Arm Your Sales Team with These 6 Key Tools

Sales and selling is a vital activity for all businesses, small and large. There are several elements to a successful sales call and generating more sales.

First of all, what does it mean to have a “successful sales call”? It can mean several things, but simply a successful sales call is defined as one of two things: one, closing the prospect of doing business with your company; or two, moving the customer closer in the direction of doing business with you. Ideally, the goal is to shorten the time distance between contacting and closing the prospect.

If growing your small business means selling in an ever-widening circle, the tools you employ to help your salespeople in selling your products and services are a combination of two parts marketing, two parts enlightenment, and one part sales technique.

My question is what tools are you equipping your sales team with to help them make a sale?

The following is a list of the basic tools you need to close more sales:

1. Needs survey. Every business is different, but the basic elements of a needs survey are the same. What problems do they have? How is the problem affecting their life? How important is it to solve the problem?
2. Full-color brochures and sell sheets that demonstrate the solutions to the problems. Important tip, avoid the urge to create brochures and sell sheets where you include a laundry list of products and services you sell. To be effective, sell sheets should be targeted to no more than one product or service.
3. Bio-sheets for each salesperson. This helps them become known by the prospect and also helps build credibility. Have fun with the bio sheets and resist the urge to become too stiff and boring. This tool should be relaxed and very human.
4. Testimonial and success story sheets. Success story sheets are a vital tool to help your salespeople handle objections build confidence in your business and get you more sales.
5. Presentation Tabbed File Folder. These folders are designed to separate your business from your competition. They help to make your salesperson and your business look professional. These folders are a hot new trend that is professional and inexpensive.
6. Consider training. Be honest with yourself about sales team skills and efficiency. Invest time drilling and training your salespeople, especially on how to approach the prospect, doing a needs survey, and how to close interested prospects, will pay dividends of 10x to you.

Tabbed File Folders

All of the tools you provide your sales team should be designed and tied together with a common look and theme. One of the keys to getting more sales is to make sure your team has the best tools they can have.

In recent years many businesses have switched to sending information via electronic to cut costs. This is okay, but the problem is a question of effectiveness. Surveys have shown that people do not fully read product brochures and PDFs emailed to them. Your prospects are overrun and brain-fried by the amount of information sent to them on their computers. Their attention span is short and it is more difficult, if not impossible, to capture their attention on their computer screen. Prospects are more likely to read materials that are printed and given to them or mailed to them. Professionally designed and printed marketing literature gets noticed, gets read, and is more effective.

If you want to separate your business from your competition you have to invest in professionally designed and printed materials for your salespeople. The cost of full-color printed materials has come way down in the last few years, mostly due to digital printing techniques. You can also order smaller quantities now and get a great price.

©2024 Mark Hale, All Rights Reserved.