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SANJAY'S MARKETING SUCCESS GUIDE

Driving Exponential Marketing Success & Company Growth

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Writer's pictureSanjay Patel

NextGen Sales


  • How to grow sales exponentially ? Can a company survive without a product Sale ? Can a company grow just by building an awesome product? How to make marketing & product strategies drive successful business outcome ? How to accelerate deal closure ? How to shorten the buying cycle ? All these are possible through NEXTGEN SALES STRATEGY COMPLEMENTING MARKETING STRATEGIES AT EVERY STEP.

  • Key Stats :Around9 B sales people around the globe, Over 1 Trillion dollars are spent annually on sales, 30 – 50% of sales goes to vendor that responds first, 80% of sales requires 5 follow up call after meeting & 44% of sales folks give up after 1 follow up call, 78% of sales people using social media outsell their peers, Only 13% of customers believe sales persons understand their needs. All these portrays the significance of successful sales strategy complementing marketing efforts in accomplishing company goal.

  • The successful SALES STRATEGY: involves genuine desire to help customers solve their problems through deep innovative research, vision, AI/ML prediction models leveraging unified platforms like CRM,EDW, Social, Search along with out-of-the-world X-team handshake between Marketing, Sales, Delivery & Customer Service to accomplish mutually beneficial business outcome during Pre-Sales, Customer Engagement or Post Sales calls


  • MOST SUCCESSFUL SALES PEOPLE MINDSET: 3S FRAMEWORK :

  • Servant Mindset ,

  • Share your Experience ,

  • Solve Customer’s Problem

  • This process of SERVING, SHARING & SOLVING Customer’s problem generates authentic TRUST AND leads the customer to a place where they genuinely want your help to solve their problems.


  • STAGES OF BUYING BRAIN:

  • Safety,

  • Connection,

  • Trust,

  • Understanding,

  • Opportunity,

  • Credibility

  • To positively impact customer, we must follow the path from connection to credibility

  • Following this sets up for Optimal success,Sales sky rocket and also job satisfaction of helping others


  • LINGERING FEAR MOST SALES PEOPLE WAKE UP WITH

  • Fear of Rejection

  • Fear of not hitting quote

  • Fear of failure

  • And THAT MINDSET CAUSES OF SENSE OF DISTRUST & DISCONNECT WITH OUR CUSTOMERS

  • No 1 Job Of any sales person is to solve customers problem


  • IDEAL CUSTOMER PERSONAS:

  • Ready,Willing,Able

  • Are they Ready :: Do they have a problem to solve?Do they know they have a problem ? Do they have a sense of urgency to solve ?

  • Are they Willing :: Are they willing to solve the problem today ?

  • Are they Able :: Do they have money/budget ? Do they have permission , approval , decision making power ?

  • The mantra is to start with smallest market possible, identify a focused group of potential customers, gain credibility faster & expand customer base.

  • Approach is to build targeted customer persona mimicking current best customers, getting information from product & marketing team, leveraging google, linkedIn, facebook to target ideal customers whom we can most likely help quickly & effectively solve their problem providing solutions using features of our products & services


  • UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMER ISSUES: 4-I FRAMEWORK

  • 1st I – UNCOVER THE ISSUE - If more than 1 , then ask customer to prioritize so that u can address most urgent issues 1st

  • 2nd I – IMPACT THE ISSUE IS HAVING ON CUSTOMER – This will help in quantifying the problem & thereby determining the product price for your solution

  • 3rd I – INVASIVENESS – Subset of Impact but reaches across customer’s organization

  • 4th – ICEBERG – Giant barrier that has prevented the customer from solving the problem. KNOWLEDGE, TIME, BUDGET, MONEY. This will help to understand what will stop them from moving forward with the solution


  • BUYING MOTIVATOR:

  • 1st motivator : PRICE – How much something cost is a large motivator in a buyer’s decision ?

  • 2nd motivator : VALUE – Weighing the benefit of product compared to the price. The higher the perceived value , the more willing the customer is.

  • 3RD motivator : QUALITY – Goes hand in hand with value . Value is perception of benefit vs price. But quality is primarily the caliber of the product regardless of price

  • 4th motivator: SELF-PRESERVATION – To secure a promotion or prevent demotion , protect my family or myself

  • 5th motivator : SOCIAL PRESSURE – What cell phone u have ? What car u drive ? Which neighborhood u live in ?

