* This is a continuation of this post.
With inside sales, establishing an efficient process is always a good start. But even the most efficient inside sales process can be further maximized with proven strategies.
We’ve discussed 10, and here are 10 more inside sales strategies you need to start applying to your systems today:
11. Always respond immediately
There’s a five-minute rule in sales: you have to respond to leads within five minutes to up your chances of engaging and closing that lead. Otherwise, a study notes that “the odds of contacting a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drop 100 times. The odds of qualifying a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drop 21 times.”
These days, industry insiders say even five minutes is not fast enough. The bottom line: never waste a minute and always respond quickly to leads.
12. Hyper-personalize
Hyper-personalization takes personalized service, marketing strategies, and lead nurturing to a whole new level. Using data on demographics, psychographics, and other contextual data (e.g. purchase history, browsing history, buying patterns and behavior, points of interaction or brand engagement, touch points and channels used, etc.), deliver more relevant content, communications, and service to clients and prospects.
Hyper-personalization leverages on artificial intelligence and machine learning to gather these data, so you need the right technology, like a CRM with these capabilities.
13. Invest in AI
Hyper-personalization is one of the reasons artificial intelligence has become a strong sales asset. The other is automation. Sales reps are “liberated” from performing repetitive, time-consuming tasks that can otherwise be performed by AI and machines. They now have more time to work on their sales processes and connect with customers—building better relationships with them in the process and increasing their chances of closing deals. Client communications, database and lead management, sales pipeline management, collaboration, and sales mobility are some of the areas that greatly benefit from automation.
Automation has a tremendously positive impact on sales productivity, and it has allowed salespeople to focus on selling.
14. Establish rapport with your prospect
Once you have a prospect on the phone, remember to turn your focus on the customer, not on yourself or the product/service you’re selling. This is the way you establish rapport with the prospect. Be sincere, ask them about their business needs, pain points, and objectives. Don’t try too hard on making a sale immediately. Gather as much information as you can; besides you’re also there to qualify the lead.
Remember to actively listen to everything the prospect says.
15. Work with the team
While inside sales reps are mostly confined to their cubicles or desks, they still belong to a team. Sales reps should understand the value of working with their teams and use available resources for greater work output.
For example, aligning sales with marketing is always a good move. Marketing provides sales with the tools they need to sell better. And for this dynamic to produce the best results, these two teams must be in sync.
This is also to say that organizations must prioritize and invest in sales enablement, a system that provides sales teams with strategies, processes, tools, technology, and other resources to help them sell more effectively. Having a sales enablement charter is linked to a 27.6% increase in quota attainment. And over 75% of companies using sales enablement tools indicated that sales increased over the past 12 months.
16. Leverage on social selling
Studies show that sales reps with high social network activity achieve 45% more sales opportunities, and are 51% more likely to hit their sales quotas. This should be enough reason for inside sales reps to rethink their social media game.
Sales reps can engage with potential clients by connecting with them, specifically on LinkedIn. They can also engage them in conversations by contributing to threads and commenting on the brand’s posts. The main thing to remember though is to make a connection first, establish a relationship second. Selling should come much later.
But before you go sending out invitations to connect on these social media platforms, make sure that your profile is suited for professional networking and selling.
17. Prepare rebuttal techniques
Sales reps should know by now that rejection is part of the sales game. How they handle rejection will make all the difference.
With cold calls in particular, prospects will try to get rid of you with a host of excuses. A smart sales rep should prepare himself for these objections and learn how to counter them.
18. End all calls on a positive note
Though objections may happen in calls, you should always end all phone calls on a positive note. Even if the call didn’t go or end as planned, you can’t dismiss this prospect altogether. Many companies are really not responsive on the first try. In fact, only 2% of sales happen at the first meeting or contact. Besides, you can always come back to them and re-engage them—so don't burn bridges.
19. Never lose drive and focus
Sales is not easy and sales reps need to have drive and focus. It’s easy to give up especially if you’ve been dismissed way too many times, but persistence really does pay off. Consider these stats:
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- 50% of all sales happen after the 5th contact, but most reps give up after just 2. (InsideSales)
- It takes 8 cold calls to reach a prospect. 72% of all sales calls aren’t answered. (Baylor University)
- 92% of sales pros give up after the 4th call, but 80% of prospects say no four times before they say yes. (MarketingDonut)
- 80% of sales are made by 20% of salespeople. The winners sell to the prospects the losers give up on. (Bill Corbin on LinkedIn)
- 70% of salespeople stop at one email. Yet if you send more emails, you’ve got a 25% chance to hear back. (YesWare)
20. Invest in the right tools
Technology is a key driver for inside sales; it’s actually what makes inside sales highly feasible in today’s marketplace. Every sales organization must invest in the right tools, their CRM foremost. Your CRM can generate reports on everything—the sales funnel, team performance, etc.—that can provide actionable insights. You can use its many advanced features too for automating many tasks.
One very useful feature is a Power Dialer, which helps optimize cold calls. With it, you can:
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- Click-to-Call: Go to the contact profile of a client or prospect. Click on his number to make a call. That easy!
- Local Presence: Simply turn this feature on and start making calls. The system will automatically match the caller ID number with the same area code or a nearby area code of the location you are calling. It sounds neat but, more importantly, it adds up to your pick-up rate!
- Voice Message Drop: Only have time for voice messages? Or do you just want to speed up your calls for the day? You can have your own pre-recorded voice message and send this effortlessly with just one click.
- Voicemail: Record your own greeting and receive voicemail messages when you’re unable to take a call. This way, you never miss out on any opportunities!
- Callback Reminder: Use this feature to return a call. 80% of unanswered calls are forgotten or abandoned. Don't let opportunities get away. With the Callback Reminder, you can set a callback time and a reminder to return a client’s call.
- Live Transfer: You don’t need to be fielding calls or transferring those not intended for you. With Live Transfer, calls reach the right person right away, freeing your line for more calls.
- Live Call Monitoring: This one’s for the sales managers. Listen in on your sales rep’s phone conversation with Live Call Monitoring and coach them on the spot. This allows sales managers to have quality control over the calls.
- Smart Call List: Create your personalized call list or use an automatically generated, insights-based call list generated within the system. You make better use of your time and become more efficient in making calls.
With the right technology, training, and mindset, inside sales can be highly successful for your organization—more so if you follow these strategies. Good luck!
Photos from Pexels. Main photo by Jopwell
