By b2b sales, Sales Automation, sales funnel, b2b sales plan, sales prospecting, sales enablement
One of the main benefits of the Hubspot partnership is that we have access to some of their best professionals that share with us their marketing and sales proven concepts and tactics. In the Fall of 2020, I attended Dan Tyre's "Pipeline Generation Bootcamp". This was particularly interesting since it happened during the second wave of the pandemics and all agency sales reps and owners present in the bootcamp were struggling to be motivated, while trying to achieve their revenue goals and employee spirits up at the same time.
This was intensive work for more than 8 weeks and I would like to share with you my top 5 take aways, the ones I think are most relevant for what's coming up next for sales and marketers in 2021.
1. Always be helping
There is a famous manifesto most sales people are following that says "Always be selling". This is no longer viable, especially in a time where budget cuts make buyers extra cautious. But this is also the time when you need to be there for your customers and prospects: provide free advice, free resources, free templates, free demos, free solutions/software (if possible) and free...help! In order to do this you need to actively listen to your prospect. Listen to what they are struggling with these days: is there anything YOU (not your services) can do or advice to help them today? If so, do it!
2. Do warm calling, not cold calling
Stop wasting your time with bad fits and show respect for your prospect's time. Do a thorough research on the people you are reaching out to and make sure they are your target buyers. Look out for information about the prospective company and target person on social media, on their website and in the media. Then, arm yourself with the knowledge that can help the person you are about to call. This is the key differentiator between a warm call and a cold one.
3. Use technology
You'd be surprised of how many well established businesses are still using spreadsheets to monitor their sales process, in 2020. Digitalization is critical, especially in the "work-from-home" era. I recommend to you those tools that I tested myself:
- Consider Hubspot's Free CRM (free for life).
- Use prospecting automation tools, such as LinkedHelper.
- Use intelligence tools like CrystalKnows to better understand your prospect's profile
4. Use video in your sales process
Statistics say that inserting videos in your prospecting process increases 5X your email open rate and 8X your click-through rate. That’s definitely a huge jump.
5. Always be "Booom!"-ing
This is one take away that Dan Tyre shared just by being himself: always positive, always full of energy, encouraging, motivating, and "Boooming!", even in the midst of a global pandemic. And although he never mentioned it to us directly or put it on his slides, we all got it from the power of his own example: we should all struggle to achieve that authentically. No one wants to talk to another gloomy sales person, not when all screens are screaming COVID-19. Put on your smile, and honestly try to help the person on the other side of the line (or Zoom). After all, there's no business-to-business, there's only human-to-human.
