Managing Introverts in Sales

Managing Introverts in Sales

According to a recent survey more than one thirds of the world population are Introverts. Managing them in sales quite is tough; don’t be surprised by looking at the world’s top introvert prominent leaders.

People recharge themselves by being silent and need periods of solitude in order to be creative and productive. Mostly these employees prefer to eat alone, be quiet at team meetings and avoid gossip completely, but when you are in a problem they are the one’s who can come up with a great idea.
While managing Introverts you would need to give them time to think and gather their thoughts and the chances of getting great ideas are more. Take feedback at regular intervals when you have given them adequate time to think through it. Ensure that you provide them with adequate space for them to come up with appropriate solutions. Silence is really a big thing because he is already coming up with a plan.
In the era of virtual communication leverage social media usage is maximum with introverts, freedom to express ideas and writing out a response is more appealing to introverts.
Give them the time and support them to present their ideas and while recruiting charismatic extroverts don’t neglect the quite one’s to help you grow strategically.
These important tips for managing introverts aren't a to belittle or to pamper to help bring out the best, whose talents and strengths can greatly benefit organizations and help businesses grow.
Happy Selling !

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Inside sales – Introverts

Inside sales – Introverts

All through it is mostly perceived that sales people should have an extrovert personality and the ability to display resilience attitude amongst others. We also try to include MBTI (Myers Briggs type indicator) assessment while interviewing candidates. However a little latitude is provided when you working at Inside sales, Personally I look at these qualities where a candidate takes time out to read and educate himself or stuck with the rigmarole, if the candidate takes time out to come up with creative solutions, you may not be eager or lack enthusiasm to stand up or volunteer proactively and wait for people to take your opinion and send cues to focus on your thoughts and attention inwardly.

I like hiring introverts because they are someone who enjoys reflecting on their thoughts and avoid unnecessary social chit chat. The only challenge is that you will not be a conversation starter and people may perceive you as someone superior these areas have to be honed. You would need to reveal your thoughts and feelings by being true to your personality and not seem antisocial.
You could also look at my other article "managing introverts in sales".
Happy Selling!

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Inside Sales quality – Achieve 100% and maximize revenue

Inside Sales quality – Achieve 100% and maximize revenue

For Inside sales managers:

“Winning is not everything, but the effort to win is” - Anonymous

Every one aspires to have successful sales careers but keeping aside the office politics, is there a measurement criterion to evaluate your every move. Would it give you consistent growth? As an Inside sales manager you would need to gauge and create a very strong script which should not just cover technical features and appropriate rebuttals but also pitch relevant qualification questions which helps us to understand the customer. And once you have the script ready you should ensure all the inside sales representatives are strong at performing it without missing any detail in the script,  There should be a certain amount of weightage given to the energy on the call and the genuine urge to help the customer. 

Once you confirm a final script for your team then your representatives would need to repeat this activity day in and day out with every single customer. Ensure that this activity is recorded and evaluated and opinionated by an unbiased auditor. Start rewarding the team’s top performers to encourage inside sales representatives and play their calls to ensure 100% participation to achieve the highest quality scores and you will start seeing phenomenal results. I would like to reiterate that there shouldn’t be any possibility of a customer conversation happening which is bucketed outside the category criteria. Once you are able to achieve it then the combat is about overcoming objections.
You would need to conduct a workshop and only handling objections and jot down the best statements which should be replicated and rehearsed. All your energies need to focus on successfully handling the objection.

You may want to look at my other articles like " The wolf of wallstreet is asking you to sell a pen"
happy Selling!

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The wolf of Wall Street is asking you …. “Sell me this pen”.

The wolf of Wall Street is asking you …. “Sell me this pen”.

Since the inception of my sales career at every sales interview it is the most used common question which was asked “Sell me this pen” I used to start bragging about the features and then relate why this pen was an advantage to buy over others and then move to how it is going to benefit to the customer. Now Sales is not like writing a line of code managing a balance sheet or knowing an answer to a particular questio, Sales is mostly about the resilience factor. Your ability to handle every objection and combat it with an appropriate solution and still there are many customers who will not buy.

My Irish sales trainer Noirin told me that she did not want to use the pen to write, she wants to place it in the fancy coffee mug on the office table. The importance of profiling is very essential but sometimes curtails the liberty of the customer to choose. There have been quite a few cases where the customers get confused “ This happens when you try to sell Once a friend tried to sell a $500 K Big data solution and just because there was pressure to up sell the add on’s he ended up confusing and losing the sale.
I also heard a few sales people use strategy called convince, confuse or cheat. Convincing is fine but the other two horrific words confuse and cheat is a definite NO. This strategy is never good for you or the company, because the post sales division is going to be face challenges and it would be an unpleasant experience and may result in big losses/ legal penalties for companies.
So when you sell it is not just about features, advantages and benefits but also assure him about post sales, Always pressurizing for a budget would also not be ideal and if you find resistance don’t push them. Most of the men I know don’t plan budget they just go buy for the features or specific quality.
Hence I would say that the priority is not just about handling objections and answering standard rebuttals but to understand that and not every customer is the same, Listen carefully, look out for cues to relate and questioning skilfully and again look out for cues and create an analysis and read out what he stated by constantly assuring him what he said he wanted and you bundle it together and send him a quote. This model will help you reach your quota and improve customer satisfaction which can guarantee referral business as bonus.
You may read my other articles like "The sales mantra".
Happy Selling!

