3 Ways To Better Enable Your Software Sales Team
By Joe Caprio, Chorus.ai
Modern-day sales professionals are faced with developing the next wave of successful leaders without having enough time or resources to attend to each representative’s needs.
Although technological advances, such as AI, have enhanced some industry tasks, coaching is an area with room for improvement for all managers.
Our recent State of Conversation Intelligence report applies data to justify this need. Over 300 companies and 5 million sales calls were analyzed to construct the following three key coaching metrics and benchmarks to secure more deals for you and your team.
Your Customers Want To Talk About Money — Does Your Team?
Let’s start with one of the most common functions of a sales team: cold calling. While a prevalent part of your reps’ routine, calls may end in by abruptly being hung up on. No one enjoys that part but encourage your team to push through. It takes SDRs 106 dials to get one scheduled meeting.
Now, if your sales reps engage with a prospect beyond an introduction, check how often pricing comes up. Reps are often trained to hold off talks on pricing, but this the tricky topic tends to make an appearance in a cold call from time to time. Proactively establishing a pricing curriculum empowers reps to strategically navigate these difficult exchanges and the potential objections that may accompany them.
Once an SDR secures a discovery meeting, the pricing subject will quickly shift to one on discounts. With discounts mentioned in 50 percent of calls, it is critical to train reps on how to apply industry pricing and benefits in a clear, concise manner that educates prospects and advances them through the funnel.
Coach Your Team Early And Consistently
Managers, how often do you review your team’s calls? Our research found only 8 percent of discovery calls are reviewed by managers. Why is this the case? Leaders are often focused on 'closable deals' which means they withhold their attention until a deal matures. However, coaching early-stage calls not only perfects reps’ competitive advantage but has been proven to secure 30 percent more wins. What could nearly a ⅓ win-rate increase do for your team?
We also found that it is more typical for managers to become involved in the later stages of sales deals. And as expected, managers also frequent calls with potential to obtain big revenue wins, influence stakeholders or include high-profile prospects.
But this tendency has led managers to spend 71 percent of their time coaching the deal and only 29 percent on honing skills like storytelling, objection handling, and discovery. The phenomenon of “coaching the deal” is not always the best approach to pay future dividends. Instead, managers should focus on growing reps holistically.
Your Buyer Knows Your Competitors. Build A Confident, Personalized Talk-Track To Beat Them.
Today’s buyers are informed, busy, and motivated to get to the important part of the conversation. We found those valued discussion points often include early-stage competitor questions. Don’t let your reps fear this! Competitors are mentioned 5-6 times in discovery meetings in closed-won deals in comparison to only 3 times during closed-lost deals. In other words, it is more likely that you will lose a deal if competitor and discount concerns are addressed later. It is crucial to coach reps to professionally discuss competitors so buyers leave the call confident the rep is selling the ideal solution to their problem.
Encourage your reps to invest needed time on discovery. This includes conducting thorough research before picking up the phone. Prepare primary topics to unpack: prospect’s pain-points, opportunities, and how you promise to drive ROI. Once the call begins, you can position the message to focus on benefits by offering tracks like, “Of the offerings discussed, does one resonate most with you?”
The more you invest up-front in the discovery process, the more likely you will win and close more deals.
Enjoy The Process (Including The Ups And Downs)
We know that this industry can feel like a rollercoaster. Prevent employees from falling into a cycle of churn and burn through implementing coaching tips that build an all-star staff that confidently tackles daily challenges.
Reps with managers that have their backs crush quotas and grow professionally. An effective approach to accomplishing this is through understanding how they uniquely handle meetings and calls. Pay attention to objections or questions that could have potentially been addressed early on. Acknowledging these missteps enables your sales team to adjust accordingly to progress deals down the cycle and prioritize tasks for late-stage calls, such as contract finalization and implementation preparation.
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About The Author
Joe Caprio is VP of Sales at Chorus.ai.