9 Sales Tips to Reach Your Sales Goals in 2021
Table of Contents
Finally, 2020 is a past story. Yes, we know that it wasn’t the year that we were expecting. Especially for salespeople!
Now that we are aged like a fresh wine with the restrictions that the COVID forced upon us, it is quite evident that enterprises are all set to move their major coins on the business board to bounce back after a huge wave.
Obviously, it is a salesperson’s responsibility to act as a catalyst in upbringing the company’s service out to the battlefield and he/she should make sure to find their sweet spot to achieve their sales target.
It’s a known fact that we don’t have any kind of magic wand that shows us the future with 3-word spells. So, here we have listed out 9 tips for salespeople to reach their sales goals in 2021 with greater ease.
1. Digitalize wherever possible
2. Keep track of the sales trends
3. Be a Mozart in finishing the sales meeting in style.
4. Fix quarterly goals
5. Know your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
6. Add value to the account management
7. Enhance the overall productivity of your sales team
8. Put ‘Five Nos’ follow-up into practice.
9. Multiple channels for outbound sales strategy.
1. Digitalize Wherever Possible
Yes, 2020 is gone. But it definitely left a tint of its own among humans’ psyche and we are not going to get back to the usual immediately. Considering the fact the COVID had opened new mediums to continue the trade more easily and unconventionally, there is an abundant opportunity to exploit in getting the deal done virtually.
A technology insight shows that in companies with heavy use of CRMs, the sales rep’s quota of achieving their sales goals has increased by more than 60%. So, the sales managers must turn their arrows towards the digital mediums and applications that are the best use for the salespeople to achieve their targets.
2. Keep Track of the Sales Trends
Not only in sales, but it is an important task to analyze the trends of the company’s business and industries to stay afloat in the market arena. When it comes to sales, the sales manager should have a keen eye for the change of trends to equip their salespeople.
Starting from the macro trends shaping the governance of the market to the company’s inbound trends that provide insights into revenues and deals, questioning the change of trends will result in clear knowledge on focusing on bigger fishes.
When the sales team masters the art of staying on track in sales trends, they can effectively work with the marketing team in increasing customer acquisition by selectively picking their fishes.
3. Be a Mozart in Finishing the Sales Meeting in Style
Nothing can be weirder than staring at each others’ faces in the sales meeting when the prospect expects you to show some light on the services that your company offers.
Especially during these times when virtual meetings superimpose the conventional in-person handlings, it should be considered of utmost importance to engage the prospects. Focus mainly on keeping the meeting interactive via documents (Tariff, Statistics, PDF documents explaining the service, prospectus) and audio-visual contents to crush the sales meetings like a pro.
Constantly try to add value to every word that you let out to the decision-maker and make them hooked up with your questions to create a spotlight of attention around the product that you’re trying to sell.
4. Fix Quarterly Goals
A sales manager should not only fix sustainable sales and revenue goals. He/she also should encourage the company to fix quarterly goals to aim for the bigger sales target by the end of the year.
Working on the quarterly goals helps the entire team by taking the time to retrospect on what worked and what didn’t add up to reach the threshold of achieving the implemented quarterly goals. Set up a conference with your sales reps to question the factors that turned out to be the selling check on that particular quarter.
Here are a few questions that can help in bringing a bigger picture of their sales insights and status.
1. What are the things that we are lacking?
2. Was that too much reach for this quarter?
3. What can take a toll on the team’s productivity?
4. Are we staying on track with the current trends?
5. What are the things that can go wrong without the intention of the sales team?
Related: 20 Funny Sales Memes That Every Salesperson Can Relate To Themselves
5. Know Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
The first and foremost thing for any sales team is to give a clear idea of what the company is aiming to serve its customers better than its competitors. Unique Selling Proposition is nothing but a specific benefit that the company holds with them in order to show their superiority over their competitors.
Train your salespeople accordingly in such a way that they can flawlessly deliver their sales pitch with respect to their Unique Selling Proposition.
6. Add Value to the Account Management
Increase customer retention by carefully adding value to the action of account management.
Personalize the sales pipeline according to the accounts that you’re handling to create a subset between both existing and new customers. By doing that, one can always stay on top in earning referrals from existing customers and look for newer opportunities.
Some best practices of account management according to the Richardson Sales Performance include,
- Know when to designate a client as a strategic account
- Select your strategic account manager carefully
- Know the players inside the strategic account
- Build dependency
- Provide insight to create value for the client’s business
- Validate the plan
7. Enhance the Overall Productivity of Your Sales Team
Being a Sales manager, it is well and good that you bring out your best to reach the sales target. At the same time, the sales manager should keep in mind to constantly engage in activities that foster the productivity of the sales team.
Especially with remote teams being highly active for the past year one year, companies are in their comfort zone to initiate remote work for a longer run. At the same time, companies should involve in activities that maintain the momentum of productivity on track.
A Salesforce study brings out the fact that improving the productivity of the sales reps is the top factor to achieve the 20-40% of their revenue targets. And the same study also shows that 49% percent of the organizations hold zero or limited means to measure sales productivity.
It is quite evident with those facts that companies don’t add up their finance in spending on improving the sales team’s productivity. Make sure that your company encourages the sales team to attend workshops frequently. As discussed already, digitizing the entire sales process also gives an instant push in sales productivity.
With innovations and technologies taking their stand on empowering the sales productivity of enterprises, strengthening the bottlenecks in employees’ productivity becomes an easy nut to crack. Nowadays we do have plenty of applications like Lystloc that intend to simplify the burden of developing a productive environment in the workplace.
8. Put ‘Five Nos’ Follow-up into Practice
Marketing Donut study quotes that 92% of salespeople give up after four “no’s”, and only 8% of salespeople ask for the order a fifth time. And it’s also been found that the remaining 8% of the people tend to move forward with 80% of their sales.
Make your sales reps feel free to hear nos at least for more than 4 times. Following-up those prospects constantly make them feel that they are being considered important by your company.
So, introduce the ‘five no’s’ strategy in your sales team and increase the conversion rate of your sales process with greater ease.
“Perseverance will give you a major edge on competitors” – Robert Clay – Founder of Marketing Wizdom.
Related: 50 Motivational Quotes To Inspire Your Sales Team
9. Multiple Channels for Outbound Sales Strategy
With covid leaving its trace on the business models, it is not enough to follow the narrow path that your company is comfortable with.
Focus on multiple channels for outbound sales in order to ease out the tension of acquiring new deals. By integrating the marketing team to be the direct collaborator with the sales team, the company can find new methods and strategies to improve the outbound sales process.
With the marketing team coming into the picture, the sales team can focus on the bigger group of clients knowing where exactly they have to aim their arrows.
To Conclude:
Yes, it is quite hard to accept the impact created by the previous year in the sales process of business enterprises. But it should be easy enough to bounce back to be the big pin in the business. And it’s definitely not a long run.
Know where your team finds its imbalance and work to get the way out of it with the tips that are mentioned above. Let 2021 be the bigger year in your team’s sales calendar.