RIC Centre Sales Training Sessions Recap

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Earlier this year we had the privilege of working with the Mississauga RIC Centre on developing and delivering a sales training and mentorship course for companies residing in or that have graduated from the RIC Centre. Working closely with Pam Banks, Executive Director of the RIC Centre, we designed the course to provide tangible assistance from a sales strategy and sales execution perspective.

There were a number of key takeaways from the course including:

Setting Sales Goals

Setting sales goals is easier said than done and building Excel models is nice, but you have to ensure the revenue numbers you set are achievable. To do this, you need to look at your sales conversion ratios (number of outbound calls, emails, meetings, proposals etc… that lead to a close). You also need to have a good understanding of the average value of a sale. Once you know these you can work out the activities required to hit your numbers. Sales is a process, it is a methodology you follow. Following the process is key to success and you can only achieve the results you desire by accomplishing the activities. Creating sales strategies, talking about who you can target and the messaging is nice but ultimately you need to execute. Remember too, for a lot of B2B sales processes, closing times can take 6 to 12 months or longer.

As an example, a tech company has built a widget that sells for $50,000. Their sales goal in year 1 is $500,000. Therefore they know they need 10 new customers to meet their target. They have found that for every 20 outbound calls or emails they do to companies on their target list, 1 company expresses interest and will eventually go to proposal. For every two companies that go to proposal, they close 1. Therefore, they need to do 40 calls and emails to close 1 new customer. With that, we know that we need 10 customers to meet our goal so need to do 400 outbound calls and emails to meet the goal.

Targets

Who you are selling to is obviously an important question. Take some time to figure out which vertical(s) you are selling to and which business pain(s) you are solving. We recommend startups focus on a core vertical (or two) and develop an expertise and competence in that arena. Once you have your vertical(s) nailed down you need to look at who in the organization is the target. The important thing here is there could be a number of target contacts that you need to influence and win over. This could be the individual(s) using the solution, this could be the senior management team responsible for budget, this could be the procurement group responsible for contracts and payment etc. We typically recommend when selling you call in high at the C or VP level to start with the expectation that you may be pushed down the chain.

Value Proposition

First of all, your solution needs to be solving a business pain. In our experience, to have a chance at success, your product or solution needs to do one or more of the actions listed below. If it does, then continue on, if it doesn’t, reconsider what you have.

  • Help drive revenue
  • Reduce expenses
  • Create an efficiency
  • Mitigate a risk

It doesn’t matter what you are trying to sell, you need to have messaging that will attract and interest a prospect. Your value proposition should cover who you are, what you do, what business pain you solve and the sort of benefits you can provide. For the benefits, you should try your best to have a number of quantitative metrics included because numbers sell.

Your value proposition will be converted into a number of useful sales tools including a call and email script, your elevator pitch, brochures, posters etc. You also need to be able to modify your message to your audience. A non-technical audience will need a different message than a technical one.

If you are in need of assistance from a sales and marketing perspective feel free to contact me. I would be happy to see if we can help. Alternatively, if you are simply looking for a source of excellent sales and marketing information, please feel free to sign up for our newsletter or follow us on Twitter.

RIC Centre Sales Training Sessions Recap