English
Everyone wants to sell more, but the market is overrun with a broad range of selling techniques, which is baffling for most of us.
Owing to this, modern-day companies, particularly new and young, often can't differentiate between useful and ineffective sales techniques, merging both together. As a result, vast amounts of resources are wasted by attempting to work with them all and then by trying to identify what has been genuinely useful. Why follow such a complicated elimination process when you should be able to quickly get around this? It is enough to understand your own sales process and adjust some of its aspects. Then, the selling techniques that your company needs will become self-evident.
There are currently four areas which are essential to improving your business, and they're going to take your sales to the next level:
- Relevance is more important than diversity
Many companies are afraid of falling behind existing global trends and are introducing a wide range of software that is crammed with functions intended for their work. However, most of the functions are usually not even necessary.
For example, there are numerous tools out there to automate lead work. One of those tools is Regie, that is designed to handle meetings and customer interactions. Often, such a small step is enough to make the number of your sales rocket. After all, why water your lawn with a fire hose when you can install a sprinkler? It's the same in business: you don't need super-trendy tools with so many settings and parameters that you can drown in them. It would be better to give preference to specialised and "modest" devices, that are designed exclusively for one task, and thus solve it by one hundred per cent.
Even companies seeking to expand into other regions, or the international market often do not require an elaborate technical arsenal. Practical tools provide much more stable results together with a smaller budget and effort.
- CRM is mandatory even for small companies
CRM systems are usually considered to be directed towards larger companies, making it easier to work with a sizable flow of customers. Nevertheless, small firms also have customers, including potential ones. Instead of tracking them on Excel spreadsheets, it is better to buy a standard CRM package and turn your back on inconvenience and manual settings forever.
Yes, high-quality solutions require significant investments, but you do not need to purchase a comprehensive CRM system right now. For example, HubSpot costs nothing at all, but it provides all the features that a small business or start-up needs. The free version is unlimited, and you can also add up to one million contacts to it.
Also, installing HubSpot takes a minimum amount of time to set up. This is going to save you time to learn and master the new system, allowing you to instantly focus on sales.
- Data is useful, but communication is essential
In today's world, data is not just collected, it is copied and analysed. However, not all companies know how to use this effectively. In this case, marketing efforts will not generate results, and the sales department stagnates. After all, failure to put the information received into practice will lead to an inaccurate sales strategy and misleading planning hypotheses.
Most often, this problem is a consequence of the reality that the company's departments are too fragmented and are unable to interact effectively with each other. Therefore, they do not know how much data is available or about all the useful information that is available within the company. To address this issue, it is necessary to establish an interchange of data and launch it as soon as new data arrives.
At the same time, you should also take into consideration the human factor involved. Sometimes communication between departments does not take place simply because the employees themselves are not interested in communicating with each other. You can establish connections within the company using the Prezi programme. This enables you to create interactive presentations that will provide the sales and marketing departments with a platform for multimedia communication.
- The future belongs to artificial intelligence
Throughout 2020, artificial intelligence continues to be present to a certain extent in every business area, including sales. For example, the popular chatbots that no website can live without today. Online robots now act as sales agents, by delivering support to attract more customers, and often even answering their common questions about the company or a product. Chatbots never get tired, nor do they ask for a holiday or sick leave. Also, they're always going to provide reliable information and are available around the clock, even at 2 am!
The rules of the game for the sales department changed a long time ago: people now shop in their spare time after work, which is usually at night. Therefore 24-hour bots have a crucial competitive edge. Of course, all of this also helps to encourage customers who are viewing products to make a purchase. The faster you react to a customer, the more you capture their interest. Thanks to this setup, prolonged communication and cold calls are a thing of the past.
Intercom's chatbots, likewise, are specialised in the search for potential customers. They can even correspond with customers, selecting their communication tactics based on their behaviour. This is precisely what people like! Today's consumers are highly independent, and they want to participate in transactions themselves. That is why feedback is also essential for them, and it's lightning-fast. It doesn't matter whether it's a chatbot or a seller who watches their computer day or night. The single most important thing is to have informative content and a continuous online presence.
