5 things your sales team should be doing now

For many businesses it’s tough out there at the moment.

In the coming months, it is highly likely that companies will be concentrating on the orders that they’ve already received which will be eating into their working capital and cash flow, and they will be struggling to find enough time to develop new business. While some companies may be fortunate to receive a few legacy orders without an increase in sales, there will certainly be more redundancies and job losses to come. This will result in a huge gap in sales experience and companies will struggle to keep the lights on through a lack of sales when they eventually run out of cash.

Now more than ever it’s critical that businesses are able to prospect, develop and convert new business.

You could seek out an outsourced sales and marketing consultancy to help you, but if you’re looking to do everything yourself, the five principles below might just provide the helpful advice that you need to help you ride out the storm.

If your sales team starts to adopt the following principles – and executes at least some of them properly – you should start to see the difference in your results in a few short weeks.

1. Use Extensive Resources That Are Available to You

There is a no better time to brush up on your skills and become better at what you do through self-improvement. There is a plethora of free sales resources available to you from books, podcasts, and videos etc., which you can use to develop your knowledge and skills so that you will be ready when we come out of this difficult time.

2. Use Historical Sales Data

A simple and quick way to benchmark your current situation is to use historical sales data about your existing customers to establish who your key customers are, what they buy, how often they buy and how much revenue and profit they generate for you. You can then investigate opportunities to develop more business from them and perhaps expand upon your product/service offering or try to gain business that you once received in the past but no longer do.

3. Review Your Outstanding Leads, Opportunities and Enquiries

Before prospecting, it’s far easier to concentrate on chasing down the leads and opportunities that you already have. This is where you need to focus your time and create a sales forecast focusing on those that can be converted in the short term those that have received budget sign-off. Speak to the appropriate decision-makers and convert the sale.

4. Start Prospecting for New Business

Once you have followed up on existing opportunities and built your sales pipeline, it’s vital that you still prospect for more business. The obvious place to start is with your existing customers as they’ve already bought from you and they will provide you with the best opportunity for more business. Next, you could consider talking to those who you’ve quoted in the past but weren’t able to convert and to find out why this was. You could also consider your customer’s rivals, and perhaps the suppliers of your customers, all of which may give you new opportunities.

Once this has been exhausted, it’s time for outbound lead generation. This can take many forms; phone, email, networking, social media etc. Each have their own advantage. With a little thought and with the right marketing strategy you can use a combination of these to give you the best chance of your prospecting being successful.

5. Increase Awareness and Brand

It has never been easier to promote yourself or your business on social media. By using a platform such as LinkedIn you can build your personal brand and grow your reputation as an expert in your field. If you’re good at what you do don’t be shy! Position yourself as the ‘go-to’ person and post regular content that is engaging, relevant and helpful for your customers and prospects. Tell your prospective customers how you can help them, giving examples through articles, case studies and customer testimonials.