If your outbound sales methods need a refresh, take a look at some of the proven strategies successful salespeople use.
While the sales world is focused on inbound traffic, promising outbound sales methods have lost some appeal. That’s unfortunate. Certainly, there’s a lot to be gained through a solid inbound sales strategy. But when you want to take a more active role in your success, nothing beats picking up the phone and calling prospects.
However, it can be challenging to filter through the numerous outbound sales methods to find ideas that work. And while it’s true that many of these methods have their benefits, you want to work efficiently. You don’t want to spend days or weeks trying to determine what will help you win a deal.
That’s why it’s helpful to look at your strategy as a whole. Ask yourself how all the pieces fit together to make your work more productive and how they help you reach your goals. Here are some ideas to get you on the right track.
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5 Outbound sales methods that work together and bring success
1. Prioritize organization. The first step in reaching your goals for any outbound sales methods is prioritizing your organization. All the calls, meetings, follow-ups, tips, techniques, and sales secrets can only help you so much if you aren’t organized. We’ll touch on this more below, but know that this is the foundational element of everything you do.
2. Build a customer profile. Your success in sales is partially thanks to your ability to solve a problem for a customer. For example, if you sell business insurance, you’re taking care of a business owner’s need to keep their business insured. If you’re a recruiter, you’re solving a company’s need to hire good employees. So, who is your customer? What are their needs? What can you offer that would make their lives easier? Think about this and build your customer profile. Make it as realistic as you can. Give them a name, describe their day, and then figure out how to best meet their needs.
3. Write a script (or several). Scripts come up often when we look at outbound sales methods. They also get a lot of eye rolls and sighs. But a script does not mean you have to read each line word for word to every customer. A good script should set the stage. It’s a document with all the necessary information and guidance for any call. In fact, you could follow it word for word and have a perfectly wonderful call. However, a good script also leaves plenty of room for salespeople to do what they do best. Don’t be afraid of sales scripts. They are there to help you, not constrict you.
4. Make the right calls. With your customer profile and scripts ready, it’s time to make sales calls. There are outbound sales methods for this, too, though. If you run to the phone and start calling random people, you may have some success, but you’ll work a lot harder for it. By narrowing your call list to people who are likely to be interested in your product or service, you’re giving yourself a significantly greater chance of success. You’ll spend a lot less time hoping for a good connection and a lot more time working towards a sale. How? Indeed, this depends on your industry. LinkedIn can be an excellent place to learn about B2B prospects. Your website could bring you lists of people interested in your services.
5. Ask for referrals. Referrals may be one of the most underutilized outbound sales methods. Put simply, they work. When your reach out to a referral, you have social proof behind you. Someone appreciates your product or service enough to put their reputation behind you. That gives you a huge advantage. And so often, salespeople don’t ask for referrals. Whether they don’t want to push things too much or don’t know how to ask, referrals get left out of the conversation. That means they also get left out of the possible successful sales. You don’t have to overdo it or make a big deal of the situation. Simply closing a deal and asking if they know anyone who could benefit from your services or products is all it takes.
Add any one of these outbound sales methods to your strategy, and you’ll see improvements. To get the full benefits, though, put them together. At worst, you’ll feel more organized and secure in your approach. And that’s not a bad place to be.
As for keeping everything organized, a good dialing system will help you track your calls, make it easy to access information about previous conversations, and give you plenty of data to keep everything working together smoothly and efficiently.
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