If you’re ready to move away from destructive habits and become a productive sales professional, where do you start? Are there daily nuisances distracting you and dividing your focus? In this episode of Sales Reinvented, Barb Giamanco joins Paul to help you get down to the root of your struggles and delivers some tips to get you started!
Barb Giamanco is the founder and CEO of Social Centered Selling. She’s all about helping salesmen and women find transformation and start reaching sales goals. One of her career goals is to encourage more women to become sales professionals. If you’re looking to jumpstart your sales productivity, listen to this transformative episode!
Barb points out a stunning statistic: Salespeople are only using 15-20% of their time to engage in the sales process. Why? One reason is that companies expect their sales force to be data collectors. But should that really be their job? Probably not. If you’re in a leadership position, Barb advises reducing the administrative duties carried out by your sales staff.
She also notes that there is too much focus on a tech stack.
Eliminate apps, systems, and tools that don’t integrate well into your CRM. Stop using unnecessary software that makes you constantly shift between platforms. A sales team needs to be allowed to focus on making phone calls, sending emails, and connecting with people on LinkedIn. If something distracts them from that, it’s not worth using.
Are you ready to improve day-to-day productivity? According to Barb, it’s all about planning. You must go into every day knowing what you’re going to accomplish. Scheduling time to complete specific tasks is how you drive results. She takes Sunday evenings to plan each day of the upcoming week—and blocks time in her schedule.
She does not let anyone interfere with that time. She advocates protecting your calendar.
You need to prioritize your focus on what gets you closest to the cash. One way to do that? Knock out the difficult things first. Stop focusing your time and energy on the easy things that don’t drive results. They can fall into place later—or even be delegated.
A good salesperson is focused, committed, and carries out the plans they’ve made for their schedule. Because in reality, if things don’t get done, you only have yourself to blame. This is why it’s beyond important to know your metrics.
How long does it take you to close a deal?
What is the average value of each opportunity?
How many opportunities do you need to hit your quota?
Barb has run into many sales professionals who don’t have answers to those questions. There is no excuse!You need to know on average how many calls, appointments, demos, etc. will get you to a sale. Take ownership and learn your numbers.
Here are Barb’s top tips:
Being a successful salesperson involves knowing how to solve the problem of your target market and offering them the solution. It takes time and diligence to learn how to do this well. Becoming more productive is one of the best things you can implement to become more effective.
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Everyone uses a different productivity process in their daily work, but some maximize it more than others. If you’re ready to move beyond just completing checklists and want to efficiently generate revenue, you need to focus on productivity. So what should that look like?
Scott Ingram—Account Director at Relationship One and host of TWO podcasts—is here to chat with Paul about the process of productivity. Scott has a lot on his plate but manages to handle everything efficiently and effectively. How does he do it? Listen to this episode of Sales Reinvented to find out!
Scott defines productivity as “the amount of meaningful work you can get done in a given period of time”. What does meaningful work mean? Anything that pushes you towards generating revenue. How much revenue can you generate in one hour of meaningful work? If you’re questioning the level of meaningful work you’re able to knock out, it might be time to eliminate some distractions.
Scott notes that the world of technology seems to be conspiring against us.
You get notifications from your email, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn—the list is endless. Everyone knows it’s easy to get sucked into the rabbit-hole. Technology promises efficiency and delivers distraction. Scott recommends becoming more vigilant with your time. Leverage technology, don’t let it leverage you. Keep listening to find out what that looks like.
Scott recently gave a presentation on productivity and was kind enough to summarize it (for the full walk-through of the topic, we’ve linked it in the resources below). If you’re ready to improve day-to-day productivity, consider this process:
The Oxford dictionary defines the word ‘Maniacal’ in its non-formal sense as someone “exhibiting or denoting obsessive enthusiasm”. Scott believes this is the #1 attribute of a great sales professional. Do they have the obsessive drive and focus needed to be the top salesperson in your company?
Scott runs a podcast in which he only interviews the top-performing sales professional in any given company (or top 1%). These men and women have proven to be the best of the best and have mastered the productivity process.
He gives an amazing example of someone who is 200% more productive than the second-best salesperson in his organization—listen to hear his story!
When asked what tools individuals could use to increase productivity, Scott noted that it is better to be a minimalist. Keep it simple. A few tools that are a given include Gmail and your calendar. Scott also enjoys using:
Above all, it’s about developing a process that you can execute consistently. To hear Scott’s top three “Do’s and Don’ts” make sure to listen to the whole episode!
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How can the average sales professional leverage their time to maximize their sales productivity? There doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day to get everything done and manage to meet their sales quotas. In this episode of Sales Reinvented, Brynne Tillman is here to share what productivity looks like for her.
