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As most of us learn in time, French philosopher Voltaire was right when he wrote, “Common sense is not so common.” Likewise, common-sense sales leadership and sales management skills are actually uncommon aptitudes in the small- to medium-sized business environment.
Let’s take a deeper look at why sensible and successful sales leadership can be a rare (but achievable) commodity for smaller businesses.
I’m Not Sure Everyone Understands The Question
Earlier in the week, David Cancel, CEO of Drift, posted a question on LinkedIn: “Is cold calling dead?” When was the last time you bought anything from an inbound cold call? The response was very interesting. It seemed like most of the sales pros who read it were almost insulted by the idea, while a few others seemed to agree in a weak and noncommittal kind of way.
While I love the conversation starter (nice job, David!), I’m not sure everyone else was answering his question. For all of those who stated how important the phone is to building relationships with prospects, yes, we get that.
But perhaps the question needs to be asked differently: “Who answers the phone, in their office, when you’re not expecting the call or don’t recognize the phone number?”
Verified Reviews Reveal Square 2 Marketing Is One Of The Best In The Digital Marketing Space
Revenue generation is more complex than ever before. The buyer’s journey your prospects are engaged in includes stormy seas and chaotic conditions. The days of a smooth, gravity-driven sales funnel are over.
If you want to ensure your company grows, you’re going to need to start thinking differently about how you execute sales, marketing and customer service.
To do that, you can hire new people with new skills, but that represents a huge risk in both money and time as you wait for them to generate results. Generally, it’s more efficient and more economical to bring in an agency team to help you get started quickly and produce results in a timely manner.
Sales And Marketing Alignment Is Key To Creating The Remarkable Prospect Experience
It happens more regularly than it should. Clients hire us to generate leads, and we generate leads, only to realize the sales team is not prepared to handle the inbound leads in an appropriate manner.
Based on what we see at the companies we work with, the sales team’s ability to proactively (and strategically) take care of those leads generated by inbound marketing campaigns is usually in horrible shape.
When sales lag, profits are down and past success isn’t likely to be replicated with your current sales methods and personnel, it begs the question: Do you need a sales consultant or a hands-on sales builder?
The answer depends on where your organization is today and where it wants to go in the future. Here are some factors to consider when determining if you need to hire a sales consultant or a sales builder.
Ask Any Social Media Expert: Social Media Marketing Has Jumped The Shark
Let’s get this conversation off on the right foot. If you’re Gary Vaynerchuk or you’re promoting socks, then social media is probably perfect for you. But for the rest of us, you can forget it.
Take LinkedIn, for example. What a total mess. Stream after stream of self-promotional videos, post after post of sponsored ads and article after article of meaningless content. My stream is a total waste of time.
If I wasn’t in marketing, I’d opt out of the entire network.
You’ve Been Looking For An Agency To Help You Grow Your Company, And You Finally Found It
You might be looking for a digital marketing agency, you might be looking for a sales consulting company, or you might be looking for a website design shop or a PR agency. But what you’re really looking for is a company to help you grow your business.
You’ve done great work getting your baby to this point, but it’s been a struggle getting it to the next level, and you need trusted guidance and support. Unfortunately, most of the companies you’ve been looking at or talking to are good at delivering stuff (building websites, doing email marketing, posting on social, writing press releases or installing HubSpot) and not so great at the strategic thought leadership and guidance you really need.
Doing It Yourself Might Be Harder Than You Think
The economy is booming today, so people are hiring. When it comes to your digital marketing strategy and digital marketing execution, it might seem obvious that hiring is your best option. You get full control, you get fixed costs and you get people who know your business inside and out.
But the reality of having in-house resources vs. using an outside agency is much different. It’s a major success for us when clients say, “You set us up for success, we’re seeing great results and now we’re going to take the program in-house.”
In fact, many of our engagements start with this as a goal for our clients, and this is a great aspirational goal for companies. But we also counsel our clients to look at this transition and the actual day-to-day management of a full-scale digital revenue generation program with open eyes. What we do is not easy to do in-house.
When you go to a doctor for a routine check-up, you might have several reasons for going, including:
For your sales team, these same types of goals can be important for the continuing health of your client accounts. But do you currently initiate and perform regular client check-ups to help you and your clients stay informed and engaged with the best sales solutions?
If you’re like many sales professionals, you may be falling behind in scheduling essential client check-ups. Here’s why that can be dangerous:
An Influx Of New CRM Solutions And Integrated MarTech Tools Means You Have More Choices
Back in the day (even five or six years ago), if you wanted a top-notch, enterprise-level CRM system that your company could grow into, Salesforce.com was your only option.
Yes, lower-end CRM systems were available. Zoho, Infusionsoft, Insightly and Freshsales CRM are highly affordable but questionable in terms of features, expansion capabilities, integration and the ability to customize to fit your company. Typically, the cheaper the product, the less flexibility you get. More flexibility requires a higher investment.
But today, you have much better options for CRM. Fast-growing mid-size and smaller businesses are able to get great feature sets without having to pay Salesforce.com licensing and implementation costs.
