The World of Sales Demands Change: Part 2

Last time, we looked at how technology has changed the relationship between the sales rep and the typical potential buyer.

Here are thoughts about the tools we actually need to develop our team (virtually), engage, and convert prospects (virtually) and round the corner to hitting our numbers.

Because the buyers often have more buying experience than the beginning sales rep has at sales presentations – new sales reps are often intimated by this experience imbalance.

But should the new sales rep be calling prospects who can relate to them as a peer but either can't or won't give them an order?

The confidence the beginning sales rep needs can be achieved by giving the sales rep AI-generated opening statements for every call… for every prospect question… tailored uniquely for every call.

Virtual Meetings Are Different

Work from home has forever shortened the time a prospect will spend with a sales rep.

When prospects did agree to face-to-face meetings, there was an agreed upon "time" for the meeting.

Now the meeting is over as soon as the prospect no longer feels that what the sales rep is saying is relevant, they end the call.

Reps really can't take the proper time to prepare for each outbound call because, so few prospects actually answer their phone today – because of call screening, caller ID, reps are lucky to connect with someone on 20% of their outbound calls.

Reps use to be trained how to establish rapport with prospects by asking open ended questions. Now the prospect expects the sales rep to immediately establish relevance with a compelling opening statement and by the rep following an AI-generated Talktrac, so that only the discussion points that will be relevant to the client show up… and presented in the sequence the prospect will want to engage with them.

Salespeople can have this problem solved by having an AI-generated opening statement that are specific to the prospect being called, what they looked at on the rep's website, the email they clicked on or the download they requested.

The rep needs to be able to have an AI-generated opening statement, to be able to look at a story-so-far of everything that has ever been said to, said by, or sent from-and-to this prospect so they are both competent and confident when the prospect answers the call – and then just be able to press the dial button, allowing the rep to "pick up where they left off on the last call."

Or pick up a deal from a rep who may have left the company before a valid prospect closed.

Email Should Be Simple

Not all reps have the ability to write compelling follow up emails after each call. Most don't even take the time to try to write a personalized email reflecting the conversation or their version of a follow up email is some version of:

"Thanks for taking my call today. Here is the product material on the items we discussed. I will call next week to follow up.

Lloyd Lofton is the founder of Power Behind the Sales and the author of The Saleshero's Guide To Handling Objections.