When it comes time for the new year, there’s no shortage of articles about resolutions, inspiration, goal-setting, and tips for the future. And what better time to evaluate your successes and failures than when the calendar rolls back to January 1st? While it might seem tedious and repetitive, setting goals and thinking about the future, especially in the fast-paced marketing and sales industries, can do us a world of good.

If you’re a sales rep and a marketing automation user (or an aspiring user), here are a few sales tips to start your year off right. Take a look at the list below, and get even more tips in the newly released, 100 Sales Tips for 2014 ebook, which is filled with tons of tips from nearly 70 of the industry’s leading sales experts.

1. Work with your marketing team

Work together to establish a common definition of a qualified lead. This will prevent tensions between the two teams down the line, and will ensure that only high-quality leads get passed from marketing to sales.

2. Trust

Trust that your marketing team knows what they’re doing when it comes to nurturing your prospects. If you’ve already followed the advice offered in tip number one, then you’re marketing team should have a solid understanding of what you’re hoping to get out of your communications.

3. Gain insight into prospect activity

Make sure you’re using the insights gathered from marketing automation to frame your conversations appropriately. For example, give your prospects helpful information related to email marketing if you know they’ve been perusing your website for content on that subject.   

4. Use the real-time prospect notifications

Marketing automation provides real-time notifications so you know when your prospects are available to talk. Don’t waste their time and your own by calling when they can’t speak to you.

5. Cater your sales conversations to your prospects’ stage of the sales cycle

If you know that they’re in the beginning, middle, or top of the funnel, make sure you’re passing along the appropriate content for their needs.

6. Know the products of interest

If your prospects are spending ten minutes looking at product A, and another ten minutes looking at product B, start your conversations by talking about product B. Not only is this the most recent and therefore one of the most relevant items you can bring up, it’s possible that their switch from product A to product B indicates that product A didn’t quite meet their needs.

7. Alerts

Many marketing automation platforms give you the option to receive daily prospect activity alerts. Use these emails to help decide which prospects need immediate follow-up so that you can get better at managing your time.

8. Leverage email

If your automation system integrates with your own 1:1 email platform (like Gmail), use that integration to see how your 1:1 emails are performing. Are your prospects clicking on your links? Which links work best? Use this information to optimize your sales emails.

Want more sales tips? Take a look at our new ebook by clicking on the banner below.