10 Best Tips for Sales Teams Working in 2022
Sales is a difficult business even in the best of times. How well you perform your job as a salesperson is highly dependent on the decisions of prospective customers who you have no direct control over. This job is even more difficult in 2022 as businesses continue to seek new ways to conduct business in the global pandemic. Sales has become an overwhelmingly digital process, and sales teams need to adjust accordingly.
As such, sales teams need new tips and tricks to achieve success in 2022. Your old sales playbook may not work as well in today’s world. Fortunately, there are digital sales experts who can lead the way. Here at Covideo, we already have years of experience with digital sales. In light of this, we have created a list of the top 10 tips for sales teams in 2022 with an emphasis on digital sales.
Read on to learn the best tips for sales teams and sales professionals in 2022!
1. Add personalization to your sales efforts
Most consumers want more personalization in their buyer experiences. Personalization can be defined as individualized experiences that appeal to a consumer’s specific habits, interests, and demographics. Overall, approximately 68% of customers are willing to pay more for a personalized experience. Basically, your customers want to know that your business knows them and cares about them specifically.
So how do you implement personalization in sales? We offer several tips for implementing personalized marketing here, which can also be applicable to sales teams. Generally, you should make sure you understand what your customer wants. Use their name in all of your communication. If they are part of a business you’re hoping to sell to, then do your research about that business. And if you really want to go above and beyond, add personalized video messaging to your sales toolbox to really stick out to your prospects.
2. Immediately state your reason for contact
When you’re cold calling or emailing a sales prospect, don’t beat around the bush. After you greet your prospect, get right to the point and state why you’re contacting them. Consumers don’t want to sit through a long-winded introduction; they’ll lose interest. Let them know right away what your product is and what it can do for them. If they’re not interested, then you’ve saved the time you would have wasted on a longer conversation and can move on to the next prospect.
3. Pique curiosity
Here’s the deal: you’re probably not going to close a sale on first contact. As such, your first contact with a prospect should be focused on grabbing their interest and piquing their curiosity about your product. After first contact, your prospect should be eager to learn more and schedule a follow-up conversation.
So, you don’t need to tell your prospect everything on first contact. Instead, focus on the highlights and what specific problems your product can solve for them. Make it clear that your product is useful and exciting, but leave your customer wanting more information. Then, in a follow-up meeting you can answer the questions your prospect has about your product.
4. Use specific information and data
You can insist your product is great all day long, but unless you have the data to back you up, your prospects aren’t going to be impressed. You need to include specific data in your communication to demonstrate why your product is a good product and a good fit for your customers. For example, you can give statistics for how your product has improved the lives of current customers, such as “it decreased time spent doing repetitive tasks by 25%”. The more specific you can get, the better!
5. Communicate with your teammates
If you’re part of a sales team, then you need to be communicating with your teammates. Even if you handle most of your cold calls and meetings on your own, you need to be in contact with your team about updates and new ideas. Sales teams that communicate better can more quickly figure out what works and what doesn’t and support team members that might be struggling to get a sale.
The best way to communicate with your team is to invest in a communication platform like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Discord. You can also use email to relay information on new sales or schedule meetings. It is best to use multiple channels of communication as certain platforms are better suited for certain information. If your team is remote, then make sure that you’re still meeting face-to-face at least once a week over video.
6. Set reminders
So, you’ve scheduled a meeting with a new client. You better be sure to make that meeting! Regardless of how good your memory is, you should set reminders for important events, meetings, or goal deadlines. These reminders should be set in multiple places – your phone, digital and manual calendar, sticky notes, etc. Make sure that the reminder is set long enough before the meeting that you have ample time to prepare!
7. Send reminders
Even if you don’t forget an important meeting, the other party still might! This is why it’s important to not only set reminders, but send reminders to the other party. You should send a reminder at least the night before the meeting and follow up the next day if you have not heard back, regardless if the meeting is online or off. Don’t worry about being obnoxious – sometimes people forget meetings and a reminder can save the day. Your client will most likely appreciate the reminder as it reassures them that you have not forgotten either.
8. Confirm contact information right away
Even worse than forgetting a meeting is going to attend and then realizing you have the wrong contact information! To avoid this, make sure that you confirm contact information right when you get it. If your contact is relaying information over the phone, repeat it back to them. If it’s over email, then email back asking for confirmation that the information is correct.
You should also be sure to ask for contact information as soon as possible. The platform through which you initiated first contact may not be your prospect’s communication channel of choice. To ensure that the conversation keeps going, ask for the best way to reach them by second contact at the very latest. You can also offer multiple ways for your prospect to get into contact with you at first contact so that right away they can choose the method of communication that they are most comfortable with.
9. Stay organized
This tip may seem obvious, but that doesn’t take away from its importance. If you’re going to excel as a sales team or person, then you need to be organized. Make sure you know exactly where client contact information is stored. Keep all of your sales material and data together in the same physical or digital location, and make copies of important material. Make sure your team is likewise organized so you know how to find team-wide information as soon as you need it.
It’s generally a good idea to invest in a CRM platform like Salesforce or Pipedrive that can help you organize all of your contact information and sales materials in one place. Other types of apps like cloud storage platforms and note-taking software can also help you stay organized. Make sure that you talk with your entire team before investing in new software so that everyone is on the same page.
10. Be persistent but respectful of boundaries
Persistence is key. If you want to make a sale, then you need to be willing to send follow-ups, reminders, and reach out on multiple platforms. You may need to send several messages to the same prospect before you catch their interest. Don’t be afraid to come across as persistent as you try to convince your prospect that your product is what they need.
However, you still need to be respectful of boundaries. You don’t want to get a reputation as someone who ignores boundaries and crosses the line from persistence to harassment. If a client requests that you don’t contact them on a specific platform, then don’t use that platform. If someone asks you to stop contacting them or that they’re not interested, then respect that and move on to someone else. And if a prospect seems unsure about your product, then you can keep pushing, but once they’ve given you a firm “no,” you need to back off. Who knows – maybe in the future they’ll need a product like yours and they’ll remember that you were respectful!
Need more help with sales? Try Covideo today!
Are you looking for more tools to help with sales? Then consider investing in Covideo. Covideo can help personalize your sales efforts and improve communication between you and both your customers and teammates. With Covideo, you can send personalized video messages directly in the body of your email, text message, social media post, or CRM platform. These videos will help prospects but a face to a name and form a personal connection with your company. Furthermore, video email and emails that include the word “video” in their subject line are much more likely to catch interest and get clicks. In fact, personalized video email marketing has been noted to cause a 20% increase in sales!
Covideo includes other features that can assist in sales efforts, such as custom video landing pages and clickable CTAs. You can direct your prospect to schedule a meeting or book a demo with just the click of a button below the video. Best of all, your prospect can reply with a video email of their own even if they don’t have a Covideo account! Covideo will still let them record their own video on their screen, webcam, or both.
So what are you waiting for? Get started with free video email today. Start a free trial, and see for yourself how Covideo improves your sales results. You can also schedule a free demo with one of our video email experts to learn more about what Covideo can do for you. There’s no reason not to give Covideo a try and start using video email to reach out to prospects.