Sales performance is defined by results, and results are defined by the metrics you measure. But which metrics are most important? There are dozens of key performance indicators (KPI), including revenue quotas, network size, influencers reached, deals closed, prospects found, and more. The list goes on.
However, in today’s technologically crowded sales landscape, the simple metric that separates today’s top performing sales reps from the rest is success itself. Not the success of the salesperson, no—the success of your clients should be a major yardstick of your sales team’s prospecting and sales techniques.
Are you sales reps providing value to as many prospects as possible? Top performing social sellers figure out how make their buyers successful first. Then they sell. Here’s how they do it.
Social Selling Mastery
Every salesperson thinks that they’re an expert, but if that were true, every sales rep would exceed their quota. Author and marketing and sales futurist Don Peppers shares a few insights from Jamie Shanks book Social Selling Mastery for what really separates today’s top performing social sellers from the amateurs.
“The basic concept of ‘social selling’ revolves around the time-tested principle that the best possible selling initiative is one that starts and ends with the prospects,” Pepper admonishes. He goes on to list several social selling checklists contained within the book, but stresses one crucial characteristic that sets top performers apart from the rest—value.
“Make sure that every interaction you have with every prospect provides some kind of value—to them.” The shortest path to any sale is adding clear and present value to your prospect.
19 Habits of Highly Effective Salespeople
So you want a clear, common sense checklist of what makes a top performer? David Ly Khim, co-marketing manager at HubSpot lists 19 habits that will make you a more effective salesperson.
Habits include: building strong social networks, active listening, empathizing with prospects, knowing the product inside and out, and personalizing all of your communication. However, the central habit of highly effective salespeople is simple—they prioritize the prospect’s success.
“Salespeople don’t stop working as soon as the prospect signs on the dotted line. Instead, top reps touch base frequently with their customers to seek feedback and provide tactical suggestions,” Khim concludes. The best social sellers are always working for the prospect, even after you’ve made the first (of hopefully many) sale(s).
The Modern Sales Team
Success is a moving target. LevelEleven CEO, Bob Marsh, suggests readjusting your KPIs towards the buyer instead of only internal success is one of the crucial shifts taking place in the modern sales team.
Marsh redefines the role of modern social sellers. “Buyers have changed how they buy. They expect a salesperson to teach them something, which means reps must take on the role of an educator—someone who understands the buyer's challenges and enlightens them about potential solutions.”
Another change for modern sales teams is how they measure success. “Instead of trying to manage your team only around closed deals, focus on the activities that define your sales process from lead generation to wins,” Marsh advises. “Indicators include metrics like conversations, meetings and even demos.”
Every step that moves the prospect closer to success is an integral part of how modern teams sell.
Accelerating Social Selling Adoption
Social selling is the fastest way for your sales team to become experts at achieving prospect’s success, but change can be difficult. The tips and best practices contained in LinkedIn’s Accelerating Social Selling Adoption make it a breeze for your team to search for and target valuable prospects, multiply and leverage network connections for mutual benefit, and track results with unique Social Selling Index scores (SSI).
“We’ve found that we can use technology to become social-selling experts, which lets us become subject experts. Nobody selling in our field can succeed without being perceived as trusted experts,” shares Bryan Gonzalez, business manager at ProCore.
Embrace the power of social selling and become the expert your prospects need.
Success is Always the Goal
Every salesperson should have the buyer’s success in the forefront of their mind. This guiding principle informs how they structure their ideal buyer persona, initial contact, follow-up, sales pitch, demo, and, ultimately, their relationship. If you prioritize your prospects success at the outset of the buyer’s journey, you’ll never have to second-guess your tactics down the road.
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Topics: Sales management
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