Sales managers have a very important, yet ever-changing, job. Along with the B2B buying process, responsibilities of sales managers are constantly shifting. The sales world as a whole is changing, too. This can be difficult to keep up with. In order for sales managers to truly thrive and succeed in this constantly evolving environment, it’s important to think differently.

Territories, customers, and products become a financial portfolio that gets regularly invested in. The people, money, and allocation of time and resources need to be reviewed and reallocated in order to ensure everything works like a well-oiled machine, and resources are being used most effectively. Sellers operate differently, and it’s vital to the preservation of a company and a sales staff that sales managers operate differently as well.

Tom Searcy explores key sales manager insights and discusses the most important responsibilities for sales managers.

Here are Sales Managers 7 responsibilities that you own now.

Here are the 7 responsibilities of sales managers:

1. Selecting target: Sales managers need to help guide their sales team to the most successful candidates.
2. Defining priorities: Prioritizing which opportunities to pursue is crucial!
3. Defining guidelines: Set and enforce guidelines in order to make your team the most efficient, and utilize their strengths to the best of their abilities.
4. Monitoring compliance: Provide important data that helps your sales team understand their compliance statistics
5. Navigating the terrain: Use your sales team to help you gather new information
6. Securing resources: Ensure that your sales team has what they need in order to maximize potential by providing sufficient resources
7. Knowing when (and when not) to expedite: Know how to direct your team towards either the normal sales process or an expedited one

To learn more about how to keep up with the ever-changing sales managerial world, check out more articles by Tom Searcy, including 7 Key Responsibilities of Sales Managers, and 4 Small Changes For Big Selling Success. SalesPOP! Has a wealth of information and insights on being a sales manager. You can get access to these insights by reading articles such as What Makes a Good Sales Manager Great?, and A Sales Manager’s Recipe: What’s Cooking in 2018?.

What is BANT approach?

Have you heard of the BANT approach? It’s one of many excellent sales strategies that you can use to increase sales. BANT is an acronym for Budget, Authority, Need, and Timing. It has been around for decades, but it isn’t utilized as it should be. Skilled salespeople all over the world use this acronym and pull it out of their toolbox whenever the opportunity arises. It’s also a favorite of sales managers, who often teach the BANT Approach to their sales team. If you’re not familiar with the BANT Approach, now is the perfect time to learn and be able to utilize it.

1. Budget: Understand if a potential customer has the budget is available before engaging. This question can be asked in the early stages so that you can understand if it is worth it to pursue the sale further or not. If a client doesn’t have the financial resources available, there is no point in spending valuable time and effort trying to sell to them.
2. Authority: If the person you’re speaking with doesn’t have any authority or buying power, make it a goal to connect with the person who can ultimately approve the sale. The initial contact isn’t worthless, though. It’s important to maintain a solid relationship with everyone at the company, and those people can help you get in contact with the people who will close the deal.
3. Need: You want a customer to say, “we need a product like yours.” If you are going after customers that have no need for your product, it’s unlikely that you will be able to close a deal. The higher the need, the more motivated the company will be to obtain your product or service.
4. Timeframe: How long will it take to complete the sales cycle? This is a crucial piece of information that is important for both you as the salesperson, and the buyer, to know and understand.

Check out more on the BANT Approach by reading these articles! Sales Strategies and The BANT Approach and Sales Strategies: The BANT Approach.

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 Pipeliner CRM. Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.

Crush Your Sales Goals

Most sales are won and lost based on one key factor: You! You hold the keys to your sales success. Competitors don’t win because their offerings are more impressive. They win because they deliver a superior sales experience. 2018 is a great chance for to manifest a new start, create new sales goals, and win more sales.

In order to develop your own superior sales experience, the RAIN Group Center for Sales Research has developed 9 ways to crush your sales goals in 2018.

These are the 9 ways to crush your sales goals:

1. Drive value: Many people will bring up value in their sales pitches, but few actually deliver. Have a plan to drive value, and show your value to your customers.
2. Grow your accounts: Selling to existing accounts is one of the most missed ways of generating sales. Grow your current accounts and generate more profit.
3. Bring insights to your buyers: Demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about by telling sellers your latest ideas.
4. Collaborate and listen: People who win at sales sell differently, in part because they enlist the help of others.
5. Minimize buyers risk: Buyers love salespeople who minimize their risk. Portraying this to your clients will help boost your revenue.
6. Find the domino: Find the one person in the buying committee, and let them convince the others!
7. Be proactive: Use future sight! Look ahead and act proactively instead of retroactively.
8. Manage your time for maximum sales productivity: Answer honestly. Do you maximize the most of your time? For maximum sales productivity, utilize your time better!
9. Develop the skills you need to succeed: Understand what skills you still need to develop in order to sell efficiently.

To learn more about achieving your goals this year, check out 5 Tips for Making Big Picture Goals an Employee Priority, Toward Business Goals Only: Customer Conversations and Relationships, and Pipeline Management Software: Critical to Attaining Company Goals.

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.