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Articles by Liz Heiman
Increase Sales with a Sales Operating System
Thur, January 14, 2021 10am PST / 1pm EST Sales success requires the same systems and processes as all of your other departments. This is often referred to as sales operations. CEO and Chief Sales Strategist of Regarding Sales, LLC Liz Heiman helps companies turn sales into the beating heart of their businesses with sales operating systems designed for sustainable growth.
How to Refocus Your Prospecting Messaging
A month ago, you knew what to say when you picked up the phone or composed an email to prospects. You knew your ideal customer profile, your target market, and your value propositions. You had all the tools you needed to prospect efficiently and effectively. Now, some (or all) of that may be out the window as we adjust to social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
What To Do When Your Sales Team is Struggling
When sales teams struggle, I like to investigate three critical aspects of their sales strategy. Market Position Ideal Customer Profile Value Proposition A strategy that helps you hit your revenue target consistently always includes the above elements. Specifically, you need to understand your market position, identify your ideal customer, and define the right value proposition. Let’s explore each of these actions in more detail.
5 Gifts to Give Yourself this Season
Christmas is only 2 weeks away, which means you are deep into the 4th quarter and hopefully well on your way to hitting your year-end goals. If you are like most, the holidays are an unreasonably stressful time. Your family wants you to spend time with them, your clients are too busy to answer the phone, and you have deals to close. “It’s the hap-happiest time, of the year.” Take a step back and think about what you can do to help you turn the stressful holiday season into a successful one.
Why You Need a Sales Playbook
My clients often ask about sales playbooks. Should they have one? What format should it be? What should be included? How many should they have? To be honest, I have shied away from playbooks because the word has different meanings to different people. Which got me thinking about what a sales playbook is and why you need one. I talked to my good friend and playbook guru,?Kevin Quan, and he helped me sort out some of the details. What is a Sales Playbook?
How to Use Your Funnel to Grow Your Business
Liz Heiman October 17, 2019 | 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST Save your seat Are you managing your sales opportunities on a spreadsheet? Or do you have a CRM, but are not satisfied by the way it’s set up and worry it’s not forecasting sales accurately?
How To Use Your Sales Funnel to Grow Your Business
The sales funnel is a powerful tool. Once you understand what the stages of the funnel are and how the sales math works, your funnel will become a critical tool to manage your sales team, as well as the corporate resources needed to support sales and delivery. What is a Funnel? A funnel often referred to as a pipeline, is the mechanism used to manage sales opportunities.
Recession-Proof Your Sales - Alice Heiman, LLC
Have you been hearing rumblings about an impending recession? Wondering if it will happen? It’s likely. As an economist, I can tell you with confidence that the economy is cyclical, and this period of expansion has been unusually long. While employment numbers are still strong in the U.S., they are not as strong internationally. Since our economy is dependent on the global market to continue expanding, a contraction is likely. We don’t know when it will happen or how severe it will be.
Positioning Your Company for Sales Success
¾ Inch Bolts Were you ever walking down the street thinking, “Wow, I really want a ¾ inch bolt! Nothing would make me happier than a ¾ inch bolt.” When I asked that question in my last presentation, no one raised their hand. I wasn’t surprised because neither have I. In fact, the only way I could tell a ¾ inch bolt from any other piece of hardware is by the labels on the displays at the hardware store.
Why Aren't Your Key Accounts Growing?
How much money are you leaving on the table every year with existing customers that should be growing but aren’t? Do you know the revenue potential of your top 10 clients? If you don’t, you could be leaving millions of dollars on the table, because you don’t know it’s there or you have no plan to go get it. Looking for business in existing accounts is something many sales leaders assume their salespeople or account teams are doing. However, it is often not being done systematically or effectively.
This is How to Use Sales Strategy for Success
In May of 2018, Salesforce reported that 57% of sales reps didn’t hit their sales goals. Fortunately, by the end of 2018 things were looking up. Only 46% of sales reps didn’t hit their goals. If, like most companies, nearly 50% of your sales reps missed their quota, don’t despair. There is hope. If you want more of your sales reps to hit their revenue goals, the secret is in sales leadership and strategy.
