The Salesman.com Podcast

When it comes to qualifying sales leads, more doesn't always mean better. Notably, if the sales leads are not qualified. You could spend hours each day and still only manage to close a measly 1-3 leads out of a hundred. So, how does a B2B lead qualification process work? What systems can you employ to increase the effectiveness of your qualification process? And, most importantly, how is the perfect qualifying process different from the one you currently use? The important thing is knowing that the sales lead qualification process is all about knowing which questions to ask and whom to ask them. What Does Qualifying A Sales Lead Mean? Qualifying sales leads means the same thing in every context: determining if the subject meets predetermined criteria or ‘qualifies' for it. For example, to qualify a lead is to determine how likely the lead will develop into a sale. The whole point of sales lead qualification is to reduce the time a sales representative spends talking to potential customers who will not turn into buyers. Otherwise known as ‘chasing leads.' Sales qualification helps weed out the tire kickers by using a framework that allows the sales rep to process a lead and determine its sales potential. Narrowing down what B2B sales lead qualification frameworks you want to leverage each day when qualifying prospects is the biggest hurdle to success here. For example, if you are selling insurance products, a qualified lead would be someone who owns the item you're selling insurance for. You'd be surprised to learn about the amount of time sales reps spend chasing leads that are not even related to the products or services they are selling. Success in sales often comes down to spending more time with buyers who are a good fit and ready to buy. The ratio of the number of sales a rep closes from all the leads they have is called the close ratio. So when you are looking at improving the number of sales you make from your leads, you have to improve your close ratio. This is different from the conversion ratio, which measures how many leads you secure from the number of people exposed to your marketing efforts. Why Would You Want To Qualify Your Leads? The most straightforward answer is to save yourself time and effort. Less time spent on disqualified leads means more time spent on qualified ones. That means more conversions or sales. Successful sales people spent more time with decision makers, who use lead scoring and have a defined sales process. Sales Lead Qualification 101: The Basics The success of your attempts at qualifying sales leads depends on how effectively you can measure your leads' responses against your qualification criteria. We will discuss different qualification frameworks later but let's look at what they all share. Qualifying Questions All lead qualification systems use carefully designed qualifying questions to understand how well a lead matches your qualification criteria. Common qualifying questions include: Q1. What kind of budget do you have to solve this problem? Q2. Which feature are you most interested in? Q3. What kind of timeline do you have to get this implemented? Q4. What is the primary business problem you hope to solve with this product? Q5. What measures have you taken in the past to attempt to solve this issue? How effective were they at eliminating the problem? I have highlighted the most critical part of each question. Your qualifying questions have to sound as natural as possible to elicit helpful information from the lead. After all, why would anyone share their business problems if the questions like you're trying to manipulate them? Main Types of Sales Leads Depending on where the sales lead is within the funnel, the leads are given different names. A. Marketing Qualified Lead When your marketing department grabs an email address or phone number, they call them Marketing Qualified Lead or an MQL. An MQL has been exposed to your marketing initiatives and has shown interest in either purchasing your product or service or acquiring more information about it. An MQL is generally someone who has only make initial contact with your business and so often they are not quality leads at this point. B. Sales Qualified Lead Next, when sales teams speak to a MQL and ask them qualifying questions, they are then relabeled as Sales Qualified Leads or an SQL. These leads are likely to become customers because they have met your desired lead qualification criteria and they've had their long term pain points identified. C. Disqualified Lead The last type of sales lead is called a Disqualified Lead which is equally important as the previous two. Disqualified sales leads are the one type of lead that you want to eliminate from your sales pipeline. A disqualified sales lead is different from an Unqualified Lead. An unqualified lead is a prospect that has not shown enough interest at the marketing stage to be sent to the sales team. Another thing all prospecting frameworks share is the concept that leads qualification is not an event but an ongoing process. The discovery call might not provide ample time or rapport needed to ask all the questions for sales lead qualification. More often than not, several calls and engagements are required to qualify a lead properly. The process goes through different levels of lead qualification. Let's take a look at the different levels of potential qualification within a buyer's organization. 1. Organization Level Sales Lead Qualification When you start to qualify across an entire organization, you'll begin to consider things like company size, industry, customer base, and region. For example, if your business sells hydraulic lifts, you will want to know if they are in a region your engineers can visit and install them. Example organizational level qualification questions include: Q1. What are your products or services? Q2. What kind of customer flow do you see each quarter? Q3. How many employees does your company have? Q4. Where are your customers based? 2. Opportunity Level Sales Lead Qualification Moving on, you would want to know whether the prospect wants your product or service. If they want it, can they afford it? And finally, when are they most likely to make a purchase? Opportunity level lead qualification is all about identifying a lead's pain point. We call it a pain point because they are more likely to want a product that removes that pain. If you are selling Search Engine Marketing services, you must speak to somebody interested in their business's online presence. Their pain point might be that their turnover has dramatically dropped after a Google Search update. This identification of a specific pain point is the information you need to qualify this prospect. Opportunity level sales qualification questions include: Q1. What else have you done to try and solve this problem? Q2. What kind of budget are you working with? Q3. When do you think we can start solving this issue? 3. Stakeholder Level Sales Lead Qualification Stakeholder sales qualification questions are all about making sure you talk to the right person within the company. Your prospect must have influence over the decision-making process of their organization to the extent where it can help you close the sale. You don't want to spend time going through organization and opportunity level qualifications only to find out that the person will pass on the information for someone else to get back to you. Although, this isn't precisely a dead-end scenario either. If you can ask the right questions, you can create a map of your lead's organization, ultimately leading you to the decision-maker. It's pretty straightforward if your ideal customers are individuals or owner-managed businesses, as you will be speaking to the decision-maker from the start. But if it's a more prominent company, you will need to ask questions like: Q1. Who is typically involved in your decision-making process? Q2. Is someone else or their team going to use the product or service? Q3. Is there a procurement team involved with purchases over a certain dollar amount? Using Sales Lead Qualification Frameworks for Lead Qualification The three levels of qualification that we have discussed so far are all you need when developing questions for your qualification framework. However, as there are many variables here, a pre-built Qualification Framework could make your qualification process more efficient. Your industry, the type of leads you talk to, and the service or product you sell will determine the qualification framework and sales process you will ultimately use. The three most widely used lead qualification frameworks are BANT, CHAMP and MEDDIC. BANT Bant has four elements of qualification and is a slight twist on the classic “budget authority need” method of lead scoring: Budget being the financial capacity to make the purchase. Authority being the ability to decide on the purchase. Need being the explicit requirement for your product or service. Time relating to their urgency to require your product or service. CHAMP Although they aren't related, CHAMP is similar to the BANT framework in the way it incorporates Money, Authority, and Need, but it builds on the Time section of BANT by taking into account where your product or service lies in the list of priorities of your lead. CHallenges are the immediate problems of the company your product or service can solve for a prospect. The CHAMP framework begins by asking questions about challenges to qualify leads. Authority in the CHAMP framework is similar to authority in the BANT framework. You want to speak to people who make buying decisions. Money is what makes your sale whole. You have to identify whether the prospect's organization can afford what you are selling. Prioritization is about ascertaining the importance of your product or service in the current or plans. The CHAMP framework differs from BANT in this regard by not equating urgency with priority. MEDDIC The MEDDIC framework is similar to the revised MEDDPICC qualification framework. It takes a different approach to lead qualification by thoroughly looking at the decision-making process and separating it into Decision Criteria and Decision Process. The framework goes a step further in its thoroughness by looking for influence in non-decision making but influential individuals it calls Champions. Metrics is where your questions start. The MEDDIC framework places a greater emphasis on quantifying your lead's goals or plans. A number instantly hands you a figure you can use to signify the economic advantages of your product or service. Economic buyer is somebody