Category: Guest Author

If Closing Sales is the Problem, a Webinar is the Answer…

by mike

By Guest Author: Erik Luhrs, The Bruce Lee of Sales & Lead Generation

I get asked a lot of questions about sales. It’s kinda my job.

But the main question that everyone asks, in one form or another, is “How can I close more sales?” After all, at the end of the day that is what we all want, right?

Twenty years ago closing sales was pretty easy. You connected with a prospect, you built a relationship, you went through your process and you got check.

Of course twenty years ago, there were FAR less salespeople trying to contact your prospect, your prospect did not have Google to use for researching solutions (that was the salesperson’s job), your prospect had far fewer choices and far fewer distractions.

So technology has leveraged prospects AWAY from us. Thankfully, we can use technology to leverage them toward us. And the single best technology to use for that is webinars. Why webinars? Let me give you seven reasons.

Watch a short video here

Reason #1 – Webinars are second ONLY to Live events in terms of conversion rate. But webinars have an incredibly higher ROI than Live events because:

• You don’t have the costs (space rental, travel, electronics, shipping, insurance, staffing, food, etc) associated with Live events.
• You don’t have the time delay (3 months out at least and sometimes years) associated with Live events.
• You don’t have the hassle (scheduling, coordinating logistics, contracts, etc) associated with Live events.
• You don’t have the singularity issue of a Live event (you can’t “replay” a Live event).
And that’s just for starters.

Reason #2 – Webinars create instant Authority and Rapport

If you want to have influence over a prospect they must perceive you as coming
from, what I call, the “Mentor” position. This is the person who automatically knows more than they do, so they never question them.

There are plenty of mediums through which to display your “Mentor” status: Books, articles, blogs, podcasts…  But webinars beat all of these because they allow you to combine authority building with rapport building. How so?

Webinars affect all modalities (visual, auditory, kinesthetic), they are dynamic, they are interactive, they are live (usually), and they are intimate regardless of however many people are on. I’d like to see a book (even a NYT bestseller) do that!

Reason #3 – Webinars handle the “Value Proposition”

One mistake salespeople make is believing that they deliver a “value proposition.” They don’t!  The prospect determines what is or is not valuable. It is up to them, not us.  So the best way to help prospects determine our “value” to them is by exposing them to as much of our thinking, stories, philosophies, and ideas as possible.

Webinars are, obviously, a great way to do this.

Reason #4 – Webinars do the heavy lifting of Lead Qualification

One of the biggest pains in the butt is qualifying leads.  As you well know even the best qualification process still lets unqualified prospects through on a regular basis.  Every minute spent with unqualified leads is a minute less spent with qualified ones who can actually buy.

Webinars allow us to interweave our qualification criteria into them, subtly and directly, over and over. This “rinse and repeat” process filters out far more unqualified leads faster, while conversely reassuring qualified leads that they are in the right place.

Reason #5 – Webinars handle Objections faster and easier.

As we get further into the sales process we become more and more concerned about when the objections will show up. And we worry that we might miss them if they aren’t overtly stated.

Yes objections are a signal that they prospect is still interested, but the longer they simmer and hide beneath the surface, the longer the sales cycle takes and the more chance for derailment. And if an objection is not stated out loud, or handled directly, it is game over.

Webinars allow us to indirectly handle objections by addressing them through stories and demonstrations as well as handle them head directly by calling them out ahead of time. Since this is done in a virtual setting the prospect does not realize you are talking to him and his objections. They are simply eliminated without hassle.

Reason #6 – Webinars equal Leverage

Selling one on one sounds impressive. And yes, there are still pieces of the sales process that may require direct interaction between the salesperson and the prospect. But in today’s world, where technology is omnipresent and is used by everyone, focusing exclusively on “face to face” sales is a fool’s game because for every opportunity you get from face to face, someone else is getting 10 by using technology.

Every professionals dream is (or should be) to work once and get paid over and over. Webinars provide this kind of leverage by allowing you to address many people at once and/or recording your webinar and deploying it with prospects as needed and/or repurposing it for different markets or issues.You can’t do that face to face.

Reason #7 – Webinars close sales

At the beginning of this article I said the main question I get asked is “How can I close more sales?”  The answer I tell everyone is the same:
You can close more sales by opening more opportunities!

Salespeople have a tendency to become hyper-focused on the opportunities in their pipeline. This may be common, but it is foolish. We have no idea how many other issues, obstacles, salespeople, fires, and priorities are assaulting the prospects in our pipeline.

We’d like to think we are their main focus, but we aren’t. So your pipeline is precarious at best. And when they disappear “all that effort” we put in disappears along with them. But if we can put “all that effort” into multiple prospects at once, then our efforts automatically yield much higher results.

