Staying organized in any role is key to success, however when you are working with different clients it can be overwhelming. These are the tools that I use on a daily basis to stay organized in sales.
First Steps Getting Organized Working with a New Client
When we begin working with a new client, our goal is to begin outbound sales efforts as soon as we can. There are several steps we take to familiarize ourselves with the product or service are clients are trying to sell, and learn more about the goals they are looking to achieve. We start our work with what we call a Sales Fast Start Plan and in essence, it is a questionnaire we send to our clients that then gets transformed over an iteration or two into a sales plan providing us with messaging (for calls, emails), targets (sectors, companies and contacts), qualification questions, objection handling information, sales process/methodology, and goals (activities, meetings, proposals, wins). Generally, the majority of our work is executing the sales plan, 95% of our effort is the act of doing sales. We white-label ourselves and then make calls, and outbound emails on your behalf for this part. Our goal would be to book meetings for you and then quarterback the leads to close. Over time as we get to know your product better and the ins and outs, we can take over more and more of the sales process and will require less of your help on the front end. We do suggest that clients are always involved in the close. For a majority of our clients, we use Hubspot as the CRM to manage our outbound efforts and track all interactions with prospects. For information about a sales strategy consider this article.
CRM Tips and Tricks for Staying Organized
Often times, we find ourselves working with 15-20 different clients at any one time and keeping information documentation among these clients can sometimes be one the biggest challenges. As mentioned we use Hubspot to log all activities with prospects which includes call notes, emails and email templates. Currently, I work with 5 different clients who are involved in different industries however, each of them need help with their own respective outbound sales efforts. The use of email templates for each client are an important step in the sales process to help you save time in your outreach efforts to prospects. I developed other tips and tricks to keep organized between each different account. One step is to ensure all information in Hubspot is constantly updated to detail where interactions stand with each prospect in the sales process. I use several tools to receive valid emails and direct phone numbers of the prospects I’m looking to reach out to, consider this article for more information. Another example is if I discover a phone number that’s proven be an incorrect phone number for a contact I usually make a note in Hubspot with the incorrect number and mention that this is a wrong number for that respective contact. The same process would be repeated for an incorrect email. For more information on staying organized consider this article.
Tools I Use to Stay Organized
Outside of a CRM there are other tools I leverage to help me stay organized when working on sales and other duties. An electronic calendar helps me remember important tasks or dates planned for dates in the future. I like to update my calendar throughout the day as needed and review it again first thing in the morning to see what I have planned for the day. The use of the calendar becomes even more important when you begin to confirm sales meetings for different clients. There are times when we are confirming meetings for clients in Europe or in different time zones. Keeping track of different time zones can be a tricky thing to keep track of however could cause you difficulties if its overlooked. A free app you can use to manage time zones around the world is called Time Buddy and is quite easy to use and keeps your time zones organized when needed. To research for different prospects for clients we use LinkedIn sales navigator which helps in generating lists we can leverage for outbound sales outreach. There are more tools you can leverage that focus more on automation and in some cases AI usage. Consider this article for information on more tools to consider.
Remember the goal in staying organized in sales starts with your sales plan and find what works best for you. If you need help with more tips you can reach out to me.