whose signature is the last one on the check. You have to know who this is to understand how they think, directly impacting whether the organization becomes your next customer. Decision criteria help you understand how decisions are made in the target organization. The objective is to determine if it's a single person (the economic buyer), an executive board, or an interdepartmental committee. Decision process is the identification and understanding of how the decision-making body reaches a decision. Knowing this helps prevent confusion at later stages due to complex internal approval processes, for example. Identifying pain is the part of this process designed to understand how urgently the lead needs the solution you are providing. Champions are individuals you look for in the prospect's organization that may not be part of the decision-making process but could influence it. They may do this by their seniority, proximity to the problem being solved, or an interest in your solution. Signs to Look Out for when Qualifying Sales Leads Years of experience from various sales experts and successful sales reps have blessed us with enough insights to identify the red and green flags that can appear when qualifying sales leads. The following positive signs of sales qualification and red flags are easy to spot when you know them: Positive Signs If the lead is interested in talking about their projects, plans, or challenges, whether past, present, or future, it means they want to be heard. It also means that they want you to possibly provide a solution. If the potential buyer starts asking specific questions about your product or service during the discovery call and after organization level qualification, you're onto a winner. There is no better indicator of qualification than genuine interest. Red Flags A prospect giving inconsistent or incomplete answers is either unaware of their problems or they're not interested in fixing them. Very short or One-Word answers are the biggest no-no. Someone giving answers in this manner is waiting for you to end the call. So disqualify them and stop delaying the inevitable? Is Sales Leads Qualification Difficult? The sales lead qualification process revolves around asking your leads questions. These questions are designed to help a sales rep determine if the lead has any potency for a sale. Seems pretty simple, right? Most salespeople fall into issues when qualifying their customer when their prospects get uneasy with answering questions all of their rapid fire questions. Potential customers can feel uneasy because they: Are more interested in understand your product than being sold to. Are not comfortable sharing their organization's goals or plans. Are fed up with talking to sales reps since you are the tenth person that has called. Are not interested in what you are pitching. If your prospect isn't interested in what you're pitching then, congratulations! You can confidently disqualify that lead. Remember your sales leads are people, and people want to be heard. So make the qualification process easy for them so they get comfortable with divulging crucial information about their business. You need this information to either qualify or disqualify the buyer. Is Disqualifying a Sales Lead Common? Absolutely! Think of the sales lead qualification process as a feasibility study of your leads. The purpose is to determine how feasible pursuing a lead is so those leads that do not meet set criteria do not consume resources that can otherwise be spent on leads that do. Therefore, disqualifying leads is as important as qualifying them. The top salespeople in the world are proactive about disqualifying poor or even average sales leads and so you should be too. Conclusion Qualifying sales leads is easy, just ask the right questions at the right time to the right people. The other half of the sales qualification formula is analyzing your prospect's answers and knowing what to ask next.

Getting ghosted is every sales professional's nightmare. You think everything is going right—the prospect is the right fit for your target audience, your product is within their budget, and they are genuinely interested in buying it—until it's not. No response. Missed calls. Just pin-drop silence. You can't understand what the hell went wrong. Don't worry, though. You have to up your follow-up game. To help you out in these tricky situations, we'll show you how to write a follow-up email after no response and get the deal back to track. So let's get started! Why Should You Send a Follow-up Email After No Response? The whole point of sending up a follow-up email is to increase your chances of getting a response from your prospect. According to research, you can boost your reply rates by 65.8% when you send a single follow-up. What's more, the first follow-up email has a 40% increase in reply rate compared to the first sales email. This means your prospect is 40% more likely to reply to your email. What's more, no response doesn't mean any interest. Tons of factors affect a prospect's decision to not respond to your email: You may have caught them at the wrong time They may not have seen your email They may have seen your email but forgot to reply Your email may be deeply buried in their inbox They may not be interested now but can be later if you stay in contact. Even after getting zero response, sending up follow-up emails may give you the leverage you need to close a deal. The moral of the story is to never skip on following up—you might just lose a closed-won deal. When Should You Follow Up After Getting No Response? Sending follow-up emails is an art. In addition to the contents of your follow-up email, you also want to get the follow-up timing right. A week is too long, and sending a follow-up on the same day is—for the lack of a better word—desperate. That's why we recommend waiting three days before following up after no response. You can send 2-3 emails in your follow-up email sequence to urge the prospect to get back to you. And while you should leave the prospect after sending a few follow-ups, don't send them a breakup email. Instead, leave the conversation open and return to it sometime in the future. How To Send a Follow-up Email After No Response No response means you've already sent your first follow-up email after talking to the prospect. So here, we'll give you suggestions on how to write an email after your first follow-up. A) Send a Fresh Follow-up Email If following up after no response involves you cutting and pasting—or forwarding—the original email, we've got to stop you right there. First and foremost, your prospect will feel you're trying to guilt them for not responding. Secondly, it's also possible for your second follow-up email to get filtered by spam or even get blocked by the prospect. That's why every follow-up email should be a blank slate. Instead, try new and witty subject lines, opening lines, and calls to action. And not only your second follow-up email, but all subsequent follow-up emails should be fresh. Think about it: why limit yourself to one email thread that already has several old messages weighing it down? B) Maintain a Friendly and Cordial Tone Following up after no response can feel personal. But sales professionals need to have thicker skin. Don't waste precious email real estate by using passive-aggressive lines like “I know you're busy, I'm busy too, “or “Was waiting for a reply to my previous email but to no avail.” It'll do more harm than good. Your prospect might feel offended, and if they do respond out of guilt, their answer won't be one you want to hear. Keeping your tone positive is your best bet. Use phrases like “Wanted to touch base on our last conversation “or “Do you have any questions about our last conversation?”. The idea here is to acknowledge your prospect might be busy and give them a gentle nudge to take the conversation forward. C) …But Be Persistent While you want to stay polite, you also want to be persistent. Be politely persistent. Of course, some people will say “no “along the way, but there are also those who will say “yes. ” Following up will help you get ahead, but you have to be consistent about the whole process and create a repeatable, scalable process. So focus on providing continuous value and send multiple (and well spaced-out) follow-up emails within the span of the next few weeks to see results. D) Provide the Prospect Clear Value To get a response, you have to have a crystal-clear “ask.” So, before hitting ‘Send,' see whether the email answers the following questions: Is the follow-up email relevant to the recipient? If yes, why? Does the prospect know why you're contacting them? People usually skim through emails quickly, especially those sent by strangers. So if your follow-up email doesn't have a clear value proposition, they won't be interested in responding. The easier you make it for them to know what you're hoping to achieve, the better your chances of securing a response. Transparency is valued, so don't make the prospect read between the lines or try to translate. E) Consider the Time and Day of the Week You want to leave a good first, second, third—maybe even fourth impression on your prospect when following up. When following up multiple times, it's best to send your email at an optimal time. For starters, consider the day of the week and how that might affect their schedule. For instance, people generally catch up with work on Mondays and solve problems. That's why sending follow-ups on Tuesdays or Wednesdays makes more sense. You also want to consider your prospect's time zones. Better to pop up in their inbox after they've settled in the office than when you're just starting out the day or ending it. This will differ based on your industry, too. Think from your recipient's viewpoint. F) Make It Easier for the Prospect to Say “Yes” Think about it: it's easier to say “yes “to a request for a 5-20 minute chat compared to, say, an hour-long meeting. Ask for as little of your prospect's time as possible. This shows them you respect their time, which will make them more likely to say “yes. ” Also, if you notice, attending a “meeting” sounds more daunting than setting up a “quick chat.” That's why you should use words that have positive associations—words that sound like much less of a commitment, and therefore, easier to say “yes “to. Trust us; even the smallest of changes can make a big difference in the long run. Follow-up Email After No Response Examples Sending a follow-up email after no response can seem too much. To help you get started on the right track, here are a few follow-up emails after no response examples for inspiration. Follow-up Email #1: Show Belief in Your Product Hi {prospect’s name}, Hope you're doing well. I understand your position, but I wouldn't follow up with you if I didn't firmly believe {your company} can help {prospect's company}. {your product's name} ‘s {product benefit 1} and {product benefit 2} features can help solve the {prospect pain point} you're facing and improve workflow efficiency in just 28 days. Let me know if you'd be up for a quick chat about what we do. Regards, {your name} Follow-up Email #2: Use a Clear CTA Hey, {prospect name} I am reaching out again to ensure that you had a chance to review my last email. I'd love to schedule a short call to discuss further details about {topic A} and {topic B}, as I've been talking to other market leaders and would love to get your perspective too. Let me know when you're available for a quick 15-minute chat. You can book a slot on my calendar here {calendar link}. Kind regards, {your name} Follow-up Email #3: Show Social Proof I hope you're having a great day! Reaching out again to let you know I'm available to show you a few {topic} best practices and {another topic}, which is something we discussed in our previous conversation. We've had success with a few clients in the {prospect niche}, and I believe we can create a great plan to help you increase lead generation and sales conversion, too. Let me know when you would be available for a quick call. Thanks in advance, {your name}

