What many sales executives do not understand is that:

(a) It is far more expensive (up to 50% more) to grab a new customer than to maintain an existing one

(b) Your existing customers will spend more on your products than new ones.

So it’s time you started focusing on the profitable loyalists within your grasp.  Here is are 3 tips to doing it right -

INCENTIVES WIN

Do not look at your existing customers on a “been there, done that” basis. Look at their value in the long run, and give them reasons to come back…in the form of your products and services. Give them complimentary upgrades, flexible payment options, free servicing or tutorials for their staff. When they know that you value them, they will not let go of your service. And even better – they will recommend it to others. Another way to strengthen the relationship is to up-sell and cross-sell. Ask your customer if there is something more you can do for them which is within the realm of your suite of services. Charge for services that they will require and do not mind paying for, and position piggyback products which can be used with your main product.

KEEP IN TOUCH

Constant communication and contact drives all relationships, including your business ones. Go beyond just the follow-up and thank you emails. Write to your loyal buyers every once in a while; send a year-end greeting highlighting the different kind of work you have done, and who you have worked with. It could be a friendly message reminding them about all your products available, and the new ones you have introduced. You can also say hello and ask if everything is going well, and offer alternatives or consultations. Whatever it is, keep the conversation flowing…you do not want the only point of contact to be the “Customer Complaint Team”!

LET THEM HAVE THEIR SAY

Give your customers a chance to give public feedback on your business. This could be a product review, or a poll on your website asking them to rate your products, or even an open ended quote about your services. This also shows customers that you value their business and their opinions. In fact, once you post their opinions on your website or email newsletter, send them a copy with a ‘Thank-You’ note.

In short, do not forget your existing clients while you are searching for new ones.

PUT THE CLIENT’S NEEDS FIRST: Your client needs something from you, which is why they have approached you. First off, you need to demonstrate that you understand their needs and that your solution will influence their business. You need to share a common interest with them, which is to achieve their goal.

BE HONEST AND MANAGE EXPECTATIONS: You need to know whether you can deliver. If your solution will not work for them, be honest and walk away. No one wastes time and no one is disappointed. Also, your client is buying into a certain level of risk along with your product or service- it is all part of the sales game. You have a clear idea of what they expect. To assuage some of that risk, you need to manage their expectations. Hold their hand, guide them through every part of the sales process. Your client needs to be certain that you will deliver on your promise.

COMMUNICATE FREELY AND OPENLY: When you are doing business with a first-time customer, there is bound to be some starting trouble with the issue of trust. So you need to keep your lines of communication open at all times- even if it is just to reassure your client that things are going smoothly. However, if things are taking a slightly different course than expected, let them know. Brushing things under the carpet will not help- you will end up losing their trust.

BE CONSISTENT: In a nutshell, deliver on your promises. Everytime. Otherwise, you end up with a lot of one-time customers who will neither recommend your service nor use it again. People like going back to what is familiar to them because it works and they do not have to worry.

There is no single solution or approach to building trust with your customers. And it does not help when businesses view salespeople as someone who is only intent on making a quick deal. Patience is a virtue that cannot be overstated when you connect with your prospects and leads. Always remember that the first impression that the prospect gets about your company and your brand is from you. Building trust from the beginning will end up in a long-term relationship and brand loyalty – something every sales leader aims for.

KNOW YOUR PRODUCT

Rule number 1: if you do not know what you are selling, no one wants it. How many times have you received a marketing call from your bank or credit card company saying they have an amazing scheme for you, but on further questioning, cannot explain it? Pretty irritating, right? And you probably hung up. You need to know the answers to everything a potential customer may ask. Why is your product priced the way it is? How does it work? How long will it last? Unless you know your product, you cannot sell the benefits. Having solid product knowledge builds credibility.

KNOW YOUR MARKET

Sure, your customers are out there, and so are your advertising and marketing campaigns…but are you present in the same areas as they are? Your brand’s presence needs to be seen and felt  by your target customer. This must be establish before you begin running your campaigns. If you are selling women’s beauty and haircare products, then your brand needs to advertise on women-centric sites, magazines and on television channels that have a high female viewership.

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

This part is all about the customer demoraphic or profile. Who is going to buy your product? What kind of people are you making it for? Who will find it useful and who needs it? And if your buyer and user are not the same, ensure your sales message addresses both their concerns. For instance, when parents buy toys for their children, they are concerned about safety and education, while the kids want the latest and coolest gadget they can show off to their friends!

Narrow these down so that you get your specific target audience. By profiling your ideal customer, you will also be able to gauge a host of other things: how much they are willing to spend, how often they will spend, their lifestyles and their needs. This helps you make improvements to your product line and your business.

Whoever your audience may be, when it comes to approaching them with a proposal, TinderBox has the solution. From simple proposals rich in content to custom made multimedia proposals, the TinderBox sales proposal software has a great product suite to cater to your needs. Our proposal management system allows you to create, track and manage proposals online.

