Let's talk sales targets 2018

And, that assumes you’re doing the right thing; working hard, working smart and not wasting selling time or sales opportunities.

Are you? Let’s see…

Speed Kills – A recent InsideSales.com study found that 35-50% of sales went to the vendor that got to the prospect first.

So where are you in the race? Are you first, or did you merely ‘also run’? Were you late to the party? Did you watch someone else dictate the action with the prospect, knowing you’ve just halved your chances of getting the order? Ouch!

Consistent Communication – Are you showing up for your prospects on a consistent basis? 66% of vendors see consistent and relevant communication as a major factor in deciding who to give their business to.

This is an easy one to fix when you know what your prospect is interested in and how far along their buying cycle they are.

Working Your Niche – Tailored messages to tailored segments sells! Pitching everything to everyone still? No way will you increase your sales results, sales conversion or margins.

If you’re not doing this, welcome to the sales hamster wheel, we hope you’ll be very happy here.

Using the Buyer’s Buying Cycle to Get the Order – You can walk with the buyer through their buying process or you can try to drag them down your sales process. Which one do you think has the best sales conversion rate?

Nurturing the lead at a pace, in your buyer’s context and in an environment that is buyer centric makes great sales sense. Why are so few sales teams doing this?

Playing the Long Sales Game – Sales lead nurturing is a game changer, regardless the length of your sales cycle. Giving value to prospects even before they know they need you is a defining characteristic in successful sales led businesses.

What do you think your chances are if the first time the prospect hears from you is a week before they’re looking to buy? Market2lead.com found that nurtured leads have a sales cycle that is 23% shorter than non-nurtured leads.

Cold Calling Burn Out – Most successful and fast growing sales teams have made the switch from proactive cold calling to driving traffic to their website.

Not only is this the fastest way to scale a business, it’s also one of the cheapest. Your staff suffer less burnout and your sales ROI can be ramped very fast. You get turnover, profit and market share – the Holy Grail of sales improvement!

Stop Wasting Time – Converting leads to sales is easy. Finding leads is not. This is where many sales teams lose huge chunks of time. It’s a simple formula, time is your most valuable sales resource, why would you squander it on unconvertible leads?

Get smart and only talk to profiled, nurtured prospects who are ready to buy… If you don’t know who these prospects are and at what stage they are, we need to talk.

Websites Rule – 27% of the time a prospect spends selecting a B2B provider is spend researching online. Couple that with 54% of the buying process being completed before the buyer gets to speak to the business!

This means you’ll likely get the call when 54% of the decision is already made or you may never know that prospect is interested.

Timing is Everything – Right message + right prospect + wrong time = no sale.

You can get one of the three sales wrong and still be in with a chance of getting there, but you can’t get the timing wrong.

If you’re not monitoring and tracking your prospects with where they are in their buying cycle, your timing will always be wrong. That means losing money, time, orders and sometimes, even your sanity!

Lead Nurturing – According to Forrester Research, firms using lead nurturing generate 50% more sales ready leads for 33% less cost.

Things change, buyers change, have you?