Free Sales Tools: Prospect Management Reporting

A 51kb, Excel-based file download is all that stands between you and a solution to more easily and objectively evaluate and report on the top prospects in your sales pipeline. Immediately useful for a sales team involved in new business generation in any industry, this thing is simple, yet awesome.

Not CRM software, not a contact manager, you simply enter new prospects into one tab of the spreadsheet, adding the completion date for each step in the sales process. The system automatically calculates total days in the sales process and days to close (once you’ve closed them). Another tab shows a report summarizing where you stand with each of these prospects which can be turned in to your sales manager.

It also allows the sales professional to select from one of three “likelihood” gauges–Top 1/3, Middle 1/3, and Bottom 1/3 (definitions included in the instructions)–as well as adding a summary or overview of the deal. Read the full post

Generating Instant Credibility (Part 2 In the Series)

**Note: this is the second part of a five-part series on getting off to the right start in appointments.

Previous articles in the series:

• Start appointments right.

Credibility is the foundation for everything. You can be liked, but lack credibility, and you’ll lose sales. You can be assertive, but lack credibility, and you’ll torpedo yourself. You can even know your buyer on a personal level, but lack credibility in your business and she’ll always find ways to avoid doing business with you. Read the full post

Seth Godin and Mike Sigers

I really like Seth Godin’s and Mike Sigers’s posts today on the sales profession. It caused me to think a bit about the difference between sales and marketing.

I’ve got a baseball metaphor for you (doesn’t baseball work for everything?)…marketers design the playing field, salespeople play the game. Marketers design the stadium’s playability–the visibility for batters and outfielders, distance from home of the outfield walls, the amount of foul territory, the playing surface, and so on. Salespeople use their experience with and knowledge of that field to gain an advantage in winning more games. (Of course, they largely get by on sheer talent that has nothing to do with the field.)

Salespeople make the emotions that marketers’ want associated with a brand real. Marketers are the strategy, salespeople are the execution. Marketers want products and services to live long healthy lives, salespeople need and thrive on immediate gratification.

A salesperson has to have the framework down to be a top 1% professional. He’s got to have the what-we-really-sell down pat. The what-we-really-sell is marketing’s job at the 30,000 foot level. The sales professional then takes that big picture and makes it practical, useful, and even more easily understood by real, living potential buyers.

It’s a tough job. Ain’t it great?

Coming next: Generating instant credibility.

Salesteamtools Book Club #6

Getting to Closed

Stephan Schiffman’s Getting to Closed is a sales book like no other. It’s not a rehash of closing techniques. It’s not a mind-numbing tutorial on asking the right questions. It’s about managing the sales process from an entirely new perspective.

In this book, Schiffman will walk you through how to objectively evaluate the true strength of your sales funnel. You’ll feel challenged at first. You’ll defend your gut-feel thinking about where you stand with your prospects. But if you read this with an open mind, it will cause you to re-think your sales process altogether. Check it out.

Also, take a look at previous Salesteamtools Book Club entries.

Start Appointments Right (Part 1 In a 5-Part Series)

Here you go again. You walk into the appointment. Sit down. Shake hands. Mention the weather. Thank the buyer for the appointment. Say the same old things you say to everyone to “break the ice.” And awkwardly, abruptly move on to talk business.

You’re yawning right now just thinking about it.

You and every other salesperson out there is following this routine. It’s impersonal, stuffy, and hyper-formal. You’re following standard operating procedure, as far as you’re concerned. But where’s the personality in that? Where’s the style? Read the full post

Sales Team Audio Newsletters

I’m not ready to call it a trend, but I’m hearing of more companies publishing internal sales newsletters in audio format. If your company does, I’d be interested in hearing your feedback by email or comment below.

With the rise of mp3 players, I can see this becoming more popular. Having said that, some companies are simply sending out audio CDs to their reps to listen to in the field–no need for an mp3 player, though distributed mp3s would be far less expensive.

If you’re a sales executive, I understand the company behind Salesrepradio.com, The MarComm Store, can help you put together a custom audio or video newsletter for your sales force. I have no experience with them, other than listening to Salesrepradio from time to time.

Feedback?

18 questions to answer to grow existing business

Do you want to grow your existing accounts? There are 18 basic questions you should answer to begin crafting your action plan to do that. Read the full post

Great list of sales questions

Some really good content here from Rob Reed at Terrakon, LLC, an internet marketing and sales consultant from St. Louis, MO: 97 questions to ask sales prospects.

The power of one

Loving this article by Kelley Robertson over at SalesTrainingAdvice.com.

Oh, how much more you can accomplish when focusing solely on incremental improvements…

Creating PDFs

I’m surprised at the number of reps who don’t have a simple system for generating their own PDFs (for any number of reasons: forwarding a fax, emailing a document that needs to be uneditable, etc.).

I mentioned previously that I use Voicefaxemail.com for my home office voicemail and fax service.

Couple that service with a free installation of either CutePDF (never had a problem with this whatsoever) or PrimoPDF (a little more powerful) and you’ve got a foolproof system for getting anything from electronic or hard copy to PDF quickly.

Can’t beat reliable, inexpensive or even free, sales team tools…

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