Sales managers have a tough job. You’ve got to keep a group of reps motivated, successful, and happy while setting lofty goals that may seem unachievable. Helping people stretch to their full potential and handle the stress of shooting for the moon can be grueling. Here are a few ways you can get your team to make the most out of their effort, book more demos, close more deals and help your company grow.
1. Don’t let reps send lousy emails like this one
Have you ever got an email like this?
Dear Sales Manager,
My name is John Doe and I am the head of marketing at ACME Inc. How are you?
I’m wondering if you’ve ever received an email that was so horribly bad it contained a bunch of verbiage and particulars that you didn’t remotely need or desire and had such a high degree of balderdash in it, and it was so poorly transcribed and unfocused and confusing and just plain bad, that you didn’t even barely peruse the whole thing to find out what the whole message was actually about. Ever get an email like that? I know I certainly have on more than one or two occasions.
I’m writing because I want to educate you about something that’s so incredibly indispensable about writing emails and I think it might assist you in the future when you’re endeavoring to get the reps on your sales team to be more triumphant and close more deals and generate more money for your company. Would you be interested in learning more about this?
You might not have been apprised of this, but this is actually a very useful thing to know. When your reps are writing an email to someone they don’t need to be very formal with the language that they use. Even if they’re fledgling sales reps who might feel a little out of their league sending unsolicited emails to someone with a title that includes the word “president” somewhere in it. In fact the more formal they strive to be in an email, the less effective they will probably be in delivering the message that you actually want to deliver. It might sound crazy. I know I certainly thought it was crazy when I first learned it. But it’s in accordance with the facts.
I think I would probably get my point across better on a phone call. Would you happen to be free some time in the next few business days so we could maybe discuss this in on the phone?
Kind Regards,
John
We’ve all received those emails and rarely ever read them. Chances are you didn’t even take the time to read that example email.
A message like that has a low chance of generating a response. Review of your reps’ emails often. If their writing sounds like this sample, follow these 4 tips:
- Read the email out loud. You should sound like you’re speaking normally. If you hear yourself saying any words you wouldn’t normally use, delete them.
- Keep it as short as possible.
- Clearly spell out the next step you want to take with the prospect. For example: “Are you free tomorrow at 2 p.m. for a quick call? I’ll try you then.”
- Be a human! This mean not only personalizing the email but also striving to connect with them instead of going into a pitch immediately.
Here’s an opening template you can give your reps to customize for their next campaign. Feel free to use it or adopt a version of your own. This is taken from one of our highest performing campaigns to date.
Subject: PersistIQ < > {Prospect Company Name}
Hi {Prospect’s first name}
I saw on LinkedIn that we’re connected through {Common Connection}.
{Snippet #1: a short but meaningful piece of information about common connection}
Anyway, given your position, I thought you’d be interested in what my company does. {Value Proposition}.
What does your schedule look like in the next few days? I’d love to jump on a quick call and see if it’s something that would be useful for you.
Thanks,
{your name}
2. Give reps the confidence to follow up with prospects.
One thing we hear again and again at PersistIQ is that young reps lack the confidence to follow up enough times with prospects. They send a few emails, leave a few voicemails and then move on when they don’t hear anything back immediately.
Especially in SaaS sales, they feel like it’s rude of them to pester high-level executives again and again to get a response. They’d rather keep looking for an easier target than feel awkward picking up the phone again or sending further emails.
Great sales managers help their reps overcome this fear and give them the confidence to keep calling on a prospect and delivering a helpful sales message. How?
By instilling in them the idea that high-touch campaigns succeed. Not every campaign needs to see 10 touches within two weeks. But our own experience at PersistIQ is consistent with the feedback we get from our customers — the more a rep follows up with a prospect, especially one who is opening the emails, the more likely the prospect will become a customer.
3. Make sure everyone understands the compensation structure
A confusing compensation structure can quickly sink morale and productivity. Make sure reps know what they’re being measured on and how those metrics contribute to the overall success of the organization.
The easier it is for reps understand what they can do to increase their pay, the more likely they will be to do that. If commissions are tied to vague and hard-to-measure benchmarks, reps won’t know where to focus.
It’s also critical that pay-related metrics as ones that actually drive the business forward the most. If pay is tied to the number of deals closed, the team will find ways to close more deals. If pay is tied to the number of calls made each day, the team will find ways to make more calls, whether or not they’re of any strategic value.
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: 3 Ways Sales Managers Can Improve Their Team’s Prospecting
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