You're familiar with the dreaded drill: find potential clients, connect with them, present your solution, but somehow don't end up closing it. Maybe your prospect cannot afford what you have to offer or ditched you for a competitor. Perhaps they decided to hold off deciding until the next quarter. Why is this happening? Where are you going wrong? What can you do to close the deal? To close deals successfully, you need to understand the other person's goals, make a compelling offer, and overcome objections. Then, once you determine a mutually beneficial proposal, you have to figure out the right time to ask and use the best technique to close the deal. Close the Deal Meaning Closing a deal is a term sales professionals use to describe a situation where they bring negotiations to an end by reaching an agreement with their prospect. It's the very moment when a prospect decides to make the purchase. Closing deals is a very nerve-wracking process for sales reps since they are left exposed to the chance of rejection from the prospect. Selling Made Simple Two-Step Technique For Closing A Deal At Salesman.org, we use a two-step process to help sales reps close a deal. Don't worry; it's straightforward and highly effective! Step 1 — Ask: “Does It Make Sense To… “ This will help you determine whether the customer needs more help to understand how your solution can benefit them. For instance, you can ask, “We've been through our automation capabilities. Does it make sense to sign you up into our system so we can start working together? ” That's it. Next, you wait for the prospect's answer. If the prospect says yes, congratulations! You can send over the necessary paperwork to get them on board. If they say “No,” don't lose hope. Move on to Step 2. Step 2 — Ask: “What Needs To Happen To Move Things Forward” As a sales professional, you'll always find yourself hearing, “No. “It can happen again when you ask the question in Step 1. So the next step in the process is to figure out how to take things forward despite the initial rejection. Ask the second question: “What needs to happen to move things forward? “This will encourage the buyer to tell you why they haven't agreed and what you can do next to get the deal done. No brainstorming or contemplating alternative scenarios is needed on your part! The prospect may want a formal proposal outlining everything you discussed with them orally. Or a copy of the contract to send it off to the legal team before giving the final sign-off. Whatever the reason, you'll hear it directly from the horse's (the prospect's) mouth. Additionally, you should be closing deals throughout the sales process, and not just at the end of it. For instance, you can apply this methodology at the end of every sales call. “Does it make sense to discuss if you are a good fit together? “ “Does it make sense to check whether you have the budget before we need to move things forward? “ “Does it make sense to hold a formal meeting to discuss how the product can benefit your organization?” … you get the drift. Following this simple process will push the sales forward, helping you get that verbal agreement from the prospect that they genuinely want to progress with the deal. More Tips To Help You Seal the Deal Here are a few extra tips to help you understand how to close the deal over the phone or close the deal when selling. Let's take a look. A) Research Your Prospect Thoroughly Expert Note: “I believe that you have to open a relationship before you can ever close a sale.” Deb Calvert Salesman Podcast The first step in sealing the deal is to do your research. You have to be well-versed in your company's offerings and know-how to demonstrate the value the product or service can provide your prospect. Doing this will help you decide which of your offerings are most suitable for your prospect, eliminating the chance of you pitching the wrong product and losing the prospect altogether. Another good tip is to expand conversations beyond your point of contact. Try to speak to others in the company, especially crucial decision-makers and other departments. This will help you learn different perspectives, and more importantly, define the organization's pain points. Then, use these insights to tailor your pitch and present your products or services in the best possible light. B) Talk Budgets and Timelines To improve the chances of closing the deal, you should clarify budgets and timelines early in the sales process. This way, you can understand whether the prospect is ready to buy now or somewhere down the line. If the prospect is ready to buy right away, you should prioritize them over your other dormant prospects. If they aren't, you can revisit them when they are ready. Again, we recommend talking about budgets and timelines before presenting a demo of your product or service. C) Offer Solutions and Handle Objections Expert Note: “Great salespeople are persuaders. They close from discovery with date-driven selling and there are persuaders and they get everyone to buy into their message.” Julian Reading Sales Leadership Show Instead of selling your products or services, offer solutions. Show the prospect what your product or service can do for them and tailor your conversations from their context. Prioritize the prospect, their pain points, and challenges. Your potential clients can still have concerns and objections after educating them about your product or service's benefits. After all, they spend their money and want to know what you're offering is worth it. An excellent way to handle objections is connecting with the prospects and winning their trust. Never brush off their concerns, and show them you understand where they come from. Looking back at past objections that you or your colleague has received can also be a good starting point to prepare for similar scenarios. D) Leverage Storytelling As a sales professional, you don't have a lot of time to impress your prospect. Therefore, you need to earn trust from the get-go, which is why you want to use every opportunity wisely. Compelling storytelling is an excellent way to make a positive impression on a prospect. Now, when we say storytelling, we don't mean telling just any random, irrelevant story that takes the conversation on a tangent. Instead, you want to tell stories that commit to memory and allow you to tap into your prospect's emotions relatively quickly. Here are a few forms of effective storytelling: Personal Testimony: Share a personal testimony of someone relevant to the prospect to assure them about your team's competency and support if things go wrong. Success Story: Share a story about a client who is similar to the prospect (similar pain points, industry, business size) and the benefits the former experienced as a result of using your solution. Quick Aside: Occasionally, you can go on an unrelated tangent if things are going well between you and the prospect. Incorporate humor, hope, or emotion into the conversation to stand out from your competitors. E) Set Up and Clarify the Next Steps Many sales reps forget to set up the next steps, which creates difficulties when closing deals. Suppose your prospect has accepted your proposal and wants to move forward. In that case, you should finalize paperwork and provide the customer with all the information they need to use your products and services easily. This also includes post-sale services, where you check in to see if the client is having any issues or problems after product delivery or the rendering of service. 10 Best Statements to Close the Deal When Selling Below, we've created a short listicle of non-salesy transition statements to bring the buyer closer to the decision stage. Does it make sense to move forward? I can send over the contract right now. After considering all your requirements and challenges, I think these two products would be best for you. Product X can help you [product benefits] while Product Y can be invaluable for [pain points solved]? Which one would you prefer out of the two? Would this be a better fit for your organization or budget in the next quarter? If so, I'm happy to follow up then. I know X is your biggest priority for the current year. Our solution can help you achieve X by X date. If we implement Product A by X date, I think you can start seeing ROI by August. This means it'll have to close by X date. Is this enough time for you to make a decision? Surely you don't want [negative consequence] to befall your company because you didn't have the right product in place. Do you want to take the crucial steps to protect your organization today? I think Product X will make a good fit for you and your organization, and here's why [reason]. Would you like to take this conversation forward? Would you like to finalize this solution that's within your budget and solves [challenge]? Why don't you give [solution] a try? X and Y features are of the most interest to you, right? If you get started today, you can have the system up and running by [date]. As you can see, each of these statements is benefits-oriented and focuses on the prospect on their needs and pain points.

