5 Tips to Make Your B2B Sales Team Successful

Whether you’re new or an experienced sales manager, I think we can all agree that managing a team of sales reps isn’t easy. We aren’t all created equal and each one of us brings a different personality and skill-set to the table. It’s your job to make sure you’re getting the most out of your team. Here are a few tips that can help make your B2B sales team successful.

 1. Create a Strong Training/On-boarding Process

This is where it all begins. How well you’re able to prepare your sales reps for what’s to come will determine how successful they are, which will result in a decrease in turnover. Give your team the tools that will help them do their jobs to the best of their ability, such as B2B sales techniques that have proven to work. Allow them to shadow your best performers so they have an idea of what an effective routine looks like.

2. One on One Coaching

If a teammate is struggling or having a hard time picking up on something, take the time to understand where the disconnect is. Listen to their recordings, ask what’s wrong or if there are any additional sales materials they need that would help.

Take time out of your day to give your team one on one support to help them with B2B sales strategies and tactics. This will not only be an opportunity for sales team building to establish a bond but will get any issues out in the open, so they can be addressed moving forward.

3. Establish Sales Goals

There is nothing worse than not knowing what is expected of you. Clearly establish specific, measurable, achievable, and time-based goals for your team to benchmark themselves against.  You can use data from past performance to help put together different plans that make sense for everyone, both old and new.

4. Communication

Hold regular meetings to update your team on progress to goal, provide feedback on current campaigns, and communicate any changes that could impact their sales process. Email is a nice tool to use but shouldn’t be a crutch as information can easily be misinterpreted through text.

5. Celebrate the Good

78% of employees said being recognized motivates them in their job. A lot of work and preparation goes into hitting goals, so let your team know they’re appreciated! This is one of the simplest things to do, yet often neglected.

Sales will always present unique challenges that you’ll have to overcome but understanding what you CAN control will really go a long way when it comes to keeping your team on track for success.

Download our guide to improve your lead generation and appointment setting strategy!

Creating a pipeline of leads can be challenging and time consuming especially when you’re selling a product or service that requires an appointment for a one on one conversation or meeting.

While there’s no secret formula for generating leads that works across every business and industry, there are several tools that we have found make the odds of success higher and faster and we’d like to share them with you!

3 Ways to Follow Up on B2B Inbound Leads

Wherever you look online, it seems as if everyone is telling you that you need to generate more leads to grow your business. However, do you have a plan for converting those leads into customers or members? Oftentimes, pitching a sale to new, cold leads will likely not lead to a sale at all and even turn off your potential client from wanting to hear from you ever again.

We discussed how quickly you should follow up with inbound leads, but if you still aren’t sure the best ways to follow up, this blog post will help you start planning.

Immediate Email Follow-Up with Value

The simplest way to follow up with B2B inbound leads is to send an automated email immediately after they fill out a form. This form can be as simple as asking your potential customer to fill out the form if they want more information on your services or signing up to receive a content upgrade download in your blog post.

According to GetResponse, a triggered email averages an open rate of 46.53% and a click-through rate of 10.98%. This high engagement rate is due to sending relevant information to your subscribers in response to their actions in your emails or on your website.

Sending an email instantly after someone raises their hand is key because it reaches them while they are still interested in your business. It also allows your customer to be engaged with while giving your sales team time to personally follow up.

Don’t know what to send in a new member follow-up email? We have a blog post to help you create the best email for your members!

Email Automation

Awesome! You sent your lead an immediate email! But you don’t want to stop contact there. Creating an automated email sequence takes leads down your funnel without needing a team member spending time sending individual emails. They can then use their new-found time more efficiently on answering email replies or calling leads who have indicated greater interest.

An email automation sequence also helps familiarize your leads with your company. When 81% of sales happen after 7 or more contacts, automating emails allows you to keep getting in front of leads and can also assist your calling methodology.

Categorize and Distribute leads

When working with inbound marketing to generate quality leads for your sales team, categorizing leads in your CRM is of the utmost importance. Why? Because your team may choose to handle a marketing qualified lead (MQL) and a sales qualified lead (SQL) differently.

Internally, when there is a new MQL, we take additional steps to further qualify that lead and ensure that there is a good fit for both parties. We want to ensure that they are at the right stage in their business and our sales funnel prior to pitching a sale because as we all know, a warmer lead is easier to convert than a cold one. The key is to not make assumptions on whether or not a lead is a good fit for your business because writing them off without further investigation could have you leaving money on the table!

For SQLs, we have indicated in our CRM that they are a more qualified lead based on a variety of indicators, such as types of pages they visited on our website (think pricing) or lower funnel form fills. Rather than continue sending them more marketing information, we make sure our sales team understands how quickly to follow up with leads and the cadence they should follow.

Download Our Step-By-Step Guide for Ideal Inbound Lead Follow-Up Strategy Now

We’ve tested several strategies in our own business and on behalf of our clients and found that the ideal inbound lead follow-up strategy requires 2 things:

1. Urgency in response

2. Commitment to sales cadence if the prospect does not immediately answer

Fill out the form to the right to download our step-by-step guide to effectively follow-up with inbound leads.

Hubspot's take on why cold calling is dead

I recently published a post called Cold calling sucks.

As I was surfing LinkedIn and other sites today, I stumbled upon Hubspot's take on the same topic, titled, "6 Data-Driven Reasons Why Cold Calling Flat Out Sucks." 

Their research is sound, and their data doesn't lie. In fact, it takes my emotional rant about how much the actual action of cold calling sucks, and adds a lot of data behind why the practice of cold calling doesn't actually accomplish what you want it to accomplish.

I, however, disagree with the fact that cold calling is dead. I'm more prone to line up under another post written by Mike Schultz at Rain Sales Training, where he explores, as I did in my previous post, the various reasons why.

Without regurgitating his entire blog post, I'll wrap up here by saying, just because it hasn't worked for you yet, doesn't mean cold calling doesn't work.

If it's not your forte, accept that, and find a partner who's an expert in inside sales.

If it's too expensive, find a way to hire someone cheaper, or look into developing a well-structured co-sourced sales strategy.

If you're focusing on networking events, writing a book, speaking engagements or other high-octane methods of driving funnel activity, awesome! Fill up the spaces between these events with time-tested, well-executed prospecting.

Where do you fall on the scale of "cold calling's dead" to "cold calling works"?

Cold calling sucks.

There it is – I said it.

Cold calling flat out sucks. It always has. It always will.

It’s probably the best way to generate consistent, quality leads.

But it sucks.

It’s a time-tested way to clean up your old database and find new business from old customers.

But it sucks.

It’s the quickest way to test the waters in new markets.

But it sucks.

It’s an absolutely necessity to keep the top of the sales funnel filled so your closers can focus on closing.

But it sucks.

It’s a way to supplement the slower drip marketing campaigns that generate inbound leads.

But it sucks.

It’s a safe way to gain initial traction when launching a new product.

But it sucks.

It’s an efficient way to qualify prospects and deliver higher-quality leads.

But it sucks.

It doesn’t matter how many positives there might be, cold calling will always be a necessary yet terrible aspect of your marketing and sales process. It sucks because it’s hard to find someone who will make dozens of calls a day while representing your company well. And it’s hard to staff for seasonal demands, not to mention if I do get someone good, they’re valuable enough that they want to move up in the company or find a better opportunity elsewhere. Or the other problem – they’re just not good, but you can’t afford to pay someone more to attract higher talent.

And it just sucks.