97% of American business professionals keep their cell phones within a 3-foot distance 24 hours a day, and check messages around 150 times a day. Needless to say, SMS could be a great way to reach them. Yet B2B companies, as opposed to consumer-focused businesses, continue to neglect this marketing and sales channel. And email remains among the top instruments used by B2B businesses to generate and convert leads.

Let’s look at it this way. Marketers and business owners receive tons of emails every day, and it’s unlikely that they have enough time to sift through all of them. At the same time, the number of text messages they get remains incredibly low, as few B2B companies use SMS. Hence comes the untapped opportunity for your business to grow sales.

Here is how your B2B company can use text messaging to attract and convert leads:

1. Launching a new product feature? Let your clients know by sending them a text with a link to it.
2. Promote your event, be it a webinar or a conference, through SMS.
3. Send out all your new offers and time-dependent discounts, let the clients know about the loyalty programs you have going on.
4. Keep your subscribers in the know on the latest blog posts, and drive the traffic to your blog by including a link to it in your text.

To get the desired results from your SMS efforts though, it’s not enough to just carelessly send out a bunch of text messages. You have to follow some ground rules of composing a text, and stick to the delivery best practices. The folks over at TextMagic have created an infographic where they make sure you’ve included all the important elements in your text. They’ve also listed the most common mistakes to avoid, and stated when and how often to send the messages.

Check out the infographic below and get ready to grow your B2B sales with text messaging!

[icon name=”star” class=”” unprefixed_class=””]Here is how you have made SalesPOP! a truly remarkable success since it began a little over a year ago. A huge thank you to all of our contributors, advertisers, and readers. We are so grateful for all the support and humbled by how fast this venture has grown. Take a look at this infographic and it will give you a measure of how comprehensive this free sales resource has become. Have an absolutely wonderful [icon name=”snowflake-o” class=”” unprefixed_class=””]Holiday Season [icon name=”snowflake-o” class=”” unprefixed_class=””] and an even better 2018!

The SPIN Selling process was developed following the careful observation of 35,000 sales calls carried out by experienced, professional sales experts. It was created as a method of helping salespeople understand the questions they were asking, and teaching them how to utilize targeted questioning to earn more sales. The quality of the question matters, so to improve your sale, learn how to ask better questions! The SPIN method of questioning can help.

1. (S) Situation questions: This kind of question is about asking situation type questions in order to get an understanding of context. You are looking for answers that give you general information. You can use more specific questioning to get more specific answers. An example of a situation question is, “how do you currently manage your customer’s contact details?”
2. (P) Problem questions: Use this question to discover challenges, shortcomings, and difficulties. As a salesperson, your goal is to help a potential customer solve their need. If they don’t understand that they have a problem, they will be less likely to seek solutions. An example of this kind of question is, “was the amount of training you needed to get up and running with your CRM ever a problem?”
3. (I) Implication questions: Implication questions get the buyer to state the costs of consequences of the problem that you established with the problem questioning. These questions make the customer eager to solve the problem that you have identified. An example is, “if you can’t accurately see your performance to date, how much response time do you have to implement a fix if you anticipate your sales are falling short of the target?”
4. Need Pay-off Questions: These questions make up the final stage of the SPIN selling process. The goal is to help the customer focus on the solution (which is what you’re selling!) An example is, “why is being able to have an overview of your sales pipeline important to you?”

Here is an instant tutorial on SPIN Selling, and why the questions matter! For more on SPIN selling, check out Why Questions Matter in Selling – A Synopsis of SPIN Selling.

The sales pipeline is a visual representation of your sales process, in which all of your opportunities are displayed and neatly arranged according to their stage in your sales process. It’s crucial to ensure that your pipeline is organized and utilized to its maximum potential in order to get the most out of this tool.

A company without a pipeline is like trying to row a boat without an oar or play a sports game without knowing the score. It’s crucial to keep track of the various aspects of your business. Use this infographic to understand the stages of your pipeline.

1. Initial Contact: This is your first contact with a new lead. Make a good first impression!
2. Qualification: This is the information gathering stage where you decide if the customer is a good fit and is in your target market.
3. Meeting: You’ve made a good impression and determined that this potential buyer is someone who you can sell to. Meet up!
4. Proposal: Do your research, and come up with a proposal that will help solve your customer’s problems.
5. Close: The final step, the close. Help the client feel secure about their decision, and be sure to follow through with your promises after you get the signature!

If you don’t have a sales pipeline software or feel like your current software isn’t meeting your needs, check out Coevera. Get your free trial of Coevera now.

Many times we are asked: “What is the difference between a CRM lead and an opportunity?” It’s a valid question, and the answer is worth knowing. Here is a simple and easy explanation.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, you’re a salesperson, not a fisherman. But imagine for a moment that you are a fisherman who is about to conquer the high seas looking for fish to catch! Your goal is to find nemo. Nemo is your opportunity! In order to find Nemo (your opportunity), there are five key steps that you must follow. These steps are similar to the sales process. Utilize this kitschy metaphor to help close more sales and generate more revenue.