Want to know what separates your everyday sales rep from the high-earning pros? Focus. And not focus of mind. But focus of strategy. The real pros know smashing through quotas is all about working key accounts—clients with exceptional revenue potential. So, how do you identify and work key accounts so you can start bringing in fatter commissions? Let’s find out. So I get it, you’ve got a sales target to hit, and the sooner you hit it the better. Otherwise, you’re prolonging the pain, the stress, and the lack of a bonus. With that said then, why do most sales professionals spend their days chasing their tails? They fire off hundreds of spammy emails and make dozens of random calls with no real system in place. And there’s zero consistency. Expert Note: “Activity drives success but ultimately consistency is the big thing. Unless you're consistent, you're only ever going to get very mediocre results.” Richard Smith Salesman Podcast If you’re not consistently making moves to land big moneymaker accounts, you’re losing out. Because the small deals get you close to hitting the target. But the big ones blow that target to bits. If you want to crush your quota, you need to be closing what we call “key accounts”. What Are Key Accounts? So first let’s define what a key account approach to sales is – Key Account Selling: A selling approach which offers strategic value to specific accounts, while distinguishing you from your competition. So that begs the question, “what are strategic accounts?” Let’s use an analogy of the people in your life. You probably have hundreds of acquaintances you’re happy to speak to every now and again. Perhaps you’re happy to help them out too if it’s a job that takes five minutes or less. But there are likely only a handful of people you’re willing to drop whatever you’re doing for to spend time with or help out. These are the strategic people in your life. You get more out of interacting with them than others. And sales is the same way. So think of your accounts being in a pyramid shape. Your key accounts are way on top and they’re the smallest. Your good customers are in the middle below them, and below that is the general riff-raff that you have to engage with. Now what’s funny here is that if you run the numbers, I’m sure you’d find that this pyramid shape has an inverse relationship to the revenue these customers bring in each year. The general riff-raff brings in the least amount of money. The good customers bring in a moderate amount. And the key accounts bring in most of all. In fact, key accounts will usually bring in more revenue than all other accounts combined. And that means if you can close just a few more key accounts per year, you can massively scale your income potential. Key Account Criteria So that begs the question, “how do I uncover key accounts in the sea of crappy lead data that I have access to?” The answer is simple – use the key account matrix. We go a lot further into this in our Selling Made Simple Academy, but here’s a high-level view. If we draw a chart with two axis – X Potential future revenue Y Current relationship with the account And then split this into four segments, we can label the segments as – Selective investment accounts – You have low or poor relationships, but there is high potential for new business. Strategic Investment account – You have good relationships with these clients, and there is potential for new business. Proactive maintenance accounts – You have great relationships, but there is a low chance of growth. Avoid these bastards at all costs accounts – You have low relationships and a low chance of new business. So to find potential key accounts, you then need to look through your lead data and find accounts that fulfill two criteria—they have the potential to generate lots of revenue, and you also have good relationships with them. They’re the two key fundamentals to quickly developing key accounts – Good potential future revenue and good relationships within the account. Building Your Account List Now, how do you build up your key account list? Well all you have to do is follow a clear 4-step process… Step 1 – Identify Potential Accounts Identify potential accounts. If you’ve got a CRM system, you may be able to apply this selection criteria to your entire customer base. That being said, you may want to stick to just 10 potential accounts. That way you can focus your efforts, at least at first. Step 2 – Ranking Next up, list your key accounts with the hottest prospect at the top and the lowest at the bottom in relation to potential revenue that could be generated. This shouldn’t be a guesswork job. We need to uncover the potential profits we can generate. For example, if you are selling management services to haulage companies, you could rank these businesses by how many trucks they own. When I was selling medical devices, I’d look for how many endoscopes the account currently has, or how many operating rooms they have. Step 3 – Strengths Next, we’re going to evaluate our strengths in each account relative to our most relevant competitor. Think about how you compare on price, deliverability, uniqueness of offering, additional business services you can provide, variables like this. Now give yourself a score out of 5 versus the competition. Step 4 – Hypothesis Now we’ve actually built up some data, we can use it to start to make some hypotheses about the potential accounts we should and shouldn’t go after. If you’d like to make this data visual, then you can plot the data from step two on the vertical axis of a graph and the data from step three on the horizontal axis. If you then split this up into the quadrants we’ve already discussed, you’ll have an excellent visual representation of which accounts to focus on and which to ignore. And then you can start building up your key accounts quicker than ever.

