Here is what the experts are saying, and some takeaways from the past week:

North America’s Economy – OPEN FOR BUSINESS?

My clients have all been reporting that sales and marketing activity (and more importantly – client/prospect engagement) has been picking up through the month of May. What do the experts say? Hubspot shows that deal creation and sales activity (particularly in the US) continues to increase as the economy opens up.

However, while sales results are incrementally improving week-over-week, the data shows that salespeople are still spending a great deal of time reaching out to poor-fit prospects. The deal pipeline metrics are an encouraging sign that more businesses are re-entering buying processes, but it’s still too early to tell how much of this growth will be sustained. Your sales team should continue prioritizing high-interest, good-fit buyers rather than indiscriminately prospecting – and focus on moving people through the buying cycle!

B2B SaaS Job Market

The Bridge Group recently conducted some interesting research into the B2B SaaS job market and how it’s been impacted by the pandemic. The good news? It seems like the worst could be over, and hiring is ramping back up. The bad news? Late March was brutal, and roughly 30% of companies surveyed laid-off sales personnel through late April and froze their hiring.

See the whole report here.

Shifting from Live to Digital Events

I’ve previously shared data and research from TOPO and SiriusDecisions about shifting from live to digital events in a COVID world. And last week, I shared some additional commentary on the music industry. I thought this article from Dave Grohl on the live music scene was appropriate and quite well written and speaks to the need for live events and interaction.

We all have seen some shoddy attempts at digital recreations of live events (both musically and within B2B). I think we’re all agreed that live music will come back – not sure when, but it WILL come back. But how about the B2B space? What do you think? Are we all itching for some great LIVE B2B events and tradeshows?

Shameless Plug – Webinar featuring VanillaSoft

Reminder that the first of our new ‘What do B2B Marketers Do Now? (in 29 minutes!)’ webinar series happens on May 27 at 2pm ET. We’ll discuss marketing and sales strategies to help organizations gain traction on the road to business recovery and growth. This month I’ll be featuring Darryl Praill, CMO of VanillaSoft, and leader of the INSIDE Inside Sales podcast.

I hope you can join us – register here. We’re all in this together!

Looking forward,

Rick

Rick Endrulat | President | Virtual Causeway | 519.866.1600 x622

The post B2B Pushing for Recovery appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

Based on our experience, here is a list of practices that are important to become a better salesperson.

Know your goals

You can’t achieve goals if you don’t set any. They provide long term vision and short term motivation.

By setting out Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART) goals you can motivate and challenge yourself to reach and even surpass those goals. Not only will this help you be a better salesperson but you can take pride in the achievement of your goals. Even if they are small, they’ll help you see the forward progress you’ve made.

Keep organized

Staying organized will help you be more productive and save time. Use a CRM tool to keep track of leads as well as customer data and interactions so it’s on hand for when you need it (Check out this post on why you need one). Make use of a scheduling assistant such as Plann3r when scheduling meetings and calls to find the perfect time-slot for everyone.

Believe in what you are selling

It’s important to be well informed about the company you work for, but most importantly, really believing in the product or service you are offering can make a world of difference. If you are passionate about what you are selling, it becomes that much easier to convince others that it’s something they need, especially if it’s something that’s going to make their job easier. If you want your customers to engage with you, it’s important that they feel your passion for the product. You’ll find that your excitement is contagious and that’s a great way to have them champion the investment.

Listen more than you speak / Start a conversation, not a pitch

Reading off a script or running a sales pitch certainly saves a lot of time and is much easier than carrying on a conversation. By starting a conversation, you are taking the pressure off the customer and lowering the likelihood of them feeling annoyed, intimidated, or overloaded with information. By listening more than you speak you will get a better idea of what it is the customer is looking for, as a result, you will be able to find a solution that better fits their needs rather than offering them something they might not want. This will help to provide a more positive experience for the customer and increase the likelihood of making a sale. Remember, you were given two ears and one mouth, so be sure to listen twice as much as you talk.

