the research, asking, exploring - but battlecards should never be created in a vacuum. We work in close collaboration with sales teams to understand specific needs and opportunities for each battlecard. > Developed through a tried-and-true framework. Our process for creating battlecards means we know how to make the process quick and effective and capture relevant data, facts, and points to support your sales process and sales teams. It also means when you have a number of battlecards, they are consistent. > Recency. We create battlecards and maintain them to ensure they are relevant to changing market conditions, new products and services, and changes in your own business. Everything is updated and dated - because you want to avoid your sales team trying to compete on information that is months (or even years) old. If you'd like to talk about creating some competitive information to help your sales team, drop us a line at [email protected]

Sales is a game, here are my 2024 rules: Quota - 960K Accounts - 300 Active Customers - 20 Active New Logos Opportunities - 18 𝐆𝐨𝐚𝐥? Inv time where there’s the highest revenue impact, in the shortest amount of time. 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦? You have 300+ accounts. You don't know where to start. You have to find high-intent (and large) accounts + high-intent prospects. 𝐒𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧(𝐬)? 1. Tier accounts with precision. Categorize my 1,000 accounts into Marquee, Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3. This is determined by Size of Prize + ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), aka how great of a fit they look like for our solution. 2. Identify intent with technology. UserGems 💎 (previous champions that joined my accounts) close at a 30% higher rate. I start there. I also look for other signals: Web activity, content downloads, sales hiring, new CRO/VP Sales, and previous opportunities. 3. Maximize revenue-generating activities. Spend 80% of your time in these 2 buckets: -Generating pipeline -Advancing pipeline Color code your schedule revenue-generating vs. not... learned that from Salman Mohiuddin this week. Everyone can play the game differently and see success That's the best part about it Happy friday all ✌️