How often have you heard this – “Look, we really love your product, but it’s outside of our price range. Can you offer any discount?” Offering discounts can be a great way to speed up a slow-moving deal. But if you’re adjusting price before negotiations begin, you’re doing a serious disservice, both to yourself and to your product. Instead of caving right away, there are four tried-and-true responses you can give to turn the conversation around in your favor. What’s Wrong with Discounting Immediately What’s wrong with discounting immediately. Like I said, discounting isn’t always a bad thing. It can speed up deals and give you leverage for reducing the service you’re offering. But there are three very real problems to offering a discount before negotiation has taken place. #1. Devalue First, your buyer subconsciously devalues your service. After all, if you’re really going to deliver the ROI your pitching, why do you have to immediately discount the price? #2. Forfeit’s Power Second, the instant you propose a discount, you lose some of your negotiation power. You lose this negotiation power as you’ve taken the price, your biggest variable for negotiation, off the table. #3. Shifts the Focus And third, discounting shifts the focus. In the buyer’s mind, you’ve shifted the conversation from the value that is being exchanged to the emotional topic of money. Rather than the buyer thinking about the impact that your service is going to have on their business, they’re now thinking about what is going to cost them in the opportunities they will lose from this lack of cash flow. So with those three things in mind, it’s important that negotiations on price and discounting happen towards the end of the sales process rather than at the beginning of it. That being said, if a buyer does request a discount too early in the process, there are a few things you can do. And that brings us to the four word-for-word responses that’ll deflect, turn the tables, and even give you the selling advantage. 1. The Value Probe The first and easiest way to deal with a buyer bringing up the idea of a discount is to say this word-for-word: “We can definitely have a conversation about the numbers. But first let’s make sure that we’re on the same page about our service being a good fit for your needs…” So, what does this response do? It Reframes the Conversation You buy yourself time to reframe the conversation. Right now the buyer is focused on price alone. But at this point in the sales process, you need to be demonstrating value. What do you offer that your competition doesn’t? And most importantly, how does it solve your buyer’s problem? This is the perfect time to focus on that instead of the expense. It Let’s You BUILD on Your Value It also gives you more time to build value before the numbers do eventually get discussed. What additional benefits do you offer that you haven’t talked about yet? What value can you bring to the table that the buyer isn’t already aware of? 2. The Obstacle Identifier The second way to deal with your buyers asking for discounts is to answer your buyer’s question with a question. When your buyer asks if you’re able to discount you can ask: “That is a fair question. Do you see price being a major obstacle in this conversation?” This immediately makes the buyer reconsider if they really want to discount or if they want to get the deal done. It also pushes the pressure back on the buyer to justify why there should be a discount in the first place. Bonus tip here. Notice show I said “that’s a fair question” before I responded with my question? The point of this extra step is to acknowledge to the buyer that I have heard them, but I need more information to answer their first question. This little extra ping stops the question coming across as manipulative and lets the buyer feel in control. Which of course is a great way to keep the relationship on solid footing. 3. “Why?” Are you feeling brave? Well when the buyer asks you about discounts, you can politely respond with the question: “Why?” Now admittedly, this does take some guts. Your buyer definitely won’t be expecting it. And taken the wrong way, it could spark some defensiveness. That’s why you’ve got to be polite when you say it and genuinely look for an answer from the buyer. A slight look of confusion helps sell this too. The point is you need to look sincere. Like nobody else has ever asked you this before, rather than aggressively asking them “WHY?!”. Responding with this question of “why?” when a buyer asks for a discount, stops the buyer from negotiating on price just for the sake of negotiating. In my experience buyers often respond to this “why” question by saying “I was just wondering…” which you can then shrug off and carry on with the sales conversation. 4. The Tit-for-Tat The Tit-for-Tat. This is in my opinion the cleverest approach. Because with the right wording, both you and the buyer will leave the conversation with added value. Here’s how you do it. When somebody asks for a discount, say something along the lines of this: “I can reduce the costs if we [extend the contract/change the tier of service/get a referral/etc.].” This turns a concession in randomly discounting your pricing into an active negotiation. Okay, you can offer a little give on price. But what will YOU get out of things? Now this isn’t something you want to deploy with every buyer. Because truth be told, you can shut down the discount request with most leads using the three previous responses without giving anything up. But if you’re dealing with a tough customer where price is obviously a major pain point, this response could be your ticket to a winning sale. See, it’s always a good idea to walk into your sales meeting with what’s called a BATNA: Best Alternative To Negotiated Agreement A BATNA means if plan A doesn’t work because it’s too expensive, you’ve got a plan B that you can offer the buyer to make sure that you don’t leave empty-handed. Often you will find the buyer wants the extras you are offering with plan A and so when you explain you can only discount if you move them to plan B, they will fall in line with the original pricing. See how that works? With a bit of wordsmithing and gentle nudging, you can either shut down their discount request or move them to a higher-value sale. Win-win.  

A successful sales rep is a curious sales rep. And when you ask potential buyers the right questions during discovery, you’ll get some powerful takeaways to better qualify leads, drive enthusiasm, and boost your chances of closing. In today’s post, I’m breaking down five of the most powerful sales questions to ask potential buyers. And best of all, these questions let you avoid sounding salesy while demonstrating yourself as the sales expert you really are. Best Sales Questions These days, successful sales isn’t just about being chatty. Sure, the gift of gab helps. But when it comes down to it, charm alone isn’t enough to seal the deal. Instead, you need to be able to explore issues, dive into problems, and offer exceptional solutions for your buyers. You need to offer value, not just a pitch. And asking questions is the best way to investigate whether your buyer’s problem is one that you can solve. But there’s a catch here—asking the wrong questions can set you up for failure. I’m talking about close-ended and manipulative inquiries like “Tell me, would you be interested in doubling your revenue this quarter?” or “What will it take to earn your business?” These types of questions are downright shit at getting real, valuable info you can use. And beyond that, they make you sound like a slimy sales rep that no one would trust. So rather than falling back on those sales cliches, start asking these five powerful sales questions instead. Doing so will let you qualify leads and give you the info you need to skyrocket your sales success. So, question one… 1: “Does It Make Sense to…?” This is one of my personal favorites because it virtually eliminates the need to “close” on deals. You know, when you’ve spent days or even weeks on a potential buyer and then nerve-wrackingly have to ask them for their business. Closing that way sucks. And it puts a lot on the line, too. If they walk away, you’re out tons of lost time. But when you ask this clever sales question along the way—I mean when… “Does it make sense to set up a call?” Setting up discovery calls… “Does it make sense to schedule a time so you can see it in action?” Moving on to demos… “Does it make sense to bring in our product team to dive deeper into the specs?” Discussing product specs, all of it… When you do that, you’re getting continuous buy-in from the prospect. Plus, buyers will have the opportunity to tell you exactly what’s holding them back from taking the next step, giving you the chance to address any of their nagging objections. Best of all, you get to avoid all that nail-biting of the “will they, won’t they” right before you ask for your business. 2: “Why Can’t You Solve This Problem Yourself?” Why can’t you solve this problem yourself? This one in particular is great for qualifying leads. On the one hand, this question helps you uncover more about the problem and the obstacles you might face as you try to solve it. And maybe a prospect that seemed like a good fit turns out not to be a match as a result. But beyond that, this question also lets you evaluate their need. Do they even need you? In most industries, the clients you want to work with won’t be able to do the same job your product or service is doing. Otherwise, you’ll likely run into plenty of issues down the line, like questioning your judgment or asking for the job to be redone entirely. If they can solve the problem themselves, they’re not going to value what you do as much as they should. And it’s better just to move on. 3: “When Do You Need This Solved By? This powerful sales question gets to the heart of one of the most important issues—timeline. Are they hoping to solve the problem in a few weeks, but your product requires a two-month implementation? Are they planning ahead for a few years from now, and only wasting your time today? Answering these and more timeline questions is an important step for qualifying your leads. And it’s a solid filter that weeds out those that aren’t a fit. 4: “How Would Things Be Different If We Solved This For You?” Think of this question as an investment in the future satisfaction of your product. Let me explain what I mean here. For most of you out there, your product or service is going to take some effort on the part of the buyer. Maybe they’ll have to fight for budget. Or spend time on training. Or maybe even hire a new team entirely to use your product to its full potential. It’s vital that this effort is well worth the benefit your product provides. If it isn’t, your buyer will feel resentful, won’t provide referrals or great reviews, and likely won’t be coming back for return business. Asking this question puts this required effort into perspective for the buyer. If it doesn’t match up and they leave, you’ve just saved yourself loads of hassle later. And if it does, you’re building enthusiasm in a prospect that’s a picture-perfect match. Easy peasy. Okay, and the final powerful sales question I have for you today is… 5: “How Are Projects Like This Usually Funded?”  How are projects like this usually funded? Yep, here it is—the money question. People get weird about money, don’t they? Jaws tense up, prospects close off, and the air gets sucked out of the room in an instant. But when you approach budgetary issues with this question, you’re easing into it. Prospects may talk about whether they have the funds allocated already, if this is a single department’s expense, and may even hint at their desired timeline too. Plus, it’s phrased in such a way that prospects won’t feel like they’re being blindsided, keeping them open, friendly, and engaged. This final question is a simple solution to a touchy subject. And it can quickly shift the tides of any discovery call in your favor. Summary Success in sales is all about bringing real, tangible value to the table. And delivering that value means you have to be adept at uncovering your buyer’s problems, assessing their needs, and determining if you’re a good fit for each other. To do all that and more, just ask these five powerful sales questions… “Does It Make Sense to…?” “Why Can’t You Solve This Problem Yourself?” “When Do You Need This Solved By? “How Would Things Be Different If We Solved This For You?” “How Are Projects Like This Usually Funded?” With these questions, you’ll be able to qualify leads faster, tap into real buyer needs, and speed up the sales process—all while never sounding salesy and showing off your sales expertise at the same time. So next time you’re on a discovery call or delivering a pitch, make a mental note to ask these five questions along the way to make your job ten times easier.

