What a week, eh?

Wowsers! I genuinely am gobsmacked at this whole Coronavirus thing. It’s awful for everyone who gets it but I hope you don’t mind me putting the health issues aside for a second. I’m 30 years old and COVID-19 has had a scale of economic distribution that certainly I’ve never seen before. Not that I’m an economist, but I’d argue it’s had more damage than the 2008 housing crisis (Let me know if I’m wrong).

The cascade effect

Retail companies are being forced to close and office-based companies suddenly need to be a 100% remote workforce. So many people have lost their jobs already and every company is cutting costs. That means for B2B companies, some of your clients have probably tried to cancel on you as well.

The focus of every B2B company I’ve spoken to has been a mad dash to cover all the angles:

1. Find a way to hold on to clients
2. Figure out how to find new clients to replace the ones who cancelled – This is why you’re here
3. Find a way to keep the team together and working
4. Get some Government funding and cut costs

This blog is here to help with the 2nd one. Check out the government support for businesses by the way. Some good stuff for you on there!

It’s a time of big change. I know a lot of companies have customers cancelling and faced with the prospect of closure. If this helps one company survive I’ll be happy I spent a day writing this.

How our blogs are usually structured

Here’s how our blogs are usually set up:

1. Super useful sales advice
2. Some kind of anecdote to explain it
3. A convenient link to what we do if you are interested

Well, there no sales pitch here. I genuinely want to help companies come through this unscathed. Basically, in this blog:

1. Links to super useful stuff to help you keep finding new customers during this trying time
2. A quick overview of where you can find new clients & generate more B2B qualified leads this month
3. Free offer of my sales coaching time to help you work out how you’re going to find new customers (again, no sales pitch, just genuinely want you to find your way out of this tight spot)

Prioritise those closest to the sale

Imagine this is your sales team’s sales process. How do you maximise their income? Simple really, get them spending as much of their time as possible toward the ‘Closing’ end of the scale. Check out the video I did on this exact topic!

What does that mean? That means that the more time they’re spending speaking quoting and closing sales, the better results you can expect. See this sales process as a series of priorities. The most important is on the right and the least important is on the left.

For them to spend as much of their time as possible in the ‘Enquiry and Closing’ stage, you want to train your salespeople to prioritise their time in the following way:

1. Closing existing quotes and getting contracts signed
2. Taking sales meetings to produce new quotes
3. Following up on recent enquiries to book meetings
4. Recontacting previous customers to generate more B2B qualified leads
5. Recontacting previously lost quotes to see if they still need your services
6. Follow up with previous enquiries that didn’t get to quote stage

Notice how 1. has the highest chance of saying ‘Yes’ right now and 6. has the lowest chance of saying ‘Yes’ right now? Even so, following up with previous enquiries is still a much more valuable use of their time than cold calling.

Once you are completely satisfied that your sales team has exhausted all of these avenues from 1-6, then get them prospecting. This gives you the best chance of them optimising their ability to sell and generate more B2B qualified leads

Close your existing quotes first, then find more quotes

Heres how I usually see sales campaigns. I answer the below 3 questions to help me build-up a certain sales pipeline:

1. This week Where are this week’s sales coming from? Who’s already given more basically ready to say yes now?
2. This month Where are the rest of this month’s sales coming from? Who’s already been quoted?
3. More quotes How do I replenish this with new quotes? Don’t let your pipeline dry up!
4. Repeat Go back to stage 1 and repeat

To put another way close your existing quotes and get in more quotes. Then close your existing quotes and get in more quotes. Then close… you get the idea. I’m sure you can close sales pretty well, so let’s focus on getting you more opportunities.

Resources to help you Generate more B2B qualified leads

Here’s the most 7 common questions I get asked and a blog I did to help you figure it out

What type of prospecting should I use?

So many marketing options, which one do I pick! This blog was inspired by the book Predictable Revenue which was written by Aaron Ross & Marylou Tyler‎ of Salesforce and their systems helped generate over $100 Million in revenue.