 SUSS OUT THE STRENGTHS

Do not look at the strength of the team as a whole, but as individual strengths brought in by each member. Once you assess these strengths, you can define a growth chart for each executive. See where they stand and what is expected of them going forward.

PRAISE AND THANK YOU

All of us love a pat on the back, and in the case of salespeople, you can multiply that by five. Be specific when you offer praise- don’t just say “great job on the Lexington account”. Tell them what made their performance stand out. Praise members in front of the rest of the team or department: a public pat on the back goes a long way. And as always, remember to say thank you for a job well done…and if you can take it beyond email and send a handwritten note, even better. Add a human touch to all your interactions.

FIND WHAT MOTIVATES THEM

Everyone responds differently and appreciates different things. For some employees, monetary gains may be what drives them; for someone else it may be added power or responsibility. Whatever it may be, once you identify these motivators, you can work towards maximizing potential by offerring these tangible goals.

COACH AND LET COACH

If you see that someone needs help in a specific area, offer help. Some team members may need additional guidance and support to perform at their best. Everyone has a different style of working. Conversely, if you see that there’s a sales executive who is great at something, get him to coach the rest of the team.

SET GOALS AND COMMUNICATE

Before you can get down to selling as a team, you need to define what your selling goals are, and establish a timeline for the same. You should also give your team constant feedback so that they know where they are going wrong, and when. This also prevents leaks in your sales pipeline.

B-A-N-T

Many salespeople stick to the tried and tested BANT approach to qualifying leads, which was pioneered by IBM. BANT (Budget, Authority, Need and Timeline,) means determining whether your product or service is in line with the prospect’s budget, their needs, and can be delivered in a time frame that works both ways, and finally, whether you are pitching to the right person or authority. Those are some pretty simple rules to follow, but there is more.

ASK FIRST, PITCH LATER

Sales requires you to understand your prospect’s needs first and foremost. Hosing the prospect down with all the great features of your product will not address their concerns. Ask open-ended questions so that you can draw in as much information as possible. This will help you determine the nature and scale of the problem, and help you figure out if you can actually provide a working solution. If you do not have the resources to solve their problem, move on.

DO THEY REALLY WANT IT?

This is another important factor. How pressing is the potential prospect’s problem? Do they really want your help? There are prospects out there who will humor several possible salespeople, shopping around for the best bargain. You can gauge genuine desire through a few interactions, through body language and more. If your prospect appears dismissive, uninterested, then perhaps they already have someone else in mind or are just looking to negotiate a better deal.

Applying some of these techniques can help weed out the dead-enders from the dealmakers. When you pitch to the right prospects, it saves you time, effort, and money too!

Once you identify your prospects, you can be sure to seal the deal with a smart sales proposal using the TinderBox online proposal software. Our web-based interface can be accessed anywhere and comes with zero installation charges. Once you sign in, you can edit, research, store data and send your proposal with ease.

When you are involved in a competitive and complex bidding process like this one, you need to get a few things straight in order to win.

IDENTIFY THE DECISION MAKERS & MAKE AN IMPRESSION

There may be multiple decision makers, and you need to figure out who they are. Just like sending a proposal to the wrong person will not get you anywhere, pitching to someone you think is important (like the CIO or the CEO) may be a waste of time. While it is nice to impress the top brass, the real decision makers may be advisors to the top brass who will recommend your product or service. Once you identify these persons, it is up to you to make an impression in the second meeting and spend as much time with them as possible.

PUSH THE HOT BUTTONS, SELL THE BENEFITS

Once you have interacted with the right people, you know what their goals, targets and Key Result Areas (KRAs) are. You also know what problems they are facing. So drive home the point by showing how you can help them achieve their KRAs. You also know their ‘pain’ – maybe competitor products that they failed to implement. Do your homework. Does your product offer what they need? Or is better than the one they are using now? Sell those benefits

BUILD RELATIONSHIPS

Enterprise sales is about going that extra mile- and taking risks. Whether your prospect is a large corporation or a highly-specialized outfit, you may need to tweak your service and think out of the box to make it work. It can be a long and time intensive process, so you need to be able to respond effectively and let your prospect know what the tangible deliverables are.

When you get into Enterprise sales, it is natural to assume that the process and the experience necessary to land a big-ticket deal is the same as for others. Nothing is further from the truth. Each enterprise has its set of processes and idiosyncrasies that they expect their vendors to follow to the letter. Wishing you all the best on your next Enterprise sale.

LEADERSHIP – DO YOU HAVE THE RIGHT SALES LEADER IN PLACE?

Like any team, a good leader makes all the difference…a sales manager can make or break a team, so you need to look for someone with the right qualities. The person who sells the most may not be the most effective person to lead the sales team. A good sales manager should not only give encouragement and pep talks, but also back that up with an eye for spotting weaknesses and leaks. A good sales manager needs to be experienced on the field, and adept at handling people. Someone who is more than a great administrator – a great guide and mentor as well.