It is common for sales managers to say that sales is a numbers game. If this is what you have been told you may be wondering what this statement means. The simple explanation of what this statement means is that more activity leads to more sales. But this still leaves you with questions like: What type of activity? How much activity? Is it possible to improve the outcomes from the action? If you Google the phrase “Sales is a numbers game.” you'll find many articles claiming this statement is false or a myth. But in reality, it is true. It's just that working in B2B sales has changed over the years. Where more activity to close more sales might have been practical in the past, there is more to the story in today's sales environment. But, before we dive deeper into what that means today, let's start with the basics of sales success. The basics of how sales is a numbers game works Of course, if you are going to play the numbers game in sales, you have to know the numbers. Crazy, right? Yet many salespeople don't track any metrics at all. This means that you need to track your activity every day. For example, if you are making prospecting calls to cold leads, keep track of: How many calls you make? How many decision makers you speak to? How many discovery calls you schedule? How many of those meetings result in a demo? How many of those demos result in a proposal? How many of those proposals end in a closed, won sale? What is the average dollar value of the deals you close? Once you have tracked these metrics for a while, you'll have enough data to figure out how many calls you need to make to hit your sales targets. In a perfect world, where you hit your sales target, your data might look like this: Sales target = $10,000 Calls made = 1600 Decision makers spoken to = 320 Discovery calls scheduled = 80 Demos scheduled = 40 Proposals given = 20 Closed deals = 10 Average dollar value of closed deals = $1,000 In this case, you would need to make 1600 calls to close 10 deals worth $1,000 each to hit your sales target of $10,000. Your numbers are probably very different than this. So, how can this numbers game help you? The point of this example is to show how to determine how much activity you need to do to hit your sales target. Start with your monthly, quarterly, or annual sales target. Then, divide it by the average dollar value of a closed deal to determine how many deals you need to close to hit that target. Once you know how many deals you need to close, work backward to figure out how many calls you need to make to close that many sales. You can then take that number and divide it into weekly and daily activities. Okay, that is the basics of how the numbers game of sales works. But today, there is so much more to this game. Expert Note: “As salespeople we are schooled to think about sales is a numbers game. The more you fill the pipeline with, the greater the chances that you sign something. And in transactional sales, I agree. But in mega deals, it's the other way around.” Bora Brannstrom Salesman Podcast Identify areas for improvement The primary example of sales is a numbers game, if your sales target increased or you wanted to exceed your target, you'd need to increase your amount of activity. But why not work smarter instead of harder? Making improvements in your skills and sales technique will result in better selling strategies. A small amount of sales training advice in the right places can lead to massive upticks in appointments booked and results. By tracking your activity data as described above, you can start improving your skills to close more business from the same number of calls, for example. But be methodical in your approach to measure your progress to recognize what is causing changes to your performance. How does this work? Testing, testing, testing There are many aspects of your sales process where you can use A/B testing to optimize what you are doing to boost your results without increasing the amount of activity needed. For example, a/B testing is a proven method often used by marketing professionals to raise email, landing page, and marketing message response rates. You can test aspects of emails, sales calls and scripts to improve your results. These facets include: Email subject lines Voice message scripts Introductory sentences on prospecting calls Scripts for getting past gatekeepers Responses to objections Closing questions Discovery call questions Time of day calls are made In this case, sales is still a numbers game, and you still need to track your activity to see your progress. This will reveal how much activity you need to reach your target as you improve. The testing process Regardless of what you are optimizing or which aspect you focus on, the steps involved are the same. Begin by choosing what you want to refine. Since 94% of calls from unfamiliar phone numbers go to voice mail and 93% of all converted leads are reached by the sixth call attempt, it's likely you're leaving a lot of voice messages. So, having an effective voice message script is essential. At least leaving a well-crafted message enables the prospect to call you back. As you refine your voice mail script, you'll most likely start receiving more return calls. And this will improve your results. So, let's focus on an aspect of your voice message script in this example. Try two different introductory statements at the opening of your voice message, like: Hi Joe, This is Sue with ABC Company… Hi Joe, This is Sue at 123-456-7890… Use the two scripts for at least 100 voice messages or more, leaving the balance of both scripts the same. The greater the sample size you use, the more accurate your test results will be. Assess the effectiveness of the two scripts by analyzing the data. The option that leads to the desired outcome more often is the better one. In this case, whichever voice message script results in more returned calls, is the better script. Adjust your voice message script accordingly and start testing another aspect of the script to continue refining it. Once you have finished adjusting your voice mail script, select another element of your sales process to optimize. Then test measure, and refine. Expert Note: “A lot of sales managers could care less about the mission, about the cause, about the wellbeing of the customer or the salesperson. It's all about the numbers. And when that's your core mission, your mission is all about the numbers, the customer feels that.” Bill Caskey Salesman Podcast Other ways to improve your numbers Beyond leveraging A/B testing to improve your sales techniques, there are skills you can master to close more sales. Recent research revealed that sales reps who are effective at the following actions could influence buyers: Uncover the complete set of buyer needs Show buyers what's possible Listen Make a strong ROI case Educate buyers with new ideas and perspectives Communicate value to buyers Build rapport and develop relationships with buyers Work to gain and keep buyer attention Differentiate yourself from other sellers These actions are possible when you take the time to master a few skills such as: Research Communications Building relationships Giving perspectives and insights These skills will differentiate you from your competitors so buyers will want to speak with you over other salespeople. But, precisely what do you need to do to implement each of these desirable abilities? Research Develop the habit of doing pre-call research on each prospect and the prospect's company. Then start studying the industries and common challenges your potential customer's experience. This helps you understand your prospects' businesses before you speak with them. The more you know before each customer interaction, the better. Prospects are busy and don't want to educate you about these things. This enables you to ask more meaningful questions and get to know your prospects on a deeper level. Your prospects will appreciate you making an effort to prepare thoroughly and will want to speak with you again and again. Communications And Sales Calls All sales reps need to develop excellent communication skills. Being an effective communicator improves your performance at every stage of the sales cycle. If you can track your calling numbers and get in front of more qualified prospects you're going to earn more money in modern B2B sales. One communication skill that you'll benefit from mastering is active listening. This type of listening means grasping what the prospect is saying in response to your open-ended questions. And the ability to understand the feelings attached to the message the prospect is sharing. Active listening requires the use of clarifying questions to uncover deeper insights. This addresses two behaviors buyers find influential: Making an effort to uncover all the buyer's needs Listening So, developing these communication skills will help you influence more prospects and increase the percentage of prospects who buy from you. Building relationships Buyers don't like doing business with sales reps focused solely on closing the sale and then disappearing after the prospect signs on the dotted line. Instead, customers want to develop a trusted long-term relationship with the salesperson they work with. Prospects feel that they deserve just as much support after purchasing as they receive during decision-making. Potential customers want salespeople to strive to gain their attention. Then the customer wants you to be continuously helpful by sharing information to aid in the decision-making process. Strong relationships are also the quickest way to block the competition from booking an appointment to see your buyer and talk their way back into the account. Giving perspectives and insights Only 23 percent of B2B buyers view sellers as a top resource for solving business problems. That's why prospects prefer to engage with salespeople who provide perspectives, insights and guidance. This makes the buying journey easier for your prospective customers. Doing your advanced research to know and understand your prospect is essential here. Otherwise, how will you understand what perspectives and insights to share with the buyer as they advance through the sales cycle? The types of information the prospect is looking for here includes several of the things that buyers have said will influence their buying decisions, such as: Educating buyers with new ideas and perspectives Communicating value Showing buyers what's possible Making a solid ROI case Becoming adept at these skills will lead to a more significant percentage of your prospects buying because your solution will solve their problem. And buyers will see the value of implementing what you are proposing. Conclusion Sales is a numbers game that you can win. Start by tracking your activities and results. After tracking these numbers for a while, you can work on improving your sales outcomes. For example, do things like A/B testing and developing skills that help you influence and attract more buyers. Over time you will see continuous improvements. So, you won't need to increase your activity for the same results. Working smarter, not harder, will allow you to meet or exceed your targets without constantly working yourself to death.

