Data-Driven Selling By Sales Insights Lab

Basics of Sales

Tip #1: Trial and error isn’t a strategy.

I’ll repeat that: Trial and error is not a sales strategy.

If you compare sales as an industry to virtually any other profession—such as law, accounting, dentistry, medicine, etc.—it becomes apparent that sales is one of the only professional industries where there isn’t a governing body that regulates who gets to do that job, and what training they need to be able to do it.

Tip #2: Have a process.

We need to have a sales process that we can follow—a sales process that we know actually works.

When we use the sales process the same way every single time we sell, it makes it possible for us to diagnose exactly what went wrong when things don’t go as expected. Without a consistent sales process, it’s impossible to get useful feedback on what’s working and what’s not.

Tip #3: Bring insight to the table.

Now, demonstrating insight is the first part of any successful sales process. (At my firm, we teach this as the first component of our Sales Insights Methodology.) You must bring insight to the table up front, at the start of the sales interaction.

You need to engage your prospects with insight, demonstrating that you know what the heck you're talking about. And you can do that by giving them valuable industry information that provokes them or tells them something they hadn't thought of before.

Tip #4: Disqualify prospects.

This may feel counterintuitive if you haven't followed a lot of my content before. Disqualifying prospects is the opposite of what most salespeople are taught to do. Maybe you've been taught to qualify prospects, or that you need to convince or persuade them.

Instead, what you should be doing is determining whether each prospect is a fit—that’s it. If they’re not a fit, that’s cool. Focus on disqualifying people who aren’t a fit so you can move on and spend your time and energy on those who are.

Tip #5: Solve, don’t present.

The presentation phase of your sales process should demonstrate that you can solve your prospects’ challenges. When you take them through that disqualification process, you’re going ask them a lot of questions about what's going on in their world, so you can really understand their key challenges. Then, in the presentation phase, you should exclusively present to those challenges that the prospect mentioned. Leave out your features and benefits—your prospects don’t care. All they care about is whether you can actually solve their problems.

Tip #6: Be N.S.O.

N.S.O stands for Next Step Obsessed. Next steps are one of the most fundamental basics of sales. You want to be completely obsessed with next steps in your sales process.

One of the biggest reasons that sales fall apart is simply that the salesperson isn’t scheduling a clear next step.

And of course, the next step can be a sale. That's fine, too. But always have a next step in place, and be obsessive about scheduling next steps.

Tip #7: Use a prospecting blueprint.

The point is that your prospecting blueprint should be a prospecting campaign with a whole bunch of “touches” to the prospect over the course of a few weeks, so that even if they don’t respond to you, you get on their radar and demonstrate that you have valuable insight to share.

By the time you ultimately get them on the phone or you send them that fifth email, they remember who you are. They’ll think, “Oh yeah, that person left me a message on Monday. They tried me a couple of times last week. They just sent me a LinkedIn request. I’ll respond now.”

Remember that it can take more than 20 touches like this before the average prospect is going to respond. That's why we need that blueprint in place to keep us on track.

Tip #8: Think like a top performer.

Simply put, top performers have such great success in large part because of how they think. I challenge you to start thinking like a top performer. Top performers think confidently, calling as high up as possible at their prospect organization. They motivate themselves on a daily basis, getting up early and immediately doing their set sales activities. And they view sales as a game, so they aren’t afraid of getting no’s and they don’t take rejection personally.

Tip #9: Have a sales mentor.

Maybe you already have a sales mentor. If so, that’s awesome. But if you don't, you absolutely must get a sales mentor. If you’re just trying to figure out this whole sales thing on your own, it's going to be a very long and arduous road ahead. And there’s a good chance you’ll never make it to the end of the journey. Having a sales mentor who can guide you is so important.