1. Explore the sea: Each fish in the sea is another opportunity for a potential client. If there are several fish together, they can represent an account. The sea is full of these contacts, that combine schools of fish accounts. Your goal is to explore as much as possible, and capture as many as you can!
2. Create some criteria: Have an idea as to what your Nemo should look like. With so many different fish in the sea, it’s important that you track down the right kind of fish! Understand what fish to throw back to sea for someone else to catch, and which fish you want to add to your fish tank (your pipeline.)
3. Find information: At the beginning, you may not have very much information about where to find Nemo, what Nemo looks like, or the best bait to use to catch it. As you continue researching and learning, you’ll have a better chance at catching the fish you want to catch.
4. Finding Nemo: Nemo probably won’t be the first fish that you catch. It probably won’t even be the second one you catch. Persevere in order to find a fish that meets your specific criteria.
5. Decision: At the end of the fishing trip, you will either let your first swim back into the sea, which is a lost opportunity or into your aquarium, which is a won opportunity.

Take a moment to picture in your head your visual representation of a sales professional. There are a number of different things that might pop up in your mind. But like everything else in the sales world, the portrait of the sales pro is also changing! Learn what the salespeople of tomorrow will look like, and beat others to the punch by transforming yourself early.

Download this fun poster and share it with your friends!

Tomorrow’s sales pro are:

1. Educated: They are trained in sales techniques and supported by their process and technological tools.
2. Empaths and critical thinkers: They are able to imagine the problems of others, and think quickly on their feet in order to help resolve them.
3. Mobile Multitaskers: Sales pros of tomorrow will be comfortable wearing many same hats – all at the same time.
4. Social subject matter experts: Social selling has changed the game in recent years, and a strong knowledge of the industry will guide tomorrow’s sales pros to success.
5. Trust builders, curators, and sharers: They understand the power of sharing, even if it doesn’t always lead to a sale. They want to educate and disseminate information with prospective customers, just to build relationships.
6. Socially responsible: The stereotype of a salesperson isn’t always ethical, but the salespeople of tomorrow handle themselves with social responsibility.
7. Mentors: Those who have been in the game longer are willing and wanting to share with the new generation of salespeople.
8. Skilled writers: The salespeople of tomorrow have excellent written communication skills, and can interact effectively with a wide range of prospects.

There’s a reason it’s called a sales team. The people you hire work together as a unit, each person contributing to the ultimate goal of closing sales and generating profits for the company. However, a few bad people in a team can create a chaotic workplace environment, impede selling, waste resources and finances, and worst of all, lose the company money.

This infographic reveals key insights to find, hire, and train top talent. Bulletproof your next sales hire. Solidify your sales team as a strong, cohesive entity that crushes deals and closes sales. Take these 6 actions and you’ll secure bulletproof hires with a good chance of success and longevity.

Here are the 6 ways to bulletproof your next sales hire:

1. Nail down that sales process: Ensure you have an efficient sales process to stay ahead of the competition and create a stable foundation for improved performance results.
2. Create an ideal sales rep profile: Go beyond the standard description, and give information on the company culture. Use your lead salespeople as examples of what new hires could be.
3. Break the old rules: Delegate non-essential and non-sales activities to administration staff in order to free up sales personnel.
4. Create a career path: Help your hires advance beyond the traditional path, and reward them with job security and increased compensation.
5. Create new rules; Tools are friends, so invest wisely: Keep all of your tools organized, and keep things in one place. Use a great CRM that will do the work for you.
6. Different is better than “better”: Create a job description that creates a desirable outcome for both your company and the candidate.

To learn more about how to boost the quality of your sales hires, check out Stop the Revolving Door of Sales Hiring, Why do Smart People Keep Hiring Weak Salespeople?, and Hiring High-Performance Sales Teams.

Selling is most likely the most dynamic activity in any company. Its many moving parts often make it reactionary, frenetic and chaotic.

But in this infographic, based on the ebook of the same name, John Golden makes a powerful case that it doesn’t have to be that way.

John points out that in pretty much any endeavor, the key to success is the clear identification of a goal, the definition of the steps required achieve that goal, and then the removal of extraneous noise or distractions so that you can focus exclusively on execution and reaching the goal.

Of course, in today’s business world this is often easier said than done. Salespeople are overloaded with tools that are supposed to help them but instead distract. They are being constantly bombarded from social media, and they are never sure of the actual value. In addition, they have a savvy, informed buyer who has little patience for indulging them unless they can rapidly offer value.

Sales is often compared to warfare and we often hear about the “fog of war” where lines get blurred, truth and rumor become indistinguishable and chaos becomes the norm. The ‘fog of sales” is no different absent the lethal nature of the former.

Golden, however, shows that there are ways of clearing that fog and stepping out into the bright sunshine that clarity brings.