DELEGATION – THE KEY TO SALES SUCCESS

We do not mean just delegating areas and customers, but giving your sales reps more freedom. All business works within a framework of rules and regulations, but everyone has a different style of working. Sales reps will work better when they have the autonomy to conduct their business keeping in mind the best interests of their employers. Treat your sales team members like business operators, and let them formulate a plan to make that business more profitable- and once they figure that out, they are obligated to bring in more clients.

COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR TEAM CONSTANTLY

There is a reason why every business guru you meet talk about communication. Constant interaction between the management and the sales team is critical for sales success. What are the problems they are facing? Where do they need help? Is there something more you need from them? Does the team need to shift their attention to something else? The lines of communication should always be open.

EVALUATE PROGRESS

Track everyone’s progress. Not just how much they have sold, how close they are to making the sale, or who they have sold to, but evaluate where each sales rep stands in their growth chart. Coach your team and guide them in areas where they are weak. Pair a slow-performing team member with a highly successful one. Also, see what you can do differently to make their performance better.

Lead, delegate, communicate, evaluate – here are the four critical action verbs you need to adopt in your daily life to manage your sales team effectively. Good luck and wish you the very best in 2012.

 1. Meet the client’s requirements. Most prospects will expect you to follow a set of their rules and guidelines. Have you done your groundwork in accordance with these? If affirmative, then you are ready to write.

2. Research. No proposal can be written without adequate research. Talk to primary and secondary sources within and outside the prospect’s organization, access company databases, white papers and press releases and put these in order of importance so that you can edit your data easily.

3. Understand the problem. This is one of the most important aspects. Have you understood the problem the client is facing? Are you aware of the background, the context, the reasons why they are in this position in the first place? Sort out all these questions before you begin writing.

4. Add value, provide a solution. The client’s problem needs to be solved, but what you need to prove is how your product or service will provide the best solution. Do you know what benefits your product hold for the prospect? Do you know how you will go about fixing the problem in the most efficient manner? Know this process in detail before selling your solution.

5. Sell the benefits. You should know by now what sets your product apart and why it will make an impact. But what you need to do is zone in on those particular features and benefits which meet your prospect’s most pressing needs. When you target what the prospect considers important, you will be able to win the bid.

Once you have all this information in order you can write the proposal with confidence. If you are using TinderBox, you can create and manage the content that you use to build proposals and organize them into templates for different selling situations. This streamlines the repetitive tasks involved in proposal building so that you can focus on the needs of your prospect. Sign up for a demo today to learn more.

WHAT TO DO YOU NEED TO KNOW?

In one word: everything. What it does, why it exists, how it works, where it came from, how it is priced, why it is priced that way. There are no shortcuts. When you are writing your sales proposal, you do not have a chance to ‘get back to the prospect’ about a missing detail. You have only one shot and there is no room for confusion. So, put yourself in the client’s shoes and think of all the possible queries they may have regarding your product, and write accordingly.

KNOWLEDGE LEADS TO MORE CONVINCING COPY

You need to know your product well to feel confident about it and to sell it with conviction. When you are not convinced or educated about the quality of your product and what it can do, this translates into your proposal. Your sales letter will appear wishy-washy, and this will make the prospect doubt your capability – and that of your product.

TARGET WHAT THE CUSTOMER NEEDS

When you know every detail about your product, you also have more information to offer your prospect. This way, you can emphasize those features which the prospect will find most useful and beneficial. Prospects are not buying just products, they are buying benefits. When you use your product knowledge to unlock the value of your product, you will be able to sell the benefits and conclude the deal.

KEEP IN TOUCH

So you did not make the cut with a few prospects last year…and you did manage to sell to some others. Whatever the outcome of your dealings with a company, stay in touch. Let them know what is going and on what you have planned for the year ahead. If those people did buy your product, thank them and tell them that you look forward to doing more business with them. You need to take your interactions beyond the sales proposal you sent and make it count. You need to build relationships. So take the time and effort to keep in touch.

TARGET THE RIGHT PROSPECTS

Do not blindly cast your net wide in the hope that you will catch something (or anything.) Before you jump in, do a quick review of the target market. Who will benefit from it? Who needs it to solve their problems? Who has the budget for it, and who does not? Narrow down your prospects. There are enough companies clamoring for a piece of the pie, so to stand out, get to know your market and send your proposal to the right people. Consider utilizing a marketing automation platform with lead scoring to help you you qualify your prospects and identify the pain point your proposal is addressing. At TinderBox, we’ve started using Act-On for lead scoring.

BETTER RESEARCH

The key to a great proposal is solid preparation, so carry that forward in 2012. Before you start work on your proposal, do enough background research…look for data online or in the company database to understand their industry and their history. Then, make an appointment to meet them face to face and understand their processes and their problems. The more insight you have before hand, the better. This will reflect in the tone of your proposal.