As sales professionals, we’re most valuable when we’re working out of our pipeline, uncovering new opportunities and trying to work bigger deals. That’s why it’s so shocking that 64% of sales reps time is spent on administrative tasks (SiriusDecisions), where did our selling time go? After reading that I understand that you need more time to sell so I’ll cut to the chase, check out the three sales tips below to take back some of that precious time and start Q3 off with a “W!”
Use tools and apps available to quickly gather information about your prospects
Many of these tools have a freemium based model, but even the free subscriptions can be powerful for gathering intel on a prospect. One of the tools I have my team use is Sidekick by Hubspot.
Before you fire off that next email to a prospect, have Sidekick open and it will pull relevant information that is linked to the email address of your prospect. You can see an example of me below, you’ll notice my LinkedIn picture at the top along with supporting information from my account along with my last few Tweets on my Twitter feed. Sidekick can also pull results from Facebook, Digg, YouTube, and Foursqaure as long as the account is registered to that specific email.
As an added bonus; Sidekick is a great tool for tracking your emails to prospects so you can be notified when they open your email, how many times they view it, and their location of where they’re opening it.
Use list segmentation and persona-based calling
Now this one may be controversial, which is all the more the reason to share it. While some professionals believe in plowing through a list one contact at a time until exhausted would be far more efficient than persona based calling, others like myself prefer persona-based calling.
While you may rip through contacts (especially with auto-dialer technology), you must constantly be adjusting your message depending on your prospect’s role within an organization. You put yourself in a state of Inside Sales Fight or Flight. You’re never quite fully prepared for the type of conversation to have if you’re not in the appropriate mindset to understand your prospect’s unique business needs and challenges if you’re switching from speaking to a Director, to VP, to Manager and back up to VP all day.
Create various list segmentations based upon title and/or buyer persona. Calling through a list of only C level executives will allow you to get into the appropriate mindset. For example, knowing that benefit B,C, and E will resonate greater with a CIO as opposed to benefit A,D, and F resonating best with Directors, will allow you to dial in and focus on helping your prospect overcome their business challenge with your solution.
This very focused methodology of calling paired with auto-dialer technology will create a breeding ground for efficient use of time.
Plan your day the night before
Take 15 minutes and plan out what you need to accomplish the next day and how you will go about tackling each task. Don’t just think about it though, actually write it out. Writing out your plan will create a vision for you to see the end goal and even provide a boost of gratification as you chip away at your action items throughout the day.
By now I’m sure you can see a trend here, each tip has been simpler than the last. That’s because often the simplest productivity hacks are the easiest and as sales professionals, we become stuck in our ways of past success.
If you start to feel bogged down with administrative tasks, take a moment to take inventory of your day, understand how you’re allocating your time and see where adjustments can be made to increase your efficiency.
Just one last thing…Start today!
As you ramp down from yet another busy day, commit to planning your next day before leaving the office. If you’re like most, you dislike mornings and are exhausted at the end of the day; use that 15 minutes to plan the next day and wind down for a bit. Then when you come in tomorrow morning you’re ready to go, organized, and can watch your must-do list dwindle as the day progresses.
Have you already implemented any of these time saving sales tips into your day? Share any additional tips you have with us below.
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: 3 Sales Tips for Taking Back Your Time
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