5 Secrets for a Superior, Silo-Free Sales Process

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Sales Selling

If you’ve always longed to read an article about sales written by a marketer, you’re in luck! That’s this article. The reason I’m able to write this? Once you break down the silos that exist between your go-to-market teams, you can look at your sales process the same way you look at all your go-to-market functions. Being great at selling, like everything else, is about knowing your customer and putting their experience first.

 

Sales Secret #1: Know Your Buyer Journey

 

You may think you already have this one down, but hear me out. There are lots of different ways to look at your buyer journey. While I won’t say there’s a right or wrong way, you should always be intentional about the lens through which you’re looking.

What does that mean? Well, we’ve worked with plenty of companies that define their buyer journey by the internal functions that take place between each handoff. Each team focuses deeply on their role at a specific stage but loses sight of what happens before or after. That’s no good.

 

To have a successful outbound sales strategy, you need to know more than just what your prospects are experiencing top of funnel. Get together with the rest of the revenue team and map out the entire buyer journey, paying special attention to what your criteria are for every stage.

 

Having this holistic view of your sales pipeline and zeroing in on what your customer is feeling and doing will help you spot gaps earlier and be prepared to meet your prospects where they are.

 

Tactical Tip: Create a customer-centric journey map!

 

Sales Secret #2: Know Your Content

 

If you’ve ever been on LinkedIn, you’ve likely seen countless posts about how to better align your sales and marketing teams. When it comes to being an effective sales rep, regardless of your experience level, getting acquainted with your marketing content is a must.

 

When you spend a ton of time prospecting, researching, and selling, it might feel like a big ask to go and audit the content that exists on your blog, social channels, etc. It’s worth it, though! Whether you’re in marketing or sales, your goal is to provide value with every interaction. The way you do that is by offering up content that addresses the pains you know your prospect is feeling before you ask them for anything. 

Doing a content audit, or meeting regularly with your content marketing team are both excellent first steps here.

 

Tactical Tip:  Go through your publicly available content and map it to journey stages, pain points, etc. Know what will be helpful and have it at your fingertips.

 

Sales Secret #3: Know Your Target

 

This section is dedicated to the great Becc Holland, everybody’s favorite inspo for all things personalized. We’re living in the age of data! We know everything about everyone, and it’s both terrifying and extremely beneficial.

When you’re doing personalized outreach, there’s this tendency to overthink it. Particularly when you’re following a formula or template like Becc’s, there’s a ton of pressure to stick to the steps exactly. But, y’ know…that’s not really personalizing. 

 

Just a heads up: you will need to do research, and it will take time. Them’s the breaks. 

Once you know what to look for, though, your research time will start to decrease. For example, if you find something on your target’s LinkedIn page that tells you something about them as a person, use it! It doesn’t have to be a detailed list of their pain points in order to be valuable.

 

Tactical Tip: You are a human. Your target is also a human. Write an email that you would open and respond to.

 

Sales Secret #4: Great Communication

 

This one is gonna be hard to write; I can feel it. If I’m honest, there’s really no way to teach anyone how to communicate. HOWEVER! There are some really good tips and tricks that I swear by when it comes to communicating in writing, speech, or even body language.

 

As a woman who has been told to “smile more,” I hate myself a little bit for this first one. Still, making the person on the other end of the Zoom call feel comfortable is imperative when you’re asking them to put money and capital on the line for you. Smile. Laugh at their jokes. Relax.

 

Body language matters. Don’t cross your arms (if you do that on Zoom, we have bigger problems). Don’t touch your face, bite your nails, or twirl your hair. Lean into the conversation, not away from it.

 

Listen to the person you’re selling to. This feels like it should be obvious and yet…

If they’re immediately all business, cool. If they talk about what they did over the weekend, reciprocate. Basically, forget you’re “selling” for a second and be a person.

 

Ask the right questions. Ever been on a call with someone who never stops talking? Fun, right? No. Make sure to pause in between your talking points to let your prospect give feedback, ask questions, or engage with you as a person. A good rule of thumb? If your monologue, written out, would be multiple paragraphs, you’ve probably been talking too long.

 

Tactical Tip: Watch your call recordings! We use Chorus.ai for this. Watching back your calls will help you see where there’s room for improvement in your communication style.

 

Sales Secret #5: Know Your Competitors

 

Let’s preface by saying: Never trash talk your competition. There will always be someone who does something better than you do, and the only thing you’re accomplishing by denigrating your competitors is making yourself look petty.

 

Instead, do your research and acknowledge your flaws. Ask what features are relevant to your prospect that might be missing in your solution. Be straightforward about the fact that you care about making your product better wherever you can. 
This is also important when it comes to objection handling. Having a foundational understanding of who your target accounts are comparing you to will help you craft solid answers for the inevitable moment a prospect asks, “why you?” 

 

Tactical Tip: Keep a list of your leading competitors and key facts about their solution.