Increasing your contact rate and sales conversion should not be a mystery. It takes discipline and diligence. Is your contact management system designed to maximize sales performance? If you are operating off a spreadsheet or flipping through contacts in a desktop address book--you are static. These are not contact strategies--they are contact miracles.
Here are 10 contact management strategies that will get you more sales:
1. Centralize Your Contacts: Stop the madness with sticky notes, address books, rolodex, business cards, and Outlook. Find one place for sales leads and get them all in there. This is about to become your most valuable asset as a sales professional--so, I suggest you have a sturdy, backed-up, easy to maintain contact database-based system.
2. Script Your Process, Not Your Conversation: Sales scripts kill more sales than they bring. However, knowing exactly how you want to target and the process you want to take a lead through to become a happy customer is valuable. Map the process, and the potential deviations, of your ideal sales process. This mapping process will help you measure your performance and process better as well as making you sharp in front of the prospective client.
3. Put Your Contacts Database in Motion: Static databases cause sales prospects to rot on the vine. Put your contact management system in motion. Unfortunately, most lead management software does not have an automated mechanism to constantly optimize and suggest the next best lead. So, you may have to do a little work here. Segment and build a call list based on last contact--daily. Do not randomly meander through your address book--that is another sale miracle strategy.
4. Don't Think, Call: I'll make this real simple. Dial--Hang-Up--Dial. Repeat until exhausted. This is the MOST IMPORTANT SALES TIP you will ever get!
5. Let Email Help You: Email is a great tool to remove barriers and anxieties between you and a new prospect. Make it work for you. Automate email campaigns based on various statuses within your sales process. The primary objective it to create response while you are calling--increasing your overall sales velocity.
6. Schedule a Time, Even If They Don't Answer: People are busy and increasingly hate to be interrupted--especially by sales calls. Prevent this initial objection by always scheduling a time. This works for an initial conversation, follow-up to the current call, or even a voicemail. Voicemail appointments is a powerful tactic that is rarely used, and it is a dandy. When you leave a voicemail tell the prospect when to expect your next call. This simple psychological trick sets expectations and reduces the perceived interruption on your call back. You will be amazed by the contact rate lift.
7. Try ALL Contact Information: I can't tell you the times I have seen smart sales people kill sales leads over one bad phone number or incorrect email. Try all of the contact information available data errors and contact information migration is rampant. There is also a wide range of personal contact preferences too. Do loss a sale because of laziness.
8. Never Kill a Lead--Nurture It: Leads should never be killed in your contact management software. People don't say no because they don't buy things--they are simply waiting for the right time and value. Treat them as such. Place withdrawn or less promising leads into a lead nurturing campaign that keeps you in a light touch and education mode.
9. Work in 30 Minute Bursts: Calling and sales is an intense emotional business. Like an athlete driven by adrenaline and achievement you need to run your race, recover, and then run again. Approach any sales activities in burst of energy and use recovery periods to tidy up lose ends for the next burst.
10. Set A Daily Contact Goal, Not a Daily Sales Goal: Here is another powerful technique that is often overlooked. Don't base your day on sales quotas. Measure and manage you sales day on activity and contact rates. If you apply the effort and hit your activity rates the sales will come. Continue to tweak and reset your activity goals based on known conversions to consistently hit your monthly quota.
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