Welcome back to the weekly sales roundup, a curated collection of the top sales resources throughout this week. This round of the roundup brings you thought-provoking insights on how to build your business and your numbers. Whether you want to build customer urgency, understand customers’ mental maps, or figure out the best, and most interesting, way to spend a small sum to get a big result, you can learn more here. Be prepared, though: these articles challenge some traditional dogma along the way.
- How To Create A Sense of Urgency (Eyes on Sales)
It can be easy for sales to slip away when the customer feels no urgency to close. This article discusses ways to encourage that sense in your clients in a responsible way; the keys include empowering your sales agents to make vital calls on what’s needed to seal the deal, and keeping your customers from feeling as if they’re getting the “hard sell.”
- How to Grow Great Referrals (SellingPower.com)
This article from Selling Power discusses how you can encourage referrals from your customer base. These are the classic win-win situation, but can be difficult to build without a long term sales plan. To grow these relationships, try implementing a CRM package your sales team will enjoy working with and tweak it using this article’s advice as a guideline to encourage referral growth.
- The Best $100 You Ever Spent In Sales (SalesMarks.com)
This article collects answers to a thought provoking question: What was the best hundred dollar purchase you ever made? The stories are amusing as well as revealing: they show you how building relationships, whether within your team or with your customers, helps salespeople start selling smoothly and successfully. A box of donuts or a gift card can go a long way.
Leads are important, but how vital are they? This article questions whether real sales success comes from having a fat leads list in Microsoft Outlook, or from building genuine long-term relationships with customers. Converting those leads into customers can go neglected, and putting energy into marketing and build client relationships helps leads sprout into full-fledged accounts.
- How Mobile Readers Interact With Marketing Emails (Ayaz Nanji)
Just how well do email marketing campaigns do? This article discusses, in an easily-accessible format, how customers engage with email, particularly on mobile devices. There are many subtle nuances to how customers react; we have assembled our own tips for sales teams to work smarter in Microsoft Outlook, but applying any solution to your own business needs will require careful thought.
- Sales Isn’t Sleazy – If You’re Doing It Right (Kendra Lee)
Sales is a profession which can have a poor reputation. This article discusses the other side of that image; sales, the author asserts, isn’t about hustling aluminium sidings or needless upgrades onto people, but about finding and fulfilling genuine needs. If you or your team could use some inspiration, consider this approach to bolster your professional self-image.
- Beware the Oversell (EyesOnSales.com)
This article discusses a common pitfall in selling: telling a customer about all the extra bells and whistles on your product or service that they start worrying they’re being sold things they don’t need. Instead of selling your client a lengthy list of features, talk with them and figure out what they need that you can provide. Once you’ve found that out, you’re halfway to closing the sale.
- Sell Me This Pen: The Real Lessons From “The Wolf of Wall Street” (Sales Marketing Management)
This article takes the example from the recent and famous film and uses it to introduce the psychological concept of a “schema,” defined as the mental framework that people use to make their decisions on all kinds of things, including what they buy. By getting into someone’s schema, figuring out how they view the world, and assessing ways to change that view, you will get much further than by reciting canned pitches.