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Storytelling -- A Sales art

Storytelling -- An Inside Sales art

Gone those days when granny used to tell bed time stories to children which embarked strong moral values in to the children’s physiological system. I started playing lullabies from you tube for my daughter which put her to sleep. No matter how you would use technology to your advantage selling is definitely a human thing, You would need to integrate a lot of factors like your previous success stories, your expertise in helping similar customers, testimonials, case studies which were executed, awards.

Storytelling is a very powerful way to share knowledge. A good story like the one in a television commercial will make it people not just talk but also emotionally connect and inspire them to change. Stories stay in the mind with a powerful meaning rather than reading out just technical product features. It leads to rich conversations and efficient results, your connect with the customers stays on and most likely generate repeat and referral business.
A corporate story helps customers understand the direction in which the business is heading. The classic way to tell a story begins with an current scenario or an opening scene and then how the crisis began and how you helped companies enable their services and your differentiators and then you move to the climax, invite questions and then go for the close.
You could also look at articles like "the wolf of wallstreet is asking to sell the pen"

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Inside sales- communications skills at conference calls

Inside sales- communications skills at conference calls

“A man is seldom better than his conversation”- anonymous. It is imperative that communication plays a vital role in the functioning of an Inside sales team. The most important asset which we rely on is conference calls and hence it is essential that we use variety of communication techniques to both understand and be understood.

Communication is the process of sending and receiving information through speaking, writing, visual images and body language and at conference calls you can eliminate body language. The objectives to conduct a conference calls is to essentially change behaviour, to get action, to ensure understanding, to pursue and exchange of information. When you have six people talking in a two people conversation the efforts are only 70% and often it is misunderstood, misinterpreted, rejected, distorted or not heard.

The most common errors on a call would be to help finish other sentences, preparing an answer before the question is completed, multitasking while on a call, presuming meaning based on the orator, and talking on behalf of others. Mostly these days with the work from home option being available the attention paid on the conference calls is relatively less.

Ensure you join in a three to five minutes before the call starts, don’t start chatting with others until everyone joins, once you join in the call state your name and introduction if required, ensure you use the mute button and switch off or keep your mobile phones on silent.

Hence the best way to be prepared for conference calls is to have a pen and paper handy so you can stick to the outlined agenda, ensure you choose a location where you are not distracted and can focus on the subject, I recommend you to not stay away from your monitor unless you have to view the relevant business presentation because if you are then the chances are that you could respond to some email/instant message/review reports irrelevant to the subject and multi task. First essential factor is listening effectively, understand it completely before speaking, speak to be understood and seek understanding before proceeding further and most importantly repeat.

Please ensure you never, ever put on hold this is the most miserable experience on a conference call. Do not play with paper, move chairs or tap your pen or any distracting noises on the call.

Please view other articles like "story telling - a sales art"!


Happy Selling!

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Primary Responsibilities: Inside Sales Executive

Job description: Inside sales executive.

• Inside sales executive should cold-call / email prospects that are generated by external sources and identify decision makers within targeted lists to pilot the sales process.

• Inside sales executive must penetrate all assigned accounts by handling inbound enquiries, unsolicited prospect calls and outbound calls to existing customers via phone and email. He should emphasize product/service technical features, quotations, discuss payment methods and prepare sales order forms and/or reports to convert them in to sales.

• He/she should perform Post Sale Follow Up (call customer to ensure welcome letter and contract start date are correct) in coordination with service delivery engineer as appropriate

• He/she should develop quotations in cooperation with the Pre sales administrator based on identified sales strategy and information collected from customer or partners.

• He/she should collaborate with Sales Supervisor and Account Managers to determine necessary strategic sales approaches needed to perform ongoing customer need analysis, research of customer requirements through first party resources.

• He/she must create and deliver qualified opportunities to Account Managers and maintain and improve the company’s database of prospects and assist in creating RFP responses to potential clients.

• He/she should follow up by passing leads to account managers with calls to action, dates, complete profile information, setting up sales presentations product /service demo’s .

• He/she needs to assist in customer escalation as per escalation procedure and perform routine follow up calls as per renewal procedure to hit Renewal Sales Goals

• He/she needs to follow up and completing Contract Activation Variance & related reports and attend periodic sales training where applicable.

• He/she should perform reporting functions on an ongoing and timely basis including Quotations, pipeline follow up, renewals and assist in completing sales projects including proposals and marketing.

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