Cold email is one of the best tools in your sales rep toolbox. But there’s just one problem—if your emails aren’t getting opened in the first place, then all of your efforts (the clever copy, the personalization, the research) will all be for nothing. THAT’S the importance of a great subject line So, what’s the absolute BEST cold email subject line you could ever use? That’s what we’re talking about in this video. The Ultimate Subject Line What does the best-performing subject line look like? Let’s not beat around the bush, huh? It looks a little something like this… “[NAME] – [REFERRAL NAME] said I should get in touch” Bam. That’s it. That’s the absolute best subject line you could ever, ever use for your cold email. It works so well because you’re leveraging someone else’s trust rather than putting in all the effort to build your own. Which is basically impossible to do in a subject line alone anyway. It’s simple. It’s effective. And you could go out and use it for yourself right now and watch your response rates skyrocket. BUT… If this was the magic bullet of cold email, wouldn’t everyone be doing it? See, there’s just one little problem here… referrals are notoriously hard to get. Most buyers don’t give them out freely. And asking for one is a tricky situation that most sales reps just don’t know how to navigate. So rather than spend this video talking about the subject line, breaking it down into why it works, and turning a simple thing into something more complex than it needs to be, we’re going to look at the hardest part of this cold email secret weapon… How to Get a Referral How to get a referral in the first place. Now if you’ve watched this channel’s videos before, you know that we at the Selling Made Simple Academy have a framework for everything under the sun. And surprise surprise, how to ask for a referral is no different. Our 4-step More Referrals Framework takes you through what you need to do and say to bring in tons of referrals from your current client base. And it looks a little something like this… 1. Confirming Value Step one, confirming value with the client. This is where you’re setting the groundwork needed to get a solid referral without any false promising or feet dragging. What you’re going to do here is get your client to clearly recognize the benefits your solution has provided. This is tipping the value scale in your favor. If your ROI is great, then they’ll be more likely to reciprocate with a quick favor. The principle is simple. And it’s the foundation for a successful introduction you can use to bring in a quality lead. Now, an email at this step is okay, but you’re going to get the best results from a quick call. That way you can focus their attention, ensure they’re seeing the full scope of your value, and better direct the rest of the conversation. Once you have shared the numbers (and be sure to use real numbers, not just general benefits) it’s time to ask, “Do you feel like this is working as well as you planned?” If your ROI is solid, they’ll have every reason to say yes. And then you can move on to step #2… 2. Asking “Who Else?” Asking “who else?” When they turn around and tell you how happy they are, ask them, “Is there anyone else that you feel we could help within your professional network?” You’re going to ask the question. And then, importantly, you’re going to shut up. Make the ask. And don’t say another word. Let the buyer think about it on their own and don’t help them out. It might be awkward for a moment or two. And that’s okay. But you’ve made a promise with your product. And you’ve delivered. Now it’s time they did a favor for you in return. Don’t give up after a single name either. Follow up with “OK great, is there anyone else?” and keep on going until they’re spent. 3. Making a Specific Ask Making a specific ask. Getting the contact info is one thing. But it’s also the bare minimum you can do. Instead, you’re going to add in one small detail that will really make your open rates fly. Here’s what NOT to say after they tell you a referral… “Great, can you give me their email address?” And here’s what you SHOULD say instead… “Great, if I email them and CC you in, is it OK for me to mention that we’ve worked together?” This right here is a game-changer. Not only are you getting a referral, which is already leagues ahead of any other subject line you could ever use. You’re also attaching your common contact’s address to that email! And when your prospect sees a name they recognize, your email is going to pop off their screen and practically force them to click “Open”. If you can get your client to agree, it’s a sure thing. 4. The “1-1-1” Rule Sometimes you can’t get all the details sorted out with your client in a single meeting. So what kind of follow-up schedule can you follow to make getting that “oh-so-valuable” referral from your current buyer? Simple. 1-1-1 — follow up after 1 day, 1 week, and 1 month later until everything is set up. At that point, if they do back out, stop wasting time and move onto your next referral. It’s better to keep people on your side for FUTURE referral opportunities than it is to pester them and burn that bridge. Don’t get greedy. And don’t be annoying! Summary When done right, cold email can be one of the most valuable sources of leads at your disposal. But guess what, you’ve got to get them opened first.

