Sales teams are scrambling to boost win rates in this economic downturn. Discover actionable tips that can help you enhance your sales process.
The sales win rate is a popular metric among sales leaders. Every organization is on an unending mission to increase its win rates while reducing churn. And while different companies might have varying definitions and methods for computing their win rates, the premise is more or less the same. Businesses want to close most of the deals across their tables.
This article provides actionable tips for boosting your win rate and lets you in on the critical tool you need in your tech suite.
But before diving in, remember that you must first define what a ‘win’ is. This definition will guide all your succeeding maneuverings.
1. Invest in a sales enablement tool
A sales enablement tool gives sales teams an overview of the sales lifecycle, which includes a management system for content, marketing and training materials, and sales calls. This repository of sales resources makes all pertinent materials available at a moment's notice. For example, during a presentation, you can search for ‘revenue projections template Excel,’ and the system will pull it up.
It's a sophisticated, albeit vital, tool to effectively analyze data, information, and other resources that help close deals. This comprehensive tool covers the following areas of B2B sales:
- Sales training – It’s based on actual data from real customers. It also includes tools for onboarding new reps, real-time performance data, and sales rep performance.
- Sales tools – For example, when a prospect has concerns, reps can easily pull up relevant case studies and other resources to nudge them closer to a decision.
- Sales and marketing alignment – Apart from strategies, it includes cross-platform integration, allowing departments to share data and resources seamlessly.
- Sales metrics – It shows which initiatives are producing results and which should be shelved.
Having a sales enablement tool is undoubtedly critical to boosting win rates. However, with the abundance of options, finding one that perfectly matches your needs can be tricky. Take the time to ponder which areas of your sales processes need work and look for features that can amplify those areas.
2. Take time to understand the customer's business
Salespeople can be too hyper-focused on the pitch and their product's unique value proposition. This can trump the fact that the customer's success is, ultimately, what's important. As such, sales presentations should focus on how the solutions apply to the customer's business specifically.
Learning about the intricacies of their business will enable you to get creative in helping leads visualize concrete ways your solutions can enhance their operations. Your sales enablement tool will be integral to this endeavor, as it allows you to pull from a repository of resources and insights. It also ensures sales processes are aligned with marketing.
3. Nurture all leads across the funnel
With access to vast amounts of information, potential buyers come into conversation with your business at various stages of engagement. This means you should have tailored approaches for leads at different funnel stages. For example, you could nurture those early in the customer journey with content and resources about industry best practices and emerging technologies. How the solutions you're selling aid their pain points should be strategically intertwined with those content.
Intelligent sales enablement platforms are integral to this pursuit. They deliver data-based insights into every customer interaction and suggest the next steps with the highest success rates.
4. Cultivate relationships with existing customers
It's common to see salespeople close a deal and immediately set their sets on the next target. This undermines the potential of existing customers to be a source of referrals and cross/upsell opportunities. The people you interact with during the sales process are professionals with vast experiences. They've worked with different companies in the industry. A good word from them may be the only thing you need to close a sale and help your organization achieve growth.
It could be a simple email asking how business is doing and what's on the horizon. You could ask about the challenges they may be having, then send content you think they'd appreciate. You already have a relationship with these customers. That makes it easier to revisit them.
5. Analyze connections
A salesperson with a lot of industry connections is great. A salesperson who understands how those connections can impact the sales process is even better. There are now more people involved in purchasing decisions. This makes it crucial to analyze relationships and understand how they might influence deals.
Revisit past deals and the people you encountered and interacted with during the entire sales process. Which positions were in most of the meetings? Which had the loudest voices? This simple exercise can show you what you need to focus on in future sales processes. You might even discover a critical connection you may have overlooked.
There are sales enablement platforms that store and analyze all customer interactions over email, phone, and video calls. This can provide a different perspective from the sales reps, who are often too close to those conversations to see the entire picture.
Final words
As you can see, having a sales enablement tool is critical to success in this volatile business climate where businesses are hungry for results. It helps inform decisions and strategies while also aiding their implementation. It can even integrate fun into employee recognition through the gamification of performance metrics.
Of course, before an intelligent platform can help your organization, you need to identify areas for improvement. This will allow you to optimize the use of your tech suite and search for the one offering features that can help you the most.
