Whether you are the VP of Sales, Sales Manager, or Owner, you feel the pressure to:
- Meet sales targets.
- Build customer relationships and know buyer behavior patterns.
- Manage sales operations and processes.
Communicating with sales reps, prospects, and clients creates tasks, quotes, emails, and follow-up that can be quite exhausting. Sadly, client visits often take a backseat to all of these pressures.
Priorities
Imagine if you had 8 hours per week to allocate? You choose your priorities.
Client Time
What if you spent more time with your best clients? Engaging with a client while not on a project is a great way to build relationships and learn about buying patterns. Whether it’s a call, visit, or series of emails depends upon the client. Connecting is what is important.
VIP Buyers
Talk about pressure. Nearly every buyer believes they are a VIP. Your goal is to get that person to believe they are, while you focus on your most critical VIPs (A&B prospects). Your challenge as a solopreneur and as a sales manager is the Follow Up.
Sales Reps
“My sales reps are great, but they do not keep me up to date” said one VP. The Reps said, “They love their VP but, he is always bugging them about their leads.” They all agreed that regular sales meetings were a disaster.
Follow Up Fatigue (FUF) gets in the way of client visits, closing sales, and reaching prospects. How do you “stuff the FUF” so it frees up time?
Free Up Your Time
There are many ways to free up time in a sales process by combining the powers of automation, segmentation, and pipeline management.
Automation
Sounds scary. Imagine if:
- You sent different messaging to different prospects based on tailored criteria.
- Each new prospect received follow up emails to schedule 1 to 1 meetings.
- You received reminders to follow up based on specific conditions.
- Prospects receive emails or texts when the prospect moves through your sales pipeline.
Imagine if these are triggered automatically.
Segmentation
“It is so hard to put together a mail list,” so I have been told. It is really hard if you rely on sticky notes and spreadsheets. Imagine if:
- Clients received specialized messaging based on the type and number of products or services purchased.
- Every time you entered a new contact, it was added to a special segment based on your tailored criteria.
- Prospects were organized by industry, age, and zip code.
Buyers only pay attention to valuable content, tailored to what is important to them. Increase your conversion rate using targeted messaging to targeted groups.
Pipeline Management
Exceeding sales targets is the pressure point.
Working back from your target is your sales pipeline. Use the pipeline to measure future sales and, you are likely to achieve or exceed your targets. Your pipeline’s stages depend on what you sell and its sales cycle. Use each stage to trigger reminders to sales reps and outreach to prospects. Use the pipeline to learn where prospects drop out.
HARNESS THE POWER OF A CRM
Combine personalized automation, segmentation, and pipeline management to free up your time for your highest priorities. When you do, you will close more sales with less Follow Up Fatigue.
Would you like to find 8 hours per week for your highest priorities?
Set up a Meeting so we can share ideas.
