Almost from the moment a sales rep hears the words “You’re hired!”, they’re already in a race to hear the words “Good job!”
Shortening the time between those two statements means going into a new sales job with a clear strategy to ensure your manager will feel they made a great hiring decision.
Even if you had to go through multiple rounds of interviews, for example, many sales managers are taking a shot in the dark when they bring on a new rep.
They might offer a job based on what you’ve said about your past performance, or what they’ve heard through a mutual acquaintance at your old firm.
Perhaps your former and current employer shared a few clients, and your manager was able to reach out to them and ask about your approach.
There’s little way to verify much of what a sales recruit will say about the quotes they’ve crushed or other goals they’ve achieved. Managers can check references, but bringing new talent on board is always, to some degree, a leap of faith.
Once you’ve finished the onboarding process and are given your first accounts to manage, you’ve got three solid months to really expand the manager’s sense of your true potential.
In those 90 days, you should be doing more than the expected tasks that have long been part of working sales. By all means work the phones and set up meetings. You should certainly develop a great pitch deck on your new employers products and services.
To really impress your manager, though, your best bet is to demonstrate a bias towards data-driven thinking.
In many companies, for example, the move to adopting a CRM is something of a journey for sales teams. Managers sometimes have to work hard to encourage reps to change old habits of capturing customer information on sticky notes and spreadsheets. They are being asked by their leaders to have their teams make the most of the technology and accelerate their return on investment (ROI).
This is a golden opportunity for new reps to shine, if they know how.
1. Prepare A Pain Point Analysis
Most reps spend a lot of their first days talking to as many customers as possible. Too many of those “Getting to know you” conversations wind up providing little more than a face to a name and some small talk.
Data-driven reps go deeper, gaining a detailed understanding of their customers’ key challenges. Then they make sure all the information they capture gets fed back into the CRM so it can be synthesized with the data from the rest of the team.
From there, see if you can pinpoint the top five areas where your customers are struggling. Not all of of these will be related to the products and services your firm offers. That’s okay. Your manager just needs to see that you’re thinking on a different level about your customers and that your approach will be more targeted and relevant.
2. Demonstrate What Success From Anywhere Looks Like
Managers used to have a brief discussion with reps about who they were going out to see and why, perhaps offering some words of advice. Once the rep was out the door, managers might not hear from them until they came back to the office. Even then, it might take finding a break between meetings to learn whether a customer was any closer to signing off on a deal.
A data-driven sales rep makes sure to keep in regular contact, offering real-time updates and a willingness to collaborate at any stage. This could include using video calling tools to provide a quick update right after they come out of a meeting with a client. They might leave messages in Slack with questions about how to overcome an objection while they’re still with a customer.
In fact, many reps might now be working from a coffee shop or even at home rather than trekking back and forth to the office. By tapping into digital tools for communication and collaboration, you’re providing managers a greater ability to intervene when necessary and coach you towards closing the next big deal.
3. Make The Most Of The Marketing Team’s Efforts
Sales and marketing teams should work hand-in-hand, but often they operate more as silos. This is true even in small to medium-sized organizations. It’s frustrating to senior leaders, who often look to managers to nurture a better alliance across departments.
A data-driven rep doesn’t ignore what the marketing team is doing. Instead, they leverage all the intent signals marketers gather based on how often a prospect comes to the web site, opens an email newsletter or downloads an eBook. That way, when they reach out, they know they’re more likely to connect at a moment where a purchase is likely.
4. Close The Loop With Service
Customers may reach out to a contact center after they’ve made a purchase with questions, complaints or suggestions on how the company could improve. Agents need to do a good job of listening to all this feedback, but they’re not always in the best position to act upon it.
Data-driven sales reps can connect with the service team to look for actionable insights they can take back to their customers. They can convey a better sense that customers are not only being heard, but that there will be changes as a result.
Why not set a goal of tallying a list of a dozen improvements the company could make to the customer experience it offers based on what you’ve learned from the service team? Your manager will see that you’re thinking about more than your commission, and that you’re truly invested in bringing value to your customer base.
By the time your first three months are up, you can use data in such a way that your manager won’t just be glad they hired you. They’ll be looking to hire many more reps just like you.
