3 main factors significantly impact how much you sell:
- the number of leads,
- the average deal size,
- your conversion rate,
The number of leads
We won’t teach you how to suck eggs, however, there are 2 types of leads: Qualified & Unqualified. We then go further into the different types of qualified, 4 to be exact and they are as follows:
Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
These are people who’ve engaged with your marketing team’s efforts but not ready to talk to you as the sales person
Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)
These are people who have taken actions that expressly indicate their interest in paying
Product Qualified Lead (PQL)
These are people who may have your free trial product and you believe are ready to upgrade them to the paid version
Service Qualified Lead
This is the same sentiment as above, except it is for services
You will receive leads in 2 manners: Outbound or Inbound. The inbound activity is mostly marketing actives so for that reason we will gloss over that — one quick tip I would make is to be polite, cordial and nice to your marketing team or tour Customer support team because in many cases they are the first point of contact who your lead will talk to. A great relationship with them could lead to them sharing leads with you. It pays to be nice and treat others right
Outbound is where we will focus
Event marketing
Hosting events around hot topics in your industry and have expert speaking with the hopes of having a mixture of old and potential new clients in attendance. The important element of this is ensuring value creation
Social selling
Social media allows us to get to know our prospects before ever reaching out to them. In most cases, LinkedIn will be your bread and butter by having a more tailored outreach email and increase your chances of making a personal connection
Cold calling
We have written a piece about this, please check it out
Cold emailing
Email trackers are an easy and extremely effective way to track if your emails are being received, open, and read.
The average deal size
The length of your sales cycle series of stages (or steps) that take a buyer from the early stages of awareness to a signed deal.
In most cases, there is a direct correlation between the is of the deal and the time it takes to close. There will be an average length of your sales cycle based upon the industry you operate in and the solution you provide
Irrespective, shortening the sales cycle is ideal
- Understand and follow the sales process
- Slow down & get a better understanding
- Test understanding for the price.
- Handle objections early
Learning how to shorten the sales cycle reduces the time to revenue and can increase the win rate, but it also consumes fewer sales, sales support resources, and management time.
Your conversion rate
Better process
Ask for feedback on the deals you have lost, ask for team members or seniors to sit in on calls for what you could’ve done better. Ultimately the goal is a better understudying of how and was deals are lost from the sales pipeline
Better qualify
The one action that will have the biggest impact will be to focus your efforts on getting high quality, highly targeted leads, who are going to be the best fit for your company.
Ask
Give your customers clear opportunities to purchase and do it often.
The average customer needs to be offered the sale SEVEN times before they’re ready to purchase!
Pipeline Management
Not all leads are created equally but they should be treated so. We recommend having a LEAN pipeline so you can stay in constant communication with all your leads — there shouldn’t be 3–5 days that have lapsed without there being some form of communication shared and you providing them with some value to over the finish line
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