Digital Selling and Sales Training Journal

Re-posted from original article at Sales Prospecting Guide - The Digital Sales Institute : A sales prospecting guide to help reconfigure your sales efforts to align with the new reality that surrounds us. Attracting and engaging new customers is going to take more effort, planning, strategy, and tactics within the sales process. Sales leaders everywhere will need to take responsibility for putting their sales teams in a position to compete in the new reality of remote selling. If the stated aims of all business are to “Acquire, Develop and Maintain Customers at a Profit”, then to grow (even at a slower pace) will require companies to have a customer acquisition strategy where prospecting plays a key role. It is important to note that the building blocks for successful sales prospecting o r lead generation are not solely down to sales skills but a combination of buyer personas, data, accurate targeting and understanding the buyer’s journey. What is Your Sales P

Due to a shift towards remote selling and more salespeople working from home, sales leaders are asking “does online sales training work?”. We know that best in class companies (and indeed the most successful salespeople) are constantly seeking ways to improve sales performance. So, both coaching and sales training must adopt to the reality of more online learning. It may take some time to accept that online sales training is not just an alternative to classroom based sales training but could be THE sales training channel as we enter the middle digital sales era. Apart from emotions, there is little to suggest that classroom training is more effective online training for salespeople. Maybe the question is not whether online sales training benefits your sales force; but whether sales leaders can afford not to join in the trend. Online sales training courses Over 70% of companies believe that Online Learning gives them a competitive advantage The quote above should n

Sales challenges facing salespeople have been greatly increased due to remote selling, the hard to reach buyer plus the impact of social media on the sales process. Today more than ever, the balance of power is in the hands of the buyers. Access to endless amounts of data, information and channel alternatives has reduced the impact a salesperson can make, and it is changing how salespeople go about selling. The sales challenges to keep up with shifting buyer preferences which are now heavily influenced by digital data means that salespeople need to engage with customers on their preferred channels. And they need to come prepared to have meaningful conversations, share insights and put concern for the customer above their own self interests. The Sales Challenges in Prospecting. Sales prospecting in the modern sales environment is not an easy task. It involves quite a bit of effort kick start a sales conversation with a prospect and t

A Selling Definition In The Modern Sales Process A selling definition in the modern sales process could maybe be summed up in two words – “relationship building”.  Is selling today all about relationships? We know that selling is an exchange of one product or service for payment(money). The question is how do we create a selling definition that streamlines the modern sales process so that our efforts result in higher sales numbers and higher returns on our time investment. Today, Leaders, CEO’s and Sales Managers are painfully aware that the current environment makes growth difficult. In a world of “more” — more information, more choice and more people. The Digital era has facilitated the connection of more than 8 billion devices worldwide, altered areas such as access to information, value, skills, management, and started to change the nature of organizations, their reach, processes, and r

Sales Discovery Questions - The Digital Sales Institute : Sales discovery questions are used to move a sales conversation with our customer or prospect into the “why care” stage. To make the customer care about what we are saying, we need to uncover information, a pain point, or a problem we can solve. Without discovery questions, we cannot move to the why care (our unique and personalized value proposition for this customer), and if we cannot get the customer to care then there is little opportunity to continue a sales conversation. Real and impactful discovery questions should give us a deep understanding of our customer, their challenges, and problems. No problem means there is no sales opportunity. Discovery calls set the path of how we approach the deal and we rely on the answers obtained as we walk alongside the buyer on their journey. It is important to understand that the purpose of discovery questions is to determine whether you and your buyer have reas

Sales Training Aligned to Your Buyers Journey - The Digital Sales Institute : sales training aligned to your buyers journey will significantly improve your sales performance and results. Take the guesswork out of selling. In a world where it is increasingly difficult to separate out one offering from the next, sales training aligned to your buyers journey can be a key competitive advantage as it will allow you to deliver relevant experiences matched to each step along the process. For you to truly understanding your own buyer’s journey will mean embracing the many turns in the path towards a buying decision. You must acknowledge that success comes from a dynamic approach to selling. Many of us already see the effects of a changing buyer’s journey. The question is, can you be proactive in your drive to change with them. It’s not enough to observe that buying has become more complicated. All of us in sales must make the moves necessary to lead the customer

Sales Tips for New Salespeople - The Digital Sales Institute : In this article we will put forward several sales tips for new salespeople (or even for the more experienced salesperson) to help them improve their sales skills. One would think that selling is becoming easier with the number of tools, data and insights available to salespeople, however the reality is that the sales process is getting longer and more difficult. Some noteworthy sales figures you might find interesting is that over seven decision-makers now engage in the purchasing process on average. Consider the fact that almost 70 percent of business purchasers will research between 2 and 7 sites before any transaction is completed. What makes selling even more difficult is that today, between 50% and 90% of the purchaser’s journey is complete before they communicate with a salesperson. So, one of the big questions a new salesperson asks is how do they hit the ground running and get more buyers to listen to what they