Build a B2B Sales Organization from the Ground Up
By: Liz Heiman Categories: Building Relationships, Business Owners, Closing the deal, Entrepreneurs, Hiring salespeople, lead generation, Sales, Sales leadership, Setting Goals Start building your B2B sales organization by laying a foundation for success. When you are building a house, before you do anything else, you put the infrastructure in place and lay the foundation. A solid foundation ensures a stable structure. The same is true when you build a sales organization.
Lessons for Your Sales Team to Learn from Santa
With Christmas just around the corner, images of Santa Claus are everywhere. Kids are making Christmas lists, and getting their photos taken with Santa. Santa is the icon of the season. Why is he so popular? Maybe because he has a reputation for doing things the right way. Below are lessons your sales team can learn from Santa. Lessons Your Sales Team can Learn from Santa 1. Make a List Santa doesn’t wing it. He doesn’t just bop around on Christmas day hoping he doesn’t forget anyone.
6 Steps to Build a B2B Sales Organization from the Ground Up
By: Liz Heiman Categories: Business Owners, Hiring salespeople, Prioritizing, Sales leadership, Sales Management, Setting Goals, Strategic Planning Stop! Before you spend $100,000 or more on a salesperson, set them up for success. When you arebuilding a house, before you do anything else, you put the infrastructure in place and lay the foundation. A solid foundation ensures a stable structure.The same is true when you build a sales organization.
Customer-Focused Growth: How to Grow and Retain your Existing Customers
Most company leaders can tell you exactly what their growth goals are. They can tell you what markets they are pursuing, what products they are creating, and what companies they are targeting. What many can’t tell you, is their plan for retaining and growing their existing customers. Let me put it to you this way. If I told you I knew a sheep farmer who wanted to double his flock, but his practice was to leave the pen open when he went out to buy sheep… you would tell me he was crazy.
Want a World-Class Organization? Scare Away These Top 10 Signs that Your Culture is Terrified of Sales
CEO’s today must integrate sales into their culture if they want a healthy organization. In fact, they must lead, inspire, train, coach every employee about their critical role if they don’t want their company left for dead. Rate your organization to see how it stacks up. You have a scary sales culture if: If any member of your team cringes when asked if they are in sales, you have a problem. Let’s be clear: Sales success depends upon marketing success.
7 Steps To Build A Successful Sales Strategy
In my recent webinar, Sales Strategy or Train Wreck, I dug into what happens when sales teams of all sizes forge ahead without a clear plan. (It happens, and it happens a lot.) When Alice and I were talking about the webinar and the great feedback I got from it, she suggested I write a blog post on the topic. Good idea! We have all been in meetings when someone says, “We can sit around planning forever, or we can just get going and do something.” And, rightly so.
The 5 Cs of Effective Sales Management
Are you desperate for better results from your sales team? Before you fire them all, try the 5 Cs of effective sales management. Provide clarity, consistency, coaching, collaboration and don’t forget to celebrate! When asked, sales reps are surprisingly unclear about the sales process, priorities, goals, expectations and even how to put information into the CRM. The clearer you are about what is expected, the more effective your sales team will be in delivering the results you need.
4 Reasons Value Props Flop
It’s easy to know when your value prop is working because it’s resonating with the people you are talking to, and they are responding. They are saying things like “I need that” or “Can you do that for me?” (music to my ears.) When you receive a response like that it means you have identified your customer’s problem or an opportunity that is exciting to them, they understand it and they want it. But, sometimes you don’t hear that, and that’s when you know something is wrong with your value prop.
6 Steps to Setting Strategic Sales Goals
Setting an overall sales goal for a company is relatively easy. The leadership team decides how much growth is needed in real dollars as a percentage over last year’s sale. That’s a great starting place. To actualize that goal, build a sales strategy that breaks it down so that everyone understands what they need to sell by when and the best way to make that happen. Here are the 6 steps to set and reach your goal. Once you know the goal, figure out where exactly to focus.
