Undoubtedly, prospecting is one of the most challenging parts of the sales process. The thought of doing cold outreach to busy professionals is enough to make regular polite individuals break out in a cold sweat. And without a clear strategy and the proper techniques, your sales team won’t feel much better about doing so either. So here, we’ll explore some of the most effective techniques and strategies your sales team can employ so they can turn leads into opportunities and develop a database full of potential customers. 

LISTEN ACTIVELY

Sales reps are usually known to be a smooth-talking bunch. But when prospecting, it’s time for them to switch gears and be extra tuned in to potential buyers’ language, tone, and emotional state. Since they will generally be going in cold, we need them to be paying attention so they can gather information. Because when a prospect makes a revealing admission about challenges they may be having or a service they might be looking for, you cannot miss the opportunity to address it. If a prospect does so, have your salesperson reiterate what they’ve heard to make sure they are correct in their assessment and start a dialogue about the issues. Then encourage them to ask open-ended questions that might lead your client to share more details about their situation.

HANDLE OBJECTIONS

Inevitably when you reach out to unsuspecting individuals, there will be some pushback. The key to dealing with these objections is to prepare for them ahead of time, anticipate that they will arise, and then train yourself to – pause. While this may seem counterintuitive since you’re expecting to be hung up on immediately or shoved out of the door, pausing signals that the objection has been heard and acknowledged creating some room for you to move forward. This works because when potential customers feel they’re being heard, they’re also more likely to listen to what you have to say as well. Once you’ve created this space, you can then re-engage them by asking clarifying questions. These questions should be designed to gather tidbits of crucial information that you can hopefully use to reframe their concerns and get them to rethink their initial skepticism. Finally, if you make some headway, make sure your salespeople confirm that the objection raised has been addressed sufficiently, so everyone feels comfortable moving forward with the conversation.

IDENTIFY PAIN POINTS

As we converse, we’re always looking for pain points to be able to tailor our sales pitch to our potential customers’ most pressing issues. But surprisingly enough, the true nature of these pain points is often somewhat unclear to the customers themselves. So, in the same way that a doctor probes their patient to see what underlying issues are causing them to seek help, your sales team must also be trained to seek out the triggers causing the most pressing problems for your potential clients. And this returns to the concept of asking open-ended questions that help illuminate a more profound, broader view of their business as a whole. Because only once you truly understand the potential customer’s actual underlying issues will your salespeople be able to correctly identify and articulate the value of your best solutions.

LEARN TO ASSUMPTIVE CLOSE

Finally, a little bit of old-school sales talk can vastly improve your sales team performance when used correctly. For example, the assumptive close is a great sales technique that splits the difference between a soft close and simply letting your customers off the hook. When you assumptive close, you essentially “assume the sale” by presuming that the solution is so obviously helpful that there’s no need to actually ask the customer if they want to buy. For example, by asking, “Which one of our service packages would most interest you?” a salesperson creates momentum towards a sale, doesn’t leave space for a “no,” takes the pressure off the prospect to ask explicitly to buy something, and inspires confidence in the final product by making it seem like an obvious choice to purchase it. Although it may seem a bit pushy, the key to the assumptive close is to have built enough rapport before using it, so the question doesn’t feel stilted or awkward once it’s introduced.

If incorporating and drilling sales techniques feels like a bit of a stretch for you to handle in-house, perhaps consider getting quality help by partnering with OSR Manage. OSR Manage gives you a team of experienced sales gurus who can provide you with a complete blueprint to attract, train, and develop a stellar team of star salespeople. Contact us today.