Sales Best Practices that Separate Heroes from Zeros (Part 2)

by Mo Yehia
August 4, 2014

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Note: This article was originally published in Sidewalk

In my previous post, "Sales Best Practices that Separate Heroes from Zeros", I wrote about the difficulties in selling technology to small businesses, why marketers and salespeople do it all wrong, and how technology providers can become more efficient by using some simple sales best practices. This post highlights some additional sales best practices aimed to help marketers and salespeople close more sales to small businesses in less time.

 

Don’t underinvest in customer success

Hold the hands of your first 50 customers. Give them lots of love. Call, visit, and talk to them. Ask them what they love and hate, and what they need. Then do it. If you put this off because you or your customer is too busy, the benefit or return on investment is unclear, etc, then you may be in for a rude awakening. There’s no substitute for personal, relationship building with customers. It’s invaluable.

Don’t tell prospects how great your product is, show them and offer value with a Free Trial

A Free Trial is the free use of a paid product with a time limit. There are two potential outcomes for customers - pay or go away. Free Trials are specific to smaller markets and cases where free users add limited value to other users and paying customers.

Freemium is another approach, where you give away access to some or all of your product for free without a time limit. Freemium is specific to huge markets and cases where free users add significant value to other users and paying customers.

There’s a ton of articles on both approaches, but overall, Free Trials are simple, and generally create more signups and sales. That said, always tailor the trial to the customer. For B2B SaaS products, most agree that a short, 14 days max, Free Trial is best. The more you offer to customers, the more genuine you come off, the more you can expect from them. It's why Cinnabon gives out free samples, then asks you to buy a roll for full price.

Define with the prospect what a “successful trial” means

While there's an ocean of possible customer success metrics, simply ask, “What does success look like? What do we need to accomplish with the trial before you move forward with us?” Remember that while you may define success as a customer conversion/sale, your customer defines it as the difference your product makes in their business/life. At a minimum, your customer should perceive value in your product, and at a maximum they should actually realize it.

If you don’t win 50%+ of the proposals you give out, you’re too easy

Instead, next time prospects ask about pricing or getting a proposal, don’t give it to them until you know they want it. Set up a scoping call with them and key people. If the prospect declines, either they aren’t a great prospect or you didn’t prove your value.

Don’t try to control how long it takes someone to move forward

Trust that they will become a customer someday if there’s a good mutual fit, you continue to nurture them, and your offer is relevant, useful, and solves an immediate pain point.

 

Sales 1.0 (promotion) is moving towards Sales 2.0 (attraction). Words like push, sell, market, and control, are now trumped by words like pull, service, WOM (word of mouth), and self-manage. If you only takeaway three sales best practices from my last two posts, remember that salespeople should be respectful, add value (even before prospects become customers), and be “pleasantly persistent.”

Happy selling!

 

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