The Art and Science of Sales: Three Levers to Pull to Increase Sales Results
There’s an art and a science to great sales process, and sales leaders are constantly trying to make sure that this process is ideally optimized. Steve Bonvissuto, of MarketSource, was on the Playmakers podcast with Gabe Larsen, director of InsideSales Labs. He spoke about the three levers you can pull to increase sales results.
Steve is executive director of innovation for MarketSource, a sales outsourcing company. They have developed a proprietary, proven process to improve sales funnels and deliver better sales.
Audit Your Sales Process to Increase Sales Results
The process improves sales revenue by focusing on three key points.These are sales training, eliminating time wasters and using sales acceleration technolgy. He detailed the process in the XANT podcast: “The Art and Science of Sales: Three Levers to Pull to Increase Sales Results.”
Listen to the podcast below:
Step 1: Sales Instructional Training
Step one to improve sales revenue is instructional training for sales teams, showed Steve. Sales reps need to know how to approach gatekeepers and build that relationship to reach decision-makers.
“It’s all about your approach, and really the first things that you say need to help build that initial rapport. You don’t want to come across too salesy, and you don’t want to appear like a telemarketer. We’re not telemarketers, we’re salespeople,” said Steve Bonvissuto, on the podcast.
He advises that sales reps always understand the industry they are selling in, and ideally have a background working in it. This way, they can build rapport with the gatekeepers for optimal sales process.
Step 2: Optimize Sales Process and Eliminate Time Wasters
The next step is to optimize the sales process and minimize or eliminate time wasters, shows Steve. There’s several steps you can take to eliminate inefficiencies. One of them is working on time spent within the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.
“Your CRM, you want to be able to make it as seamless as you possibly can for your sales reps. You also want to be able to report on what they’re doing, so that you can begin to change. We don’t want to put a lot of text in a CRM, so you want to avoid creative writing,” shows Steve.
He adds that sometimes, sales representatives sometimes end up doing customer support, when they should be selling. You need to recognize when this happens and make sure to avoid it, adds Steve.
Step 3: Sales Acceleration and AI Technology
Sales acceleration and sales enablement technologies do a lot to increase sales productivity, shows Steve. Using these technologies, you can customize your CRM to make sure all reps’ activities are contributing to revenue. Furthermore, using artificial intelligence can take the guesswork out of prospecting and help you focus on the deals that are more likely to close.
He recommends XANT technology to help increase efficiency for sales teams in any industry. The AI powered predictive capabilities of the InsideSales platform allow sales reps to focus their efforts where it matters and minimize time wasters.
“We model out the day in a life of the sales rep. Then we customize the CRM to make sure that the technology is aligned with the business process. […] The way we set up your technology with InsideSales and Salesforce is that it becomes a tool that reps to accomplish their job. It’s not just another tool that they need to go into at the end of the day to demonstrate that they’ve done something for the day,” concluded Steve.
If you want to find out more about how to minimize time wasters and optimize sales team’s activities, follow the PlayMakers podcast with Steve Bonvissuto.