I summarise the 3 ways Salesforce see their forms of prospecting and how they make sure they always have a steady stream of leads coming in. Honestly, one of my favourite books on how to generate more B2B qualified leads https://parkrow.marketing/2019/01/08/qualified-lead-generation/

Seeds, Nets and Spears: 3 types of Qualified Lead Generation

What data should I give my sales team to contact

Obviously, a bad workman blames his tools. But it’s an often-ignored fact that Sales people’s performance is actually very dependent on the quality of data you provide them with.

In this blog I talk about how to assess the quality of your data and tell you about the time I found out that client was wasting 97% of their sales teams time by having them call data which they wouldn’t even have been able to work with anyway!

Salespeople are a charming bunch, but if they’re speaking to the wrong people then they can only do so much. Take a rookie salesperson on good data, they will generate more B2B qualified leads vs. your superstar salesperson on cold data.

Honestly, the first thing I look at when there are poor results from a salesperson is the quality of their data. It has such an impact. It’s like getting a chef to cook without giving them any ingredients. https://parkrow.marketing/2020/03/01/poor-data-is-a-waste-of-your-sales-teams-time/

Poor data is a waste of your sales team’s time

Which sources of leads are best for us

5 ways to measure the effectiveness of your leads. Why would I want to do that? Believe me, you want to know this! Knowing the characteristics of sources of leads allow you do to things like this:

• “We need quick sales so we’re going to give our sales team leads from source XX this month”
• “Our pipeline is drying up so we need to generate more B2B qualified leads for next month’s sales. We can get quick leads from source YY this month to balance things out”
• “We need a big influx of cash and we don’t want to take on finance, so we’re going to increase next month’s cash with sales from source ZZ this month”

Link https://parkrow.marketing/2019/03/24/b2b-appointment-setting/

Which sources of leads generate the best results?

How do I follow up without being annoying

You’ve got a hot lead, they’ve all but signed the contract but you haven’t heard from them in a week. Should you call them? Or email them? Maybe I should leave it another week? I don’t want to frustrate them or jeopardise the sale. But I need this sale to come in!

Here’s some key tips on solving this exact problem. As the title suggests; Following up without being annoying https://parkrow.marketing/2018/11/11/closing-sales-tips/

Closing sales tips – Following up without being annoying

How long until they sign the contract?

This one is all about enabling you to make good, sensible predictions on the number of sales you will get and when you can expect that cash to materialise. Salespeople are by nature, optimistic folks and so tend to exaggerate a little when telling you how much money they’re going to make you this month.

This is a great way to bring them back down to earth by measuring these 5 key factors to closing sales. It’s this that forms a good solid basis where you can make solid future predictions. https://parkrow.marketing/2019/09/01/how-long-until-they-sign-the-contract-close-a-b2b-sale/

How long until they sign the contract?

How can I make sure my sales team get sales at a good margin?

Sales figures mean nothing, genuinely nothing if you don’t make enough profit. You’ll always get those penny-pinchers and the tyre-kickers who umm, ahh and waste your time. In price competitive times, how do you maintain a strong bargaining position?

This is the biggest factor; Have so many other options that you could walk away from a sale if it didn’t work for you. Read more here about making a good bargaining position for yourself https://parkrow.marketing/2018/09/22/consistent-lead-generation-makes-consistent-sales/

Is your sales pipeline like 4am in a nightclub?

How can I be sure that my sales team wont use this remote-working thing to slack off?

Sales is still one of those job roles where managers feel the need to control and crack the whip. As someone who manages a 15-strong 100% remote sales team, I can give you a few tips to give you insight into staff activities without micromanaging. https://parkrow.marketing/2019/09/16/remote-a-new-way-of-seeing-your-sales-team-remote-sales-team/

REMOTE – a new way of seeing your sales team

Hope you found this useful. I hope you find this useful too

I genuinely hope this helps you and your sales team self-fund as much as possible in the coming months. To help you out even more, I’ve got something else.

I’m happy to provide free sales coaching if you’d like a bit more clarity on how you’re going to find new customers. What this will involve is a friendly phone or skype chat, we’ll discuss your sales at the moment and give you actions to take to turn things around, including how to generate more B2B qualified leads. What’s more, I’ll be checking up on you to make sure that you do them!

Times are changing a lot at the moment so I hope you found this blog useful and if you’d like to book in for a sales coaching session, you can do so directly using this calendly link

www.calendly.com/owen-wood/meeting 

Stay safe