Key Accounts: An Insider’s Look at How to Foster Relationships and Get More Sales
Do you ever wonder if your key accounts are growing as much as they could be? My clients are often shocked to discover how much money they are leaving on the table in their key accounts. When business leaders start looking closely at key accounts, they discover 2 things: Once you clearly see the opportunities and understand the risks, you can train your team to start recognizing them and train them to build strategies to capitalize on the opportunities and minimize the risks.
The Trade War means a Battle for Your Business: The 4 steps you must take now
No heavy artillery? No bullets flying? It doesn’t sound like much of a war. But, this could mean life or death for your business. When global giants like the US, China, and the EU clash, companies get caught in the crossfire. The battle around steel has been well publicized, but the steel industry isn’t the only industry at risk.
How to Use Your Funnel to Grow Your Business
Do you have a sales funnel? Or maybe you call it a pipeline? Maybe you don’t call it anything, but no doubt, you have a list of prospects that are somewhere in the buying process. Many smaller companies use Excel or Word to keep a simple list with company names, the buyer’s names, a price and the date the deals are expected to close. For other companies, their sales funnels are reports from the CRM or are complex reports sales leaders build in Excel.
How to Have Values That Support a Winning Sales Culture
Did you ever wonder why values are part of a strategy or strategic plan? It’s interesting how some people get really excited about mission, vision, and values, while others like to focus on goals and actions. I get it. Goals and actions feel like getting down to business, and vision and values feel like fluff to some people. There is a reason we do both. Your vision, values, and mission are the foundation for the goals.
This is Why Closing Deals is About Strategy, Not Luck
Do you sometimes feel like your sales team is counting on luck, instead of strategy and process to close deals? Of course, I am going to advocate for strategy and process but sometimes, yes, you get lucky and will get deals closed without it. You can grow a company on luck and many of you got where you are today without strategy and consistency, but I wonder how much more sales growth you could have had and if you can get to the next level.
What Happens When You Have Braindates with Founders
SaaStr Annual 2018 just wrapped up in San Francisco. After 3 days of non-stop networking, listening to incredible speakers and having many Braindates, I finally have a chance to sit down and reflect on what I learned at this mind-blowing event. I had carefully plotted out my 3-day schedule with a mix of sessions about Scaling, Start-Up Funding, and AI, but, to my surprise, that’s not what I did. What I did do was meet with founders who are struggling with issues around building a B2B sales team.
How to Grow Your Existing Customers in 2018
When you are planning your sales revenue for next year, how do you decide what it will be? Do you say, “We need to grow X%” and set your revenue goal accordingly? Or, do you look at your revenue sources and figure out how much potential there is for each? Whether you are creating a sales strategy or a business strategy, it is critical to know where your revenue will be coming from.
11 Tips to Make Networking Easier for Introverts
Networking, whether in person or on social media is a critical part of the modern sales process. If you are a sales leader, you have probably realized that while your sales team is primarily staffed with extroverts who are energized by any opportunity to engage, they aren’t the only ones who need to be out networking. Everyone on your team can benefit from our Connecting Your Way to New Business eBook as it provides some great strategies and tactics for better networking.
Warning! These 7 Things Will Make You a Spooky Sales Rep
I just couldn’t resist writing about spooky sales reps—it is Halloween, after all! You know, when all the spooky, creepy things are supposed to come out. It’s that time of year when ghosts, goblins, vampires, mummies, (oh and princesses), knock on the door trick-or-treating. I love being interrupted by spooky trick-or-treaters. I don’t, however, enjoy being interrupted by spooky salespeople. In fact, maybe Halloween is a good time to talk about how not to be a spooky, creepy salesperson.
This Is Why You Need a Clear Vision
I recently conducted a strategic planning session with the leaders of a consulting firm who wanted to add a retail component to their company. To clearly understand their vision so I could help them build a strategy, I asked them questions such as, “How much revenue will it make? How many people will walk through the door each day?
10 Things You Need To Build A Kick-Ass Sales Strategy
By now, you have probably figured out that developing and using a sales strategy isn’t as simple as determining how much money you want to make. A revenue goal alone won’t get you the long-term strategic sales you need to sustain growth. But, building a great sales strategy will help ensure the success of your team. Here are the 10 key components your sales strategy needs to deliver to get the kick-ass results you want.
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