One of the absolute best ways to scale your sales earnings is by speeding up your sales cycle. You know this. But how often do you still get hit with “maybes” and “I’ll think about its” when you’re trying to close? The problem—they don’t feel the urgency. And sorry to say, that’s on you. Here’s how to fix your problem with urgency (and the lack of it). “Stalled” Prospects “Stalled” prospects. One of the key differences between high-performing sales professionals that crush targets and those that don’t, is the number of “stalled” potential deals in their sales pipelines. A potential customer is classed as stalled if you’ve tried to close them and they haven’t said “yes” or “no” yet. They’re up in the air. Stalled deals will kill your chances of hitting your sales target and the 4 tips I’m about to share with you will help you give them some momentum through increasing the level of urgency. Many low-performing sales professionals waste time trying to sell these stalled individuals. The fact is, once the momentum of the initial discovery calls and solution presentations has waned, every week that goes by is a lower chance of that potential customer ever buying from you. So how does your pipeline look? Do you have a bunch of stalled accounts in there? If so then this video is for you. 4 Strategies for Driving Urgency So with that said, let’s take a look at 4 tips to create urgency in sales so that your prospects don't get stuck in your pipeline and you can get more deals closed, quicker. 1. Understanding Understanding. Tip one is this – Really understand your potential customer's pain point. If your potential customers aren’t in extreme pain, there will never be any urgency to get the deal closed. Now typically there are three types of pain points that you should be looking out for when you’re going through your discovery and questioning process. They are: Productivity Pain Points Process Pain Points Financial Pain Points These are the REAL pain points that you can use to drive urgency and get the deal done faster. Let me use a quick analogy to explain what a REAL pain point is. Your lead doesn’t buy a shovel because they need a shovel. They don’t even buy a shovel because they need a hole, which is the classic, cliché sales analogy. Instead, their problem is deeper. Much deeper. They’re reworking their landscape to impress the hoity-toity neighbors. They’re finally installing that pole to fly their grandfather’s flag. Maybe they’ve even got a dead body in their closet that’s starting to smell and their wife is getting suspicious! This is the real pain and obviously there is massive urgency here. If you tried to sell a shovel, they wouldn’t care about the features and benefits. If you tried to sell them hole digging service, well they might be slightly more interested. But if you explained that you could get rid of a body… they wouldn’t even ask what the price was and they’d jump at the chance to work with you. So you need to work out what the body is that your potential customers are trying to bury, so that you can sell them the tool or solution to help with the REAL issue. Once you start doing this, the level of urgency in your conversations be much higher. 2. Naivety Now the second strategy revolves around naivety. Tip two – Don’t let the potential customer think they can do it on their own. Another issue that sales professionals run into during the sales process is that they make it seem all too easy to remove the pain for the potential customer. A lot of reps are guilty of shelling out too much free consulting advice throughout the sales process. And that can give the potential customer confidence that now they know all the secrets. They’re capable of solving the problem themselves. This leads to stalled deals and a severe lack of urgency as now you don’t even seem necessary to solve the problem! Not good. So by all means, give advice, share insights, build your reputation as an industry expert throughout the sales process. But keep your advice to more general industry trends only. Don’t solve the entire issue for the potential customer right before you get paid. 3. Speed Now tip number three is a simple one. But it’s powerful too. Tip three – Follow-up quicker. One of the reasons deals stall and urgency drops out of the sale process is because salespeople are too slow with their follow-ups. If you have a sales call on a Tuesday, don’t give the potential customer a week to pull together the information you require to help them. Instead, arrange the follow-up call for this coming Thursday instead. Most salespeople are passive in their follow-up schedule because they are happy that the potential customer wants to speak to them at all! High-performing sales professionals on the other hand are always oversubscribed with potential meeting options and so they need to get deals moving quickly to make sure they have enough time to get through them all, and so their follow-up dates are set in quick succession. Even if you aren’t completely oversubscribed right now, this is the impression that you want to leave on your potential customers if you want this to become the reality in the near future. And now we’re at the final and maybe most important strategy for creating urgency… 4. THE Question Popping THE question more often. Tip four – Close more often. As crazy as it sounds, sometimes you just need to make the deal real. And that means attempting to close earlier rather than adding layers of artificial urgency to pressure them into asking about the close themselves. Now we cover the Closing 3.0 Methodology in a lot more detail in the Selling Made Simple Academy. But the basic gist of it is that closing the sale can be done with no pressure, no weird manipulation tactics, and basically zero chance of rejection by asking the following questions. “Does it make sense to X” So, for example, “does it make sense for you to sign up today, to relieve the pain point of your sales team underperforming which I know is stressing you out and to jump on the Salesman.org sales training platform?” The potential customer, in this example a sales manager, will either say yes or no. This question can’t be answered in a maybe. And that’s part of the magic behind it. Because instantly you have a level of urgency that wasn’t there before. Of course, if they say yes, then you’ve closed the deal and so the rest of this conversation on creating urgency is irrelevant. And if they say no, then just ask the following question. “What needs to happen to move this forward?” No matter what the answer, you’ve automatically built urgency into the conversation because once this next step is complete, your buyer themself has told you that they will then be ready to close the sale. Rather than GUESSING at what they need to move forward, they outright tell you! It’s a prescription for selling success and urgency that you just can’t beat.

Believe it or not, there wasn’t a whole lot of data out there on sales techniques in the past. A lot of the industry was based on “feel”, “intuition”, and “charisma”. That is until one revolutionary book came along and turned the business of selling on its head in 1988. And the research-driven techniques this book uncovered are just as effective today as they were 30+ years ago. Today we’re talking about one of the most influential books in sales history, SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham. The History of Sales As the scholars among you may already know, the first sales model that was widely used across markets we developed in the 1920s. It focused on traditional selling tactics like using open and closed questions, presenting features/benefits, objection handling, and closing. This alone was often enough to win over most prospects. But as sales grew in price and complexity over the years and particularly in the late eighties, this model alone wasn’t enough to get the job done. And that’s where Neil Rackham’s SPIN Selling came in. This extensively tested new model was built to address the changing sales landscape. It uses a questioning method that follows the acronym SPIN: S for Situation P for Problem I for Implications And N for Need Payoff We’ll get into the specifics of it all in a sec. But first let’s look at… Why SPIN Works Why SPIN Selling works. When it comes to the larger complex sales of B2B businesses today, there are four main differences that sales reps like you need to compensate for. 1. A Longer Sales Cycle While small sales can be handled in a single call, modern sales require many calls, often with different stakeholders over the course of several months. 2. A Larger Commitment Small sales don’t require a lot of commitment due to the lower price tag. But more complex deals typically require a larger financial commitment, meaning the rep needs to demonstrate MORE VALUE to make it worth the investment. 3. Ongoing Relationships Due to the longer sales cycle, more complex deals will naturally create deeper relationships between the buyer and seller. As a result, that relationship (whether good or bad) tends to have more of an effect on the deal itself. 4. Higher Risk There’s a higher risk with larger deals. If the solution isn’t a fit, there’s more money at stake here. But don’t forget, there’s also a loss of time, respect, and even future advancement on the line. How to Use SPIN Selling How can you use SPIN Selling to maximize success with your prospects? Like so much of sales, success depends on asking the right questions. And SPIN is all about what types of questions you should be asking. S – Situation Questions  Situation questions. These are the fact-finding and background questions. Questions like, “What do you see as your company’s biggest opportunities for growth in the coming quarter?” This is where you start the conversation out. They’ll help you build context around the buyer so you can naturally transition into the next stage. Now before we move on, it’s important that you use these types of questions sparingly as they may eat up a lot of the customer’s time and patience. Once you’ve built up some context, time to move on to… P – Problem Questions Problem questions. These are questions that explore problems or issues your product can solve. Questions like “Are you concerned about your aging equipment’s ability to meet your clients’ quality standards?” These questions uncover implied needs. These are the smaller, more generalized customer frustrations. Frustrations like “Our press quality is lacking,” or “our system creates too much waste.” Your job is to then build those needs into larger, more urgent issues—the explicit needs. I – Implication Questions Implication questions. These are the questions that underscore the implications or consequences of an implied need. Doing that opens the door to more urgency and the customer understanding the value of your solution. Some examples of implication questions might be “how will this affect your fourth-quarter results” or “what will this mean for your biggest customer?” The goal here is to get the customer to state their explicit needs. Needs like “We have to cut our procurement costs” or “we need a more efficient system.” N – Need Payoff Questions These questions lead the customer to link the benefits of your product to their problem. For example, you might ask, “How useful would it be if we could increase your output by 10%?” or “How would being able to reduce errors help you?” When you can ask the right questions to lead the buyer to make that connection, you’re going to be in great shape to close the deal. SPIN In Action SPIN in action so we can better understand how all these questions flow together. Here’s what a typical SPIN Selling question cycle might look like. The seller asks Situation Questions to gather context around the buyer. That then leads to… Problem questions that help the buyer uncover implied needs. The seller then develops those implied needs using Implication Questions that highlight the impact of the problem they’re facing. Thanks to the impact becoming clearer, the buyer will shift from implicit needs to explicit needs. The seller then responds to those explicit needs with Need Payoff Questions… Which let the buyer identify the benefits of the solution, contributing to sales success. As you can see, questions flow into each other and open up the door to the next step naturally. This open flow makes the transition through the sales cycle seamless, natural, and very effective. And that is SPIN Selling in a nutshell.