Sales Process Training Done Right
Inbound Sales Training Course Recap
Just completed an 8 week sales methodology training program with master sales trainer Dan Tyre, who helped me and my inbound sales team and marketing team get our sales roar on.
Why you should be taking your sales process inbound
I’ve never exactly been called ‘shy’ when it comes to sales, especially SAP Sales, but I always want to learn inbound sales tactics from someone better than me.
Dan is better.
Dan delivered one of the best inbound sales methodology training programs I've yet attended. It's an inbound sales course I am glad I attended.
Dan Tyre:) Just Kidding.
Sure am glad my Hubspot Channel Account Manager or CAM – Bennett Boucher, nominated me for this! It proved to be one of the best follow up programs for sales offered by Hubspot so far.
Sales Methodology vs Sales Process
The Inbound Sales Strategy
If you want to improve your sales, shorten your sales cycle time and improve your overall revenues, then you need to follow the best practices of the Inbound Sales Methodology. It is an especially powerful B2B Inbound Sales Strategy to improve your inbound sales process and ultimately, your sales outcomes. However, I've had equal success with it in the Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) space using a combination of Hubspot and Shopify, an ecommerce platform.
Here’s what rubbed off on me.
Before I give you the ‘lessons learned’, first let me tell you that it made me do all I can to find the ‘acres of diamonds’ buried in our database.
Finding Warm Leads Amongst The Cold Leads
First Task of an Inbound Sales Strategist
While we were doing this 8 week course, I’ve been doing a ‘clean up’ on the leads we have not just in our Hubspot database, but in my wider network. Why? Because, as a newly minted inbound sales person, I see no reason to be doing cold calling when I’ve already created warm leads!
It didn’t look like this when I started this. Just getting this picture helped to keep me and my team motivated.
Key Sales Lessons Learned
Exploratory Calls.
How to Avoid Outdated Outbound Sales Tactics
Getting someone on the phone is no easy task – even when they leave their number and ask you to call them! What I learned here is to ‘slow down’ a bit. In fact, the stats say if you don't get them on within 5 minutes of a 'conversion', there is very little chance of getting them on the phone at all. But if you do -
Just be human.
If I’ve done the research, I already know a lot about a company and probably quite a bit about the person I am getting to know. That’s why a lesson my flight engineer flight instructor gave me back in my C-130 days comes to mind – when the emergency lights are flashing and you want to hit the button, just sit on your hands a second and assess the situation.
Same applies to an exploratory discovery call, just pause for a second after introducing yourself and let the person you’re talking to register who you are.
Active Listening
People are not really taught how to listen, it just happens, and if you are too rehearsed, you can easily miss key information someone is giving you on a connect call, so listen up.
Practice active listening.
Make sure you not only consciously focus on what the other person is saying, but as well, feed it back to them and get their confirmation that what you heard is what they meant.
ABH – Always Be Helping.
If one thing was clear from the training, it was that we have a lot of value we can give away. From expertise on SEO to the ability to develop content that converts, we’ve got tools and techniques that can be of immediate value to just about any business, of almost any size. In fact, we have specific valuable freebies for every stage, including the consideration stage, one of the most critical stages.
Lead with Value
ABC – Always Be Calculating.
This may not have been a central message of the course, but if you pay attention, we are almost always working out a number - leads required, revenue targets, average order value. For many of our customers, they may not have completely thought through these numbers or if they have, they will be surprised when a Inbound Marketing Agency focuses on them.
In god we trust, all others bring data.
W. Edwards Deming
Rehearse
Every class started with some links to a company Dan wanted us to use in an on-the-fly case study. This meant we had to be able to scan the information and draw enough conclusions to have an intelligent conversation with the prospect. This made you ‘think on your feet’ and bring all you knew to the task at hand, and make it all look easy.
Practice makes perfect.
Do The Work - Follow Each Step of the Sales Process
We've got a system, Hubspot CRM, as well as email and the phones, that make it possible to methodically work every lead. None of them are magic. You have got pick up the phone, send the email, make the connection, work the lead, to hit the revenue number. Always good to be reminded that sales is work and you got to 'do the work'.
Appreciate the help Dan! If you would like some help with your Hubspot CRM setup, just click the button.