Webinars are the key because…

• Webinars allow us to engage more prospects faster.
• Webinars allow us to create authority and rapport with multiple prospects at once.
• Webinars allow prospects to discover our worth to them.
• Webinars allow prospects to qualify themselves in or out or our pipeline.
• Webinars allow us to handle objections effortlessly.
• Webinars allow us to leverage our efforts repeatedly.
• Webinars are (or are capable of being) the majority of the sales process.
So, when used properly, webinars allow us to “tee up” the sale.

And that is how you close more sales!

+++++++++++++++++++++

As you’ve seen webinars are an incredibly effective tool you can use to increase sales. But you can’t increase your sales with webinars unless you are actually DOING webinars!

If you are ready to use webinars to close more of your own sales, then you’ll want to check out this short video right now.

Metrics-Driven Sales Objection Handling – Feel, Felt, Found

by mike

(This article is by Guest Author: Gareth Goh, InsightSquared.com)

When faced with a bevy of objections – particularly from top-of-the-funnel prospects – sales reps might see their slim chances of closing this customer fading away. Sometimes, sales objection handling can feel like throwing up a Hail Mary, especially when the sales rep is unprepared, with no data at hand to counteract objections.

That’s where the “Feel, Felt, Found” methodology can help rescue some of these slipping-away prospects, especially with coupled with metrics and data during the last stage. Here’s how you should execute “Feel, Felt, Found,” with some metrics-driven sales objection handling during the “Found” phase to really pack a powerful punch.

Feel

Prospective Customer: I’m just not convinced that your product can solve my pain points.

Sales rep: I understand how you feel.

Saying this demonstrates empathy and shows that you heard what the prospective customer is saying and that you can relate. People want to be understood, especially when they are describing their pain points and skepticism. Saying this is a great way of disarming them, setting you up for the next step.

Felt

Sales rep: In fact, this customer I just worked with, Steve, felt the exact same way as you do.

Again, this not only demonstrates empathy, but also makes the prospective customer feel more comfortable in the knowledge that he or she is not the only one who has felt this way before. Their objection is, in fact, a common one. Your confidence in acknowledging so also suggests that you are comfortable dealing with this objection, and that the situation is fluid – in past instances where other customers have felt this way too, they soon changed their tone. Which takes us to the next step.

Found

Sales rep: I demonstrated X, Y and Z capabilities of our product to Steve and he soon found that the we could not only solve all the issues he was facing, but even made his life easier in these other areas.

The “found” part of this methodology is critical. For starters, referring to a specific customer provides social proof – if other people are finding success with it, this skeptic will be more convinced. Additionally, this alleviates the burden of selling from you – old customer Steve is now essentially doing most of the selling.

Where “found” really has potential to succeed, however, is when quantitative data is cited, with demonstrable proof in the proverbial pudding. Take us, for example. Let’s say we were talking to a hypothetical prospect looking to significantly increase their average deal size. They are highly skeptical that a sales analytics product like ours can help in that regard. But what if the sales rep follows up the “found” section by saying something like this:

Sales rep: I understand your need to increase your average deal size. A lot of people we talked to expressed this concern and weren’t sure that we could handle it. In fact, Steve Richard of Vorsight found that after starting with InsightSquared, their average deal size increased from $16k to $25k – a 56% increase!

And therein lies the power of data. Look at the difference that metrics-driven sales objection handling can deliver. Instead of making some vague general references to past customers who have found success with your product – “Trust me, lots of customers have increased their deal size tremendously after they started with us!” – talking about a specific customer, with quantifiable solutions to common pain points, will resonate much more loudly.

Of course, getting to metrics-driven sales objection handling during the “found” phase means having those metrics and data available to you in the first place. This requires a data-driven culture that is invested and interested in quantifying the success of their past customers. Metrics-driven sales objection handling is made even more feasible if you have a library of case studies to access. The quantifiable data of success, coupled with the social proof of other customers, makes metrics-driven sales objection handling as part of the ‘Feel, Felt, Found’ methodology an effective strategy.

How do your sales reps handle sales objections? Are metrics typically involved? Share your thoughts with me by emailing me – mike@mrinsidesales.com.

InsightSquared <http://www.insightsquared.com/> is the #1 Salesforce Analytics product for small- and mid-sized businesses (SMBs). Unlike legacy Business Intelligence platforms, InsightSquared can be deployed affordably in less than a day without any integration costs and comes preloaded with reports that real business people can use.

Learn more about Sales and Marketing Management Analytics on the InsightSquared blog <http://www.insightsquared.com/blog/>.