Selling in Turbulent Times

I was on a great webinar last week presented by Dow Jones and CSO Insights, and I recommend that you listen to the replay.  You can click here to watch the “Successful Sales Strategies” replay.  We can talk about Sales 2.0, and sales effectiveness, or even sales optimization.  But a lot of what is making sales people successful in this economy is a) having good sales intelligence and b) having an effective sales plan or an account plan!

Why did I like this so much?  First, they based the strategies not only on the sales truths that don’t change, but on the completely changed realities of selling today.

“We Need the Right Team,
To Do the Right Things,
Using the Right Tools,

Supported by the Right Insights,
To Get Our Customers to Do the Right Thing,
Right Now!”

Now this isn’t news, but how you get there today, is very different than just 3 years ago. Today, prospects EXPECT

you to know their business, before you come in to meet with them. You can expect them to know your business before you talk with them the first time even.  The question is now, how do you get to the conversations in real time around issues that they care about as opposed to your product or service?

With the huge amount of information that is available, how do you get what you need in order to have the RIGHT information for a sales call or to target a prospect.  Dow Jones has the product that they acquired from Generate.  Inside View is a great tool that integrates with SFDC.  So does ZoomInfo.  What you have to do is figure out which tools or combination of tools works for your business and your industry.  More importantly, what information do you need to fully have a plan?  Some of my favorite statistic that CSO Insights has on this call is that fully 43% of sales reps are missing quota, and according to their managers, over 50% of the sales reps need to do more research before making a sales call.

As we get ready to end Q2 and head into the second half of the selling year, you have to stop and ask… Do I have the right information?  Do I know what information I need to have a successful Territory Sales Plan or Account Plan? Where can I get the information that I need?  How can I have it all easily accessible in my CRM?

The tools are there, including the sales planning tools.

The question is are you using them and is your team being effective?