Cold calling. Closing techniques. Qualifying prospects. Sales pitches.
These are all important sales strategies that many organizations use. However, if you want more business NOW – and who doesn’t – there are a few ways to close sales right away that you should definitely be using.
In this post, I’m going to walk you through three of the selling strategies we use every day to close more deals, and close ‘em fast.
Let’s dive in.
If you sell services, this sales tip works really well.
Sitting on a four-to-eight week (or longer) sales cycle is frustrating. Creating a sales strategy to close some of these prospects quickly is an effective way to combat long sales cycles – and bring in revenue.
Here are a few ideas of quick-close sales strategy services you can create:
Whether you have “pre-packaged” services or custom services, there’s probably some sort of standardized one-off service you can offer that will naturally transition into your higher-ticket services.
Our quick close selling strategy (which requires that we get on the phone two times MAX with a prospect) is generally some form of consulting, coaching or a program we sell for between $1,500 and $6,000.
For example, the screenshot below is a page our leads “book a strategy session” on – where we generally sell them into a consulting package as a first step before doing custom services.
For our marketing agency, that’s a small enough price point that most people are comfortable trusting us as the experts. We offer marketing guidance and then everything they need to create a campaign.
Another thing we do is a Runway (get it – Flight Media… Runway…). That is an in-depth strategy put into a book for our clients to put on their shelf for $6,000.
And the best part? They flow seamlessly into our primary offerings.
If you’re considering a quick-close sales strategy, here are some of the top reasons to go for it:
There are just two guidelines for creating something to help you close sales more quickly:
Side note:
About half of the businesses that hire us come through our quick-close sales offerings, and they become ongoing high-quality clients. This WORKS.
Product-Based Businesses:
If you’re a product-based business, you can create a special deal or entry-level product that people can buy, such as an extended trial. It’s actually a cheaper way to acquire the customer, because the cost of acquiring a new customer is five times more than retaining one.
This strategy is a true secret weapon. Most businesses focus on creating and implementing an inbound marketing plan, and they forget about using an outbound sales approach.
Inbound marketing has been the greatest thing since sliced bread.
BUT unless you have the time and revenue for organic leads to roll in (and they will, eventually) you’re still waiting around for leads to come to you.
So while you’re engaging with followers on social media, creating content and free offers, which will pay off on the back end, you’ll be employing your outbound sales strategy on the front end.
Having outbound sales strategy helps you predictably grow revenue without waiting around for referrals or sales qualified leads to show up on your virtual doorstep.
Many people think of outbound as cold calling. But it’s so much more than that. While your salespeople may still engage in cold calling, this sales tactic doesn’t always involve picking up the phone.
Outbound is pursuing targeted businesses with goal of acquiring them as customers.
They should fit with what you sell. And your target audience may be a specific vertical or industry.
Here’s how to build your outbound sales strategy:
Side Note:
We only utilize email and video voicemails (without calling) in our outbound strategy and we book 20-25 meetings per month, per sales rep.
Check out this video that got a meeting:
For example, we have a 10-email outbound sales email sequence that is very targeted for the industry we pursue. It’s dripped out over five weeks, with the goal of prompting a response and getting a meeting booked.
From this particular outbound sequence, we enrolled nearly 1,400 leads and 5% replying – amounting to nearly 70 conversations for this rep in one month.
If you use a contact database (or CRM) – and we hope you do! – then it’s essential to have a database sales strategy. This is simply a means of re-engaging with contacts within your current database based on actions they take – and is extremely low-hanging fruit.
Side Note:
First, know that not all CRMs and contact database management tools will allow you to employ the strategies I outline below. Our team uses the HubSpot CRM, so it’s pretty easy to implement this database sales strategy.
If you’re interested in a free Hubspot CRM walkthrough to see if it’s right for you, book a free strategy call.
Here are a few strategies to get you started.
When a contact already in your database downloads another free offer or submits a form on your website to get a free offer, it means they’ve reconverted and reengaged with you.
This is the perfect opportunity to reach out again – if the contact is qualified and you believe you can help.
We do this with our ebook free offers all the time. When someone downloads a new ebook, HubSpot automatically sends the sales rep an email, saying “this person has reconverted.”
So when the sales rep clicks into the contact’s profile and sees that they’re qualified, she or he will reach out via email or phone.
When a lead visits a particular page (or pages) on your website, your CRM can automatically notify that lead’s designated sales rep, so they can follow up.
For example, if a lead visits your pricing or specific services page for at least two minutes, then it’s a good idea to touch base with them – sooner rather than later – while the topic or problem is fresh on their mind.
Most CRMs allow you to assign point values to certain behaviors.
Then, when a lead reaches a certain point value, your CRM will auto assign them to a salesperson, or consider them warm or hot.
For example, we assign certain points for various actions:
Opening an email: 2 points
Downloading an ebook: 10 points
Visiting a blog post: 1 point
As the lead takes different actions, their point value climbs. When they reach 100 points, we consider them “hot” and their sales rep gets notified or a new one gets assigned.
If you segment your customers by service, every year, you can review your services and create a plan to cross-sell customers into other services.
So many businesses ignore this tactic. They never ask customers to buy something else, which is insane!
Cross-selling is another effective source of revenue, these contacts are generally the warmest leads that could possibly buy from you, and it’s the quickest way to get appointments and sales.
Here’s a tactic we use to cross-sell:
Every year, in the 4th quarter, we send an email to all of our contacts, announcing that we will be booking a limited number of free strategy sessions for the coming year. We create marketing game plans for free and get the ball rolling for them.
10% of our contacts end up booking a session with us.
We also send out an email once a month to our list, and tell people that we’re doing free strategy sessions. The session is free for the first five people, and after that, we say we’re charging for the service. But the goal is to fill the free spots and book appointments every month.
We always have someone who wants to hire us to implement the strategy, usually because we’ve built up some level of trust and they get to know us and our level of expertise.
These are the top three sales strategies we’ve used to get more business quickly. If you haven’t tried one or any of them, take a chance and see how your sales will accelerate.
