process without the need to have sales- people in the same room at the same time. Here are just a few best practices: a. Hiring assessments: To get the right people on the team, sales leaders can leverage sales assessment tools that predict the financial performance potential of a sales candidate before inviting them to interview for the job. b. Video training: Research shows that salespeople absorb video con- tent faster and better through video than PowerPoint.
c. Live, interactive meetings: Re- member that newly hired employees want to connect, engage, and social- ize with peers. ServiceNow leverages Zoom meetings that include guest speakers to connect with all of the new hires. d. Web-based (asynchronous) training: As an example, Cisco creat- ed a Web-based onboarding program that includes 70 hours of sales-related learning, which takes eight weeks to complete. Nearly 100 percent that start will complete the entire training.
2. IMPROVE AND REWARD CUSTOMER-CENTRIC BEHAVIORS When sales reps are feeling the pres- sure to make quota, they often lose focus on the customer’s needs. En- courage them to spend five minutes before each call to write down the customer’s needs and identify what value means to the customer. Then
SELLING TIP Presentation Prep
The quality of your preparation affects the quality of your performance. Use these tips to organize your ideas and information for more thoughtfully prepared presentations.
• Collect ideas. On a piece of paper, write the purpose of your presentation. Add three to five main points that support your purpose. Next, list all the ideas, consid- erations, and evidence that relate to each point, then prioritize and evaluate that information. Determine how well each item supports your purpose, contributes to your message, and affects your audience.
ask them to map your solutions to those needs. Taking a few minutes to ensure
your reps approach each call from the customer’s perspective will help them delight their customers – which, in the long run, is a better strategy for en- suring they reach their numbers than focusing on just their quota.
3. CREATE REAL-TIME ACCESS TO CONTENT If you don’t already have a sales en- ablement platform, it’s time to invest in one. In a virtual sales environment, your salespeople need easy and quick access to relevant content and sales intelligence such as demo videos, ROI analysis, customer testimonials, etc. A sales enablement platform will make it easy for reps to prep for calls by not only recommending content by sales stage or product line, but also by allowing reps to see which resources are giving reps the best results. Having the right sales intelligence at hand before a call both empowers your sales rep and ensures the conversation is more relevant and useful for the buyer.
4. CREATE METRICS THAT LEAD TO PEOPLE, PROCESS, AND TECHNOLOGY IMPROVEMENTS Sales enablement platforms can help you measure KPIs such as training con- tent consumption and learning prog- ress with features like team dashboards,
which provide managers with a visual representation of their team’s progress. These tools also allow managers to as- sess and track sales messaging mastery through video coaching.
While some sales leaders use only
three metrics, others use 30 or more. What you measure is not as im- portant as why you measure perfor- mance. For example, if you want to optimize performance, you want to begin by measuring adherence to the sales process. If you want to optimize technology, start with measuring the use of technology. If you want to know how well salespeople perform when it comes to appointment setting, mea- sure each phase of the two-minute call. As an example, ConnectAndSell CEO Chris Beall shared that their sales reps spend about seven seconds on the call opening, 28 seconds on the benefit statement, 37 seconds on handling objections, and 15 seconds to book the appointment with the prospect. Remember that a metric is a tool to not only monitor performance, but to improve it. Increasing sales starts with the right sales enablement program. That means making sure you are using the best tools and training techniques to empower your remote sales force. To learn about solutions and services to improve your sales enablement efforts, check out Selling Power’s 2021 list of Top Sales Enablement Vendors.
• Conduct research. Effective, thorough research includes fact finding for both presentation content and audience expectations. Make sure your information sources are reliable and accurate and that the evidence you find supports your selling position. The more you can find out about your buyers’ values, principles, as- sumptions, and motivations, the more persuasive you can make your presentation.
• Refine your ideas. All the information and ideas you’ve collected provide the raw material you can use to draw conclusions that convince prospects to buy from you. Be selective about what you share, and in- clude only the most pertinent and persuasive material in your presentation.
– SELLING POWER EDITORS
SELLING POWER NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020 | 17 © 2020 SELLING POWER. CALL 1-800-752-7355 FOR REPRINT PERMISSION.
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