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Sales is a great gig — but let’s be honest, your monthly, quarterly, or yearly quota? There are probably other words that come to mind before “great.”
When you’re trying to hit your numbers, wasting time on non sales-ready leads and time-consuming follow-ups isn’t an option. You need to be able to focus on the deals that are ready to close now, not a year down the road. Fortunately for all of the time-strapped sales reps out there, we’ve assembled a number of handy sales hacks that can help you nurture your leads, identify the hottest leads for follow-up, and nail those all-important personal conversations. The key is marketing automation.
Using features like lead nurturing, real-time alerts, and prospect activity tracking, you can free up more time in your day to focus on the tasks that are actually going to get you to quota, not slow you down.
Let’s follow two sales reps as they encounter some common sales predicaments, and see how they’re able to overcome these challenges using a few simple marketing automation hacks (for a look at our full list of these sales hacks, check out our new e-book, Five Hacks to Dominate Your Quota This Quarter).
Jimmy has been working a lead who uses a competitive solution, and even though she loves his company’s product, she’s locked into her contract for another year. Jimmy still wants to build rapport over the next two years, but he needs to use his time wisely. This deal may close a year down the line, and is therefore worth an investment, but his quota is being judged on what he can close now, so he needs to put this one on autopilot.
Instead of devoting time every month to check in on this lead (and every other one like it), Jimmy enrolls her in a competitive nurturing campaign that his marketing team set up. Since Jimmy is familiar with the talking points that often come up in competitive deals, he’s already worked with his marketing team to give them a better understanding of the types of content to include in this drip.
Over the next year, Jimmy’s lead will receive consistent communication so that his company stays top of mind — and he won’t even have to send the emails himself. Instead, nurturing emails will be deployed automatically, and will contain content that draws attention to the pain points of using the competitor’s solution, highlights the benefits of switching, and showcases new innovations as Jimmy’s company continues to improve their offering. When renewal time approaches, Jimmy’s company will be at the top of his lead’s list.
Unlike Jimmy, Peter’s number one prospect is getting close to making a purchase decision — and with his quota on the line, Peter can’t afford to let this one slip away.
A product demo has been set for the following day, and now that several additional key stakeholders are involved, Peter wants to make sure he nails his pitch. This group isn’t going to respond well to a generic presentation about his product, so he really needs to personalize it to their specific needs.
Instead of using his company’s catch-all presentation deck, Peter decides to make things more personal by leveraging the data collected by his company’s marketing automation tool. Inside his CRM, he can see a list of his prospect’s activity history:
Page entry via search with a Google AdWords click
Thirteen pageviews
A form complete for a white paper download
Two email opens and a tracked link click to a video overview
60% of the video overview watched
Judging by the types of white papers downloaded and pages viewed, this particular prospect seems to have an interest in invoicing software. Peter scrolls down to take a look at the demographic data that’s been collected. Using Data.com, he can see a wealth of social and prospect data to supplement the data already collected by his marketing automation tool.
He makes note of his prospect’s industry and company size, and starts putting together a presentation deck that focuses on how small businesses in the manufacturing industry are leveraging invoicing solutions to improve their accounts payable process. Come tomorrow, he’ll be ready.
Take a look at three more sales scenarios — and get access to abbreviated sales “game plans” — by downloading our full e-book, Five Hacks to Dominate Your Quota This Quarter.
