5 ways to speed up sales in 2016

March 09, 2016 at 06:14 AM
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Editor's note: This is the first part of a two part article. We will publish the second part next week.

Let's talk one-on-one for a few minutes. I don't often write using the first person narrative, and I rarely share the inside secrets of the billion dollar companies that we support. But after a conversation with a senior executive a few days ago, I thought I would make an exception.

Here is the big news — my team and I have managed to do more business in three weeks than we did all last year … seriously.

It took us three months of hard conversations and tough work to get to the "start line" and begin executing our process — but it was worth it. I'll tell my exact numbers at the end of the second part of this article (which is going to be published next week).

I know you might be struggling to increase your — or your team's — performance. So I wanted to share a few secrets I've learned about a cool process I found called "Predictable Revenue" (which may or may not be so predictable, but I didn't name it …)

Here is how you can do the same:

1) Get laser focused on your lead generation.

Finding new customers is hard. Really hard … which is why you need a system or a process. And it's hard to sell to people you don't know exist.

That's where smart tools, like the following, come in:

  • Lead generation apps, like LeadFuze or AeroLeads, will allow you to piggyback off of LinkedIn data in order to build your lists.

  • We've also heard great things about Clearbit Sheets, another killer product for doing lead generation at scale via your Google Sheets interface.

2) Double (or triple) your outbound sales email.

Frankly, you can't increase your sales unless you increase the number of high quality outbound emails sent, phone calls logged, in-person visits made, smoke signals sent — you get the picture. It can be a numbers game, so start acting like it.

By the way, our process is 14 conversations in 30 business days. It works because it's "human" and accounts for the fact that most of our ideal targets are super busy and won't take action right away.

3) "KISSS" your emails.

Keep, It, Short, Sweet, and Simple. Make your emails no more than five sentences, with a full paragraph between each sentence.

Don't preach to your prospects in industry jargon or buzzwords or what you do — talk about what the they will receive.

4) Fall in love with sales technology.

Marc Andreessen is famous for saying, "Software is eating the world." This is especially true in sales.

It doesn't matter what part of your sales process you're on, there's an app for that: lead generation, email automation, or contract management.

Want new super powers? There's an app for that. For example, see all of the goodies here. Yeah. I like those guys. You should too.

5) Systemize your next move.

We both know it's far easier to ask your existing customers to upgrade than to try to find new customers. So do that. How? Develop a specific plan that includes an outreach cadence that makes it easy for them to want to upgrade.

Figure out:

  • How long do you wait until you reach out and try to upsell more products?

  • What specific products are you pitching as your upsell?

  • How do your email templates read?

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