For a while now we have been focusing a bit more on the marketing side of our B2B Marketing and Sales Tips.  Here are a few great sales tips from Brian McRae, Market Development Manager at ReachForce.

1. Remember that you are selling to PEOPLE, not to rows of data on your daily call sheet.  People require you to reach through the phone and deliver an articulate, powerful, and succinct message.  Every person is different, so use the cues you hear over the phone to help you understand how best to communicate with your prospects.  I live in Austin, Texas, however, my territory is the Northeast United States, including New York.  I’ve found in my prospecting activities that these professionals prefer I be direct and exactly on point, because their time is not to be wasted.  This is somewhat different from the laid back and casual environment I work in.  But that nuance of personality provides me with the ability to understand how these professionals prefer to be communicated with via phone and e-mail.  You can bet the house that my language on a call or an e-mail is powerful, bold, and succinct, because I must connect using my prospect’s culture rather than my own.
2. People buy from people, not companies.  Be likable and easy to work with.  Develop a relationship with your prospects.  Make each one feel like they are your number one customer.
3. Develop a consistent process that you repeat every day.  As a salesperson, it is your duty to be as disciplined and productive as possible.  Develop a routine that you follow every single day to take full advantage of your working hours.  Applying that disciplined approach over time is guaranteed to keep you productive, make you a better salesperson, and ultimately close more deals.
4. Be crisp and impactful in all your communications.  Think about how many sales or marketing related e-mails the average decision-maker receives on any given day.  How many of these messages use the same tired clichés at best; and at worst are fraught with grammatical or spelling errors?  The only way to rise above the fray on the phone and in email is to absolutely compel your prospect to learn more about your services.  Create that need with clear, concise, and complete language – a language devoid of all filler-words and “ums”.  Take the time to use the power of language to your advantage.  That alone will place you head and shoulders above your competition.
5. Don’t believe the myth that people hate being sold to.  The truth is that people hate being sold to by BAD salespeople, and there are plenty of those to go around.  But if you think back to your most positive buying experiences, whether it was for a car or a multi-million dollar enterprise software package, every one of those positive experiences was driven by solid and professional salespeople.  Salespeople are the engines of commerce.  Good salespeople explore, analyze, and create a mutually beneficial need between two parties.  Good salespeople develop relationships with their prospects that lead to mutually beneficial deals.
6. Have a long-term strategic view.  The best and most successful sales professionals that I have worked with in my career all shared a single trait – they were with their respective companies for a long time, usually more than five years.  They all understood that developing a territory was a long-horizon project, and that success would come only if they executed every day.  You’ll also become an expert not only on your product, but on the entire competitive landscape.