Brynne is the CEO of Social Sales Link and has mastered the art of marketing and sales on LinkedIn. She’s transforming the way professionals grow their business by taking social media sales to a whole new level. Her unique insight into the social world will leave an impact on you—so don’t miss this episode!
Brynne points out that the average salesperson usually has an engaging personality. They can be charming, can build relationships quickly, and excel at small talk. But they don’t always know how to make the best use of their time. Many focus on the aspects of the job that they love but struggle to engage in the part of the process that converts to money.
So how does one remedy that?
Start by identifying what you love and excel at. Then identify the gaps—where do you struggle or lack confidence? Schedule time to learn and begin to excel at the items on your to-do list that are a downfall. Get organized, schedule everything, and find someone to keep you accountable to do those things.
Brynne’s number one tip? Live and die by your calendar. Schedule everything from meetings to simple follow-up calls. If you don’t schedule it, you’ll likely forget it. She recommends a nifty tool, Boomerang for Gmail. You can mark certain emails to get moved to the top of your inbox at specific dates and times. It’s one of her favorite productivity tools.
Not everyone is gifted with the traits needed to be project managers, yet we are all project managers. She recommends making small behavioral changes. If you’ve already identified what you don’t excel at, don’t shout it to the world. Don’t let your negative words become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, be open to learning, growing, changing, and adapting.
A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System is something Brynne strongly believes every business needs to have in place to be productive and profitable. Don’t underestimate the usefulness of a great system—it can be your biggest productivity asset. They usually incorporate tools to give you reminders and help keep you on task for every step of the sales process.
Find the right tech that supports the habits of a salesperson. It doesn’t have to be expensive. Brynne recommends Nimble as an affordable CRM for any business to start with. Her favorite CRM is SharpString, which has a Chrome plugin you can integrate to keep you on task.
For more tools, tactics, and strategies—listen to the whole episode!
Bookmarks are something that everyone is familiar with and uses to some extent, but Brynne takes it to the next level. As she comes across connections or prospects on LinkedIn, she’ll add their information into a bookmark folder. At any given time she could have up to 80 people added into the folder.
If she comes across an interesting blog post or article, she’ll open every single one of the profiles that are saved in the bookmark. She writes a short but personal note and sends the article their way. It’s a unique way to provide value and allows her to stay at the forefront of their minds.
It’s a genius way to leverage the tools available. She landed a new client within 20 minutes of giving the tactic a shot. Don’t be afraid to try something new and innovative, you never know if it will help you land your next customer!
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Productivity can be defined as efficiency multiplied by effectiveness. It’s about doing things right and doing the right thing. Too often, salespeople only focus on efficiency. You can do many things efficiently—but still be ineffective. So what’s the key? Listen to this episode of Sales Reinvented with guest George Brontén to find out!
George is the founder of Membrain, a multiple award-winning Sales Enablement CRM. He specializes in helping to train sales professionals to become more effective. The goal is to bridge the gap between sales strategy and execution. His expertise is a welcome addition in this episode.
There’s a faulty assumption in the sales industry that anyone in sales was born with a special knack for the industry. In some cases, those people do possess the traits that naturally make them a good salesperson. But George believes it’s a process that can be taught and learned.
You can’t just hand someone a goal and expect them to reach it.
You must train them and give them the guidance and resources needed to be efficient, effective and productive. A sales professional must be allowed to grow and learn just as in any other profession. Give your team the tools they need to reach success.
Sales isn’t only about selling. To sell well, you need to understand your potential clients and their needs. You need to be able to pinpoint what is important to them and actually engage with them.
Most people can recognize when they’re being sold.
But if you take the time to understand the customer’s needs and connect with them on a deeper level you will be more likely to make a sale.
George points out that you need to know your craft well. Know the product or service you’re selling inside and out. He shares one of his favorite stories in which a sales team was always falling short of closing. He finally realized that they were afraid to talk to the tech people and didn’t know how to engage them.
They had to learn to speak their language.
They had to learn the problems that needed to be solved and be able to communicate that they could solve the problem. Their software would resolve an issue that was forcing the tech force to work overtime every single week. Once they figured that out, they tripled their success rate.
George recommends seeking out the friction points in the sales process. Where is the ball being dropped? At what exact point is the sale lost? More importantly—has your best salesperson already solved the problem? Those who are struggling with the sales process can learn and benefit from other peers and managers.
Once you identify the friction points and solve the issues, you can then systematize the process. This is what leads to efficiency, effectiveness, and therefore productivity. It allows your business to train sales professionals properly and not simply expect success. You begin to create it.
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