9 February 2014
Have you ever noticed something interesting in the sales funnel? It has a bottleneck (of sorts) and people are actually happy to have that one in their sales process. That narrow pathway is from where clinching a deal becomes closer reality. It’s the magical place where prospects become paying customers.
However, not all bottlenecks are as splendid. Any anomalies in the customer’s buying process or your sales pipeline will end up affecting your bottom line. Without much ado, let’s jump into addressing some of the common bottlenecks in the sales pipeline.
We are all creatures of comfort. It’s easy for many among us to remain attached to the same old things than to adapt to newer and better practices. Change isn’t something that people are fond of. But businesses can’t stay same for no good reason.
Bringing about a change in an organization and implementing new business processes are prone to resistance. Take everyone into confidence before tearing the wall down. An overnight makeover is definitely not going to make things easier for you and your team.
Take into account the workflow and habits of your team before making drastic changes to business processes. If an employee is comfortable and productive writing things down, forcing him to enter all his data into a CRM will throw him off his game. Allowing him to scan and upload the handwritten notes is a better workaround instead.
There is also the thing about perception. What looks like a no brainer sitting in a cubicle might not always be the best idea on a manufacturing floor. Ideas always look good on paper.
Will it fit your organization culturally is the question that needs to be addressed and not “If it is working for XYZ company, why wouldn’t it work for us as well?”. The idea is not to teach new tricks to an old puppy, but to teach it better ways to do the same old things.
There are never enough leads for a salesperson! More leads don’t always translate into more conversions. But, this is one hard fact that doesn’t go down well with sales teams. Quantity triumphs over quality when it comes to keeping them stay motivated.
This is a mindset problem and needs some time to tackle it. In the short term it pays to employ a lead generation team to research and find potential customers. Having a dedicated team to generate leads takes some weight from the shoulders of sales persons as well. Ensure that both lead generation and sales teams are always on the same page to prevent wasting time pitching to all the wrong businesses.
In the long run though, getting your salesforce to embrace customer profiling is the most viable solution. Instead of pitching to all the listings in Yellow Pages, hand pick customers from verticals that would actually want to pay for your solutions.
Creating customer personas shorten the sales cycle and bring in more revenue. However, it takes a stringent routine and patience to create and fine tune customer personas. Motivating the sales team is key to keep the slow and ongoing task of profiling customers to move forward smoothly.
Cost and benefit analysis is one easy way to sell the idea of developing customer personas to your team. When they realize the time, energy and money it takes to reach out to 100 random businesses far outweighs the benefits of talking to 20 prospects who closely resemble your other paying customers, there won’t be any bottlenecks in your lead generation process.
Issues with regards to lead generation are closely tied to troubles in your sales pitch. Pick the wrong lead or contact and you have an unsuccessful sales pitch in the offing.
To make your sales pitches work, try to put yourself in the customer’s shoes. Not an out of the box suggestion I agree, but is an effective one nonetheless. Why should a customer buy your washing machine and not the other one? Because, your front loading machine uses less water and soap than the top loading one, that’s why! Always lead with the benefit and not with a feature.
A clear understanding of the customer’s buying process is the secret sauce to putting your offering in a solid footing in a sea of competition. Have a firm grasp on the pulse of the prospective customer. Stay with him closely all the through his purchase process and make it easy for him to move from one step of the process to other.
Leads that are totally unfit to your sales pipeline make it hard to judge if your pitches work or not. So, spend some time researching if the prospect is indeed the right person in the organization to talk to. Finding the decision maker is tough, but, things get way easier once you crack that nut.
Reining in the market spend is a sensible thing to do. It takes a lot of courage and foresight to ignore the flashy media buys of the competition. Outspending the competition two to one when it comes to marketing is something that a business can avoid altogether.
Gone are the days of mindless media buying and advertising blitzkriegs. It is extremely possible run marketing campaigns that reach the target audience and deliver better RoI. You build mindshare not when more people see your brand, only when it’s seen by the right people.
Over 90% of customers do their research online before buying anything. In such a scenario, building a website and focusing on SEO and SEM makes a lot of business sense when compared to buying newspaper ads. The more visible you are online, the more confidence you build in a customer.
That doesn’t mean you can repeat the mistakes of big media spend in the online world as well. Tap into the unlimited potential of content and social marketing. They are the best ways to scratch the itch of being omnipresent online.
Stay clear of any marketing strategy that doesn’t allow you to measure the results. Not being able to know how many people looked at your ad and how many of them actually ended up buying your offering after seeing the ad isn’t the marketing strategy of the new millennium.
Closing a deal is all about persistence. Following up a lead at regular intervals is an absolute must. I’m not suggesting badgering customers with one phone call a day. Set a sales follow up schedule and follow it religiously for all your deals.
Always try to fix an appointment before showing up at a customer’s doorstep. Send an email reminder an hour before the meeting. After the meeting or call, send a thank you note with a date when they can expect a follow up call from you. All these are little things, but are effective in building trust and rapport when they are done consistently.
Veteran sales masters suggest a simple technique to close more deals - follow up your prospects regularly and make good on your promises. When you promise a customer that you would call him back a week from today, make the call seven days later. Getting in touch with them weeks or months after is not going to help build trust with your customers.
In the same vein, if you promise to look into something and get back to him, make it a habit to deliver on that promise. If you promise to create a competition analysis document and mail it over tomorrow, getting it done will set you apart from the competition. This is the ideal scenario for under promising and over delivering!
Everybody likes a good deal. Discounts help push the customer towards your offering, but, rock bottom pricing is not the way to reach the top. Offering discounts at all times of a month is a poor strategy that waters down the brand.
Opt for discounts during the close of a quarter or the financial year end. You don’t have to celebrate all the festivals with a steep 30% discount either. Coordinate your pricing and marketing strategies for festivals and occasions that align with the line of business you are in. A Christmas offer for web design is justifiable, but for bolt cutters, it isn’t!
Salespersons at times tend to push hard for discounted pricing to meet their quota. There might be occasions when they end up driving hard for a discount to close a deal and not the customer. That is not a productive or profitable strategy in the long run.
Take price sensitivity away from your offering. Showcase the value that you add and the solutions that solve real problems. The customer should not look at the price tag more than once and after learning how much it costs he shouldn’t put it back either. This is possible only when your value proposition resonates with the customer.
You can drive the value proposition up by doing two things - selling the benefits and brand building. Your team will be successful in betting on the benefits of your offering the day they understand that features don’t sell products. It’s the solutions that whatever features you have got does!
So, how do you get rid of sales bottlenecks in your business? Sound off in the comments section!
