11   Proven Ways to Skyrocket Sales

**The 11 Proven Ways to Skyrocket Sales**

As a sales manager, have you ever been frustrated with the lack of responsiveness from your team? It’s easy to feel this way when you are struggling with the same obstacles for days, weeks and months. How can we get our sales reps back on track?

Sales professionals know that consistent daily follow up is what it takes to make each prospect happy and satisfied. If they do not hear from their rep after multiple attempts, they will most likely look elsewhere and give up on the product or service that was offered to them in exchange for their time. 

Let’s face it: There are many obstacles that can get in your way as a sales professional.

But those obstacles don’t have to stop you from growing your business. The good news is that there are many different ways to overcome these hurdles and increase sales. The following article will highlight a few specific methods and tactics you can use to make sales reps more responsive, generate more leads and ultimately grow your business.

For instance, let’s take a look at how one company was able to increase their response rate by more than 400 percent!

As an eCommerce company, this company’s focus was on selling on the phone and through email. They had an extremely hard time getting their leads back because they weren’t moving along the sales process as quickly as they wanted.

Getting the initial appointment with a prospect was the most difficult step. The fact that they were starting from square one after leaving a voicemail or email told their sales reps that their calls weren’t being handled quickly enough.

To increase their response rate, this company implemented a tactic called “Repeat Follow Ups”.

With this tactic, whenever a sales rep made an initial phone call, he would follow up twice within 24 hours in order to build trust with the prospect. This ensured that the lead didn’t feel like he was getting blown off by his rep. They even built a habit of calling back within the same day if the prospects didn’t respond.

Boom! What do you know? The results were amazing! This company increased their response rate from 18 percent to 42 percent.

Of course, this was an extreme case, but it clearly shows how effective “Repeat Follow Ups” can be. While this tactic alone won’t solve all of your sales issues, it is a great place to start to make changes that can have a positive impact on your business.

If you want more information about how you can implement “Repeat Follow Ups” into your sales strategy, check out this article:

==> www.stepaheadonline.com/the-11-proven-ways-to-skyrocket-sales

The 7 Biggest Mistakes You Can Make in Sales (And How to Avoid Them)

--> The 7 Biggest Mistakes You Can Make in Sales (And How to Avoid Them)

1. Using out-of-date sales tactics.

There are lots of traditional sales tactics that work great, even though they're old. But if you haven't updated your approach for the new digital world, you might be missing out on the right ways to connect with customers today.

"Don't be a dinosaur," says entrepreneur Paul Jarvis of ThereAreNoRules.com and an expert on using social media effectively. "If you're using tactics that were effective for your predecessors, but no one's doing them anymore, then you're going to fail."

In his book Small Things Considered , writer Henry Petroski wrote that the most important things in life are those we take for granted. The same can be said about sales tactics.

When you've been using a certain sales process for a long time, it's easy to forget why it works. You know the process by heart and don't need to actively think about it anymore.

But if you don't take an occasional step back from your sales process and use it objectively, you might be missing out on new opportunities to improve your sales results.

Check out these five ways to make sure that you're using the right sales tactics for today's customers:

2. Not testing your ideas.

When we're in a sales slump and don't know what to do next, sometimes we'll try something that just seems "right" from an emotional perspective.

We'll try something new, even if we can't articulate what it is that makes it different from our usual sales steps. We might even act on a gut feeling instead of picking the most logical approach.

But then when the new tactic doesn't work, we get discouraged and give up on trying something new—until later, when we try something else that turns out to be equally ineffective.

This kind of roller-coaster rhythm is a common pattern for salespeople, says sales trainer Alex Larkin .

"If you identify a problem with your sales process, try something new. If it doesn't help, go back to your original process until you find one that works," he says.

You'll find more ideas to help improve your sales results in this free e-book , like "How to Distinguish Yourself on Contact" and "Why You Should Implement an Email Sign-Up."

Be sure to check out this blog post as well:

3. Not testing the performance of new hires.

HR managers are often the first people to notice when sales reps aren't performing well, says marketing coach Ian Klein .

They're on the frontline of evaluating new hires, so they're more likely to spot potential problems.

Since no one wants to hire ineffectual employees, HR managers are always looking for ways to prevent them from making it onto their team. So if a new hire isn't performing as expected, HR will probably notice—and have already started looking into ways that they can improve that employee's performance before he or she is considered for promotion.

If you're hiring salespeople, make the most of your HR department's insight into new hires by asking about the biggest problems each sales rep has faced. You can then take steps to prevent those problems from happening in your own organization.

4. Not investing in prospecting efforts.

Sales manager Dana Manciagli once hired a sales rep who had a lot of experience with other companies' products, but was completely unfamiliar with his company's offering .

She wisely supported the rep's training in order to give him the knowledge he needed for future success, but she also couldn't help noticing that he spent less than an hour a day calling new prospects on his own initiative.

He also didn't have any prospecting material or his own scripts for calling prospects, so he struggled to get a conversation started.

"The business owner was frustrated because I didn't seem to be making any progress. He couldn't understand why I was taking so long, and he told me that it wasn't fair that I knew more than this new rep but wasn't putting it to use," Manciagli says.

This lead was unsuccessful even after Manciagli stepped in and started coaching him on how to contact prospects more effectively.

Conclusion: Because of all the ineffectiveness she was seeing, Manciagli realized that even though the rep was an experienced salesperson, he wasn't as effective as he could have been because of his lack of training.

That experience inspired her to start a program called "Full Contact" and sell it to other salespeople. The program is composed of a training module that teaches salespeople how to identify prospects, develop relationships with them and make closing deals happen.

Manciagli also created a tool to help reps track prospects and monitor their performance over time so they have objective data to use when making hiring decisions.

For more information: www.fullcontactmarketing.com ==> http://www.stepaheadonline.