  • Once they know they have a problem & have decided to solve it , one of the above motivator will help them pull the trigger

  • Our goal is to determine through research & conversation , which motivator is having the largest impact on their decision


  • BARRIERS TO CHANGE:

  • AWARENESS : that they need to change

  • MOTIVATION : to make the change with optimal solution reducing their current pain

  • ABILITY: to implement the change in a decent time frame

  • Change seldom occurs until the pain of staying the same exceeds the pain of change

  • Other factors:

  • ANXIETY

  • FEELING OF ISOLATION

  • FEELING OF POTENTIAL LOSS

  • ONLY TAKE SO MUCH CHANGE AT ONE TIME

  • IT’S our ability to NAVIGATE our customers through awareness plus motivation plus ability equation along with other subconscious potential barriers to change . Doing effectively we will ensure sale and create trust & loyalty in the process


  • People BUY SOLUTIONS not products and therefore we should always be SOLUTION FOCUSSED instead of product focused.

  • We should make a list of all solutions our product provides

  • Customer Pain à Solutions à Features à Products is the sales success mantra


  • SUCCESSFUL SOLUTION APPROACH:

  • 1. List Top 5 problems customer has.

  • 2. For each problem, List the solution that we provide

  • 3. For each solution,List the features of the product it provides to customer that solves his problem

  • 4. Share the advantages that our product features has wrt Competition that customer might be considering

  • The above will definitely ensure Sales success.


  • PROVIDING PROOF SOURCE THAT SOLUTION WORKS:

  • 1. THE EXPERT – Experts are there in every field & endorsement by them is a big proof

  • 2. CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS – Quite powerful specially in B2C space

  • 3. USER TESTIMONIALS & REVIEWS – Credibility through the eyes of end user

  • 4. WISDOM OF THE CROWD- Mass effect to influence

  • 5. WISDOM OF THE PEERS – Referral proof source – When u provide a reference the customer knows personally – it increases the trust 10 fold


  • THREE KEY THINGS CUSTOMERS WORRY AFTER DECIDING TO BUY:

  • 1. SOLUTION– Will deliver what was promised

  • 2.IMPLEMENT– Effectively in agreed timeframe

  • 3. CUSTOMER SERVICE – Throughout implementation & afterwards.

  • Cross train your sales team : on delivery & customer service

  • Cross train your delivery team: on sales & customer service

  • Cross train your customer service team: on sales & delivery

  • In B2B space, these cross team strategies, a single POC, exceptional CS are critical to seamless implementation and will set you up for future sales in the same ac and true customer loyalty for life


  • EFFECTIVE SALES PROCESS:

  • 1. PRE-SALES ACTIVITY

  • PLANNING:

  • Prospect Identification, Industry Research, Product research, Competitive Research, Call Strategy

  • Know about your prospect in & out, Buying cycle, How do they engage with you,

  • Know about the solution & the way it solves the problem

  • Know about the competition &Make a list of contrasting solution with theirs. We should understand their products as well as your own


  • PREPARATION :

  • Written call plan with clear objectives,

  • Create the appropriate presentation material and/ tool,

  • Build the best stories,

  • Anticipate customer objection and plans to address those ,

  • Practice for the call

  • This stage is the weakest link in the sales process


  • 2. CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT STAGE:

  • Create Connection

  • Identify & Prioritize the Issue

  • Create credibility

  • Solve the problem

  • Handling any objections

  • Gaining commitment


  • 3. AFTER THE SALES CALL

  • Solution Implementation

  • Customer Service & Support

  • Gather customer feedback

  • Feedback from manager or coach on what went well & what can be done better

  • This stage is critical to long term customer loyalty , X-sell, Up-sell opportunities

  • Research shows that it’s infinitely easier to see a current happy customer than trying to bring a brand new one


  • KEY PLATFORMS:

  • CRM

  • MDM

  • CUSTOMER REFERENCE PLATFORMS

  • MARKETING AUTOMATION PLATFORMS

  • OUTBOUND CALLS PLATFORM

  • ML/AI PLATFORMS

  • BI/EDW/REPORTING PLATFORMS

  • CPQ PLATFORMS

  • UNIVERSALPROFILE/ CUSTOMER ENRICHMENT PLATFORMS

  • SOCIAL PLATFORMS

  • SEARCH PLATFORMS

  • CUSTOMERSUCCESSPLATFORMS

  • Unified & Integrated and Accessible to all Sales Team Users


  • KEY METRICS:

  • SalesGrowth

  • Sales Opportunities

  • Product Performance

  • Average Purchase Value

  • Sales By Contact Method ( Email, Self Service, Phone, In Person )

  • Sales Bookings

  • Quote to Close Ratio

  • Sales per Rep

  • Sales Team Response Time

  • Shorten Sales Cycle

  • Reduce Customer Acquisition Cost

  • Channel Effectiveness

  • Asset Effectiveness

  • Pipeline Growth & Acceleration

  • ProductGrowth


  • With Innovative Sales Strategies leveraging AI/ML prediction models to research, identify & solve customer problems & needs complementing Marketing activities during the Pre Sales , Customer Engagement or Post Sales Stages , companies can accomplish exponential growth & success .

  • More Details about some of key Sales KPIs & strategies at every stages of customer journey in the upcoming posts !!!

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