Constantly build and maintain relationships

Customers are a company’s greatest asset. Without them, there is nobody to buy your product. The relationships you build with current and potential customers is priceless. Remain honest, authentic and show genuine concern for their needs. Once the customer is engaged with you and you’re moving through the sales process, you should work on maintaining that relationship. If they are satisfied with the service you provided they will look forward to continuing to do business with you or returning to do business in the future.

View the customer’s success as your own

Happy customer = happy manager = happy salesperson. When you sell a product or service, you should see this success not only as the customer’s, but also as your own too. This is a chance to see what you did right, or did wrong, in your sales journey. This is also a great opportunity to seek feedback from the customer for your benefit, and for the benefit of the company.

Conclusion

These tips might not be for everyone, and following them won’t necessarily make you a better sales person but adding some of these to your routine and changing things up a little may prove to be beneficial to your overall strategy.

What are some of your tips to up your game and become a more effective salesperson?

The post 6 Tips to Become a More Effective Salesperson appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

Chances are you don’t consider Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to be such a big deal. The reality is, along with 75% of other companies, you’re a fool to think so and you’re missing out.

*Here’s the actual title of this article:

Why you most certainly DO need a CRM

What is it exactly?

If you don’t know already, a CRM is software designed to help keep track of all of your prospects, customers, and accounts. It allows you to manage your sales process and track your sales activity across the entire sales funnel. You can manage all of your tasks, sales opportunities, forecasts and reports so that you have complete visibility into your revenue generation activities. It allows you to monitor and track all activity, thereby ensuring all staff are working efficiently and effectively towards milestone-based and recurring goals and metrics. It gives management a dashboard into the organization’s well-being and long-term viability of the company.

Here’s why you need one:

Customer relationship Management is crucial when running a business and especially when you are a salesperson. While not every company needs one, CRM software has been proven to increase sales by 29% in small businesses, and 75% of sales managers say that using a CRM helps to drive and increase sales. If you don’t have one already, it might be worth it to consider a free trial. – I recommend Salesforce or Hubspot or Pipedrive.

Basically, if you sell stuff and you’re not using a CRM, you’re missing out.

The Canadian Professional Sales Association says that Long-term relationship building and a dedication to customer service are among the top 5 skills to succeed in sales.

CRM tools make it much easier to manage relationships and keep track of crucial information about your clients and customers. And as a bonus, nobody has to carry around a Rolodex of business cards with notes on the back.

Sometimes I wonder to myself how many CRM’s my name shows up in. Probably many.

Here are some benefits of how a CRM can help replace that Rolodex, and some of the benefits you’re missing out on:

1. Greater staff satisfaction and efficiency 

When information is shared and easy to find, everyone works more efficiently. According to a McKinsey report, employees spend 1.8 hours every day—9.3 hours per week, on average—searching and gathering information. A CRM makes it easy to find information without having to data mine through emails and call history for information on a client. Happy employees mean happy customers.

2. Better client relationships

The more you know about your clients the more your clients know you care about them. This helps nurture a much stronger relationship with clients and helps build a foundation of trust. According to an Edelman study, trust in business is declining rapidly. It’s important to maintain customers trust in order to earn their business.

3. Better Internal Communication

Having an up-to-date CRM helps everybody. Sharing customer data between departments will help everybody to work as a team. This will increase profitability and will help to provide high quality service to customers

Some programs are free and some are more expensive depending on which features you are interested in and how many people will be using it. Check out this article by Hubspot on how to choose the right CRM for your businesses individual needs.

Conclusion

Having a CRM on its own isn’t going to do much. A Customer database is only good if everyone works together to populate it and keep it updated. One MIT student completed a study using Hubspot’s CRM software and found that 79% of customers saw an increase in sales revenue within one year. While you shouldn’t expect to see quick results right away, it won’t be long before you have a really great, effective database solution to help reach your sales and management goals.

The post Why You Don’t Need a CRM* appeared first on Virtual Causeway.