Turning Leads Into Sales: Expert Driven Tips to Boost Your Sales Success

Generating new prospects and initiating contact with them is exciting. But your business can only thrive if your sales team is actually converting the majority of those leads into sales.

To be fair…

The sales process is usually complex for a lot of organizations. There are many challenges facing your sales reps that could be contributing to your low closing rates. From finding the right sales opportunities to dealing with competition and negotiating with decision-makers, anything can lead to unfulfilled sales targets.

So in today’s guide:

We’ll share with you seven great tricks on how to convert more prospects into clients and increase revenue. You’ll discover why each tip matters and how you can apply everything to develop a highly-efficient sales process.

You’ll also learn three popular sales mistakes that can destroy your progress and how your salespeople can easily avoid them.

Ready?

Let’s get started.

How to Close More Deals for Your Business: 7 Powerful Tips From Sales Experts

Salespeople are expected to be creative in the way they communicate with each prospect and how they get to the closing phase. That’s because potential clients differ based on their needs, expectations, and level of interest. So it doesn’t make sense to have a concrete, step-by-step process to always follow.

But:

It’s important to note that the way sales can be approached doesn’t have to change every time. In fact, there is a sales roadmap with clear steps to follow that can help any sales rep close more deals.

Here are seven sales tips to help you increase your win rate and close more deals in less time:

1. Define Your Target Audience

Identifying your target audience remains the #1 tip for improving sales performance and closing more deals. Simply because talking to the right prospects has a huge effect on conversions — so it makes all the difference between a failing sales company and a successful one. 

But what is it exactly that makes lead targeting so important?

By defining your target prospects, you’ll guide your marketing efforts toward producing relevant content that answers important questions in your industry. You’ll also be able to promote each piece you create on the channels where your target leads are most active. 

On top of that…

Having an ideal customer profile (ICP) will allow you to improve your outreach as you’ll be able to prioritize leads effectively. Your sales reps will waste less time chasing the wrong companies and focus instead on accounts with a high chance of converting.

So how do you define your target clients?

As a first step, you need to conduct thorough research about your leads and then create an ICP. This usually includes identifying a set of attributes and breaking them down into three main categories, which are demographics, psychographics, and company details.

Some of the most important attributes to consider are:

• Demographics — job title, seniority, location, industry
• Psychographics — pain points, objectives, interests, values 
• Company details — company size, geography, budget, revenue, industry

Next:

Analyzing your existing customer base can often help you fill in any knowledge gaps in your ICP. Choose some of your most loyal customers and look closely at their profiles. No matter how well you think you know your customers, there’s always more to discover about them by looking at analysis reports.

Competitor analysis is also a brilliant way to understand your ideal leads, their pain points, and the offers that might grab their interest. There is no need to reinvent the wheel entirely if you’re going to sell products and services in an established industry.

2. Anticipate Objections Before They Arise

It’s normal for potential clients to have many questions about your offers. New leads will come with many misconceptions surrounding your products and service due to the previous experiences they’ve had with other companies.

That’s why it’s crucial for your sales team to start nurturing new leads as soon as they enter the funnel. Before you can even start thinking about conversions, you have to move target prospects past the awareness stage.

To anticipate all possible objections, you need to create highly-informational content that can help your leads gain more confidence before making a decision. Case studies, whitepapers, blog articles, or ebooks are all great content formats for educating target customers without pushing them away.

Aside from that…

Providing relevant answers is also a must if you’re serious about increasing sales. You must offer each prospect a unique solution based on their expressed needs and your previous experiences dealing with similar clients.

This is a great way to leave a positive impression on your prospects, minimize friction, and save both of you time throughout the sales process.

3. Ask The Right Questions

In many times, a prospective client is ready to move to the next step of the sales funnel when asked the right questions. But the challenge for salespeople often is knowing which questions to ask.

For example:

A sales-ready lead might walk away if you spend too much time nurturing them with interest-stage content. But on the flip side, a sales rep might seem too pushy if they make an offer or start negotiations with prospects who have just entered the sales funnel.

In other times…

Prospects may not even be aware of the roadblocks that are slowing them down. They know things aren’t going right when they look at the bottom line, yet their analysis of the situation may not always be accurate.

Whatever the case, you need to help potential clients understand what they’re dealing with by asking them open-ended questions. As you guide the conversation by asking such questions, you’ll be able to close deals much more quickly and efficiently. 

A simple example of these open-ended questions would be:

• What is your main priority as of now?
• How is this challenge affecting your company’s growth? 
• Have you tried any solutions to fix that?
• Do you have a deadline/specific timeframe for fixing this problem? 

Not only does this approach help you evaluate where each lead is in the sales funnel, but it’s also an excellent way to show prospects that you’re listening closely. 

4. Use a CRM System

The CRM market size is expected to grow from $63.91 billion in 2022 to over $128.97 billion by 2028 — according to Fortune Business Insights. This growth only goes to prove the importance of CRM systems in today’s business world and how more companies are beginning to use this technology to boost sales.

But how exactly can a CRM system help your company?

Implementing a CRM is one of the best ways to streamline your sales process and increase productivity. It’s a great solution for managing customer data with ease and keeping your sales activity organized throughout the whole process. 

Not only will CRM software allow you to manage all contacts in one place, but you can also use it to track their progress and interactions. In addition, a CRM can be used for automating your sales funnel to take some of the heavy burden off your sales team’s shoulders.

5. Grow Your Sales Team to Accelerate Performance

Hiring more salespeople can often be an effective way of handling more clients and supporting your business growth. But increasing headcount isn’t a magical solution that will make all your sales problems disappear.

That’s why…

Before you decide to recruit anyone, you first have to make sure that your current sales reps are working at maximum efficiency and that you’re providing them with all the resources they need.

When it comes to growing your sales team, you could either hire new salespeople internally or outsource some of your sales tasks to a third partner. The truth is, both options can work for your company as there are pros and cons on both sides.

However:

Outsourced sales is often a quicker, more efficient solution since you’ll be recruiting experienced SDRs who can close deals. You’ll also save a lot on the hiring process, training and onboarding, as well as office equipment.

6. Get Over Rejection Quickly

Okay, let’s face it…

Some leads are never meant to convert, no matter how well you nurture them and how qualified your salespeople are. TK

The prospect may need more time to make a final decision they can be confident about. And that’s when it becomes important to leave the conversation ongoing by asking open questions that can help keep both of you on the same page.

And in many cases, the “No” has nothing to do with your approach or what you’re offering. The potential client is just not interested because they either don’t have the budget to afford you or don’t have a burning need for your solutions.

7. Align Sales And Marketing

To ensure that everyone in your company is rowing towards the same goal, your sales and marketing teams need to be fully aligned. That’s because the success of both departments depends on how well they can work together.

Sales and marketing alignment starts with your company identifying business objectives before launching the campaign. Members from the two teams need to be well aware of the challenges you’re trying to overcome and the strategies you’re going to use.

From there…

Your marketing people will start creating high-quality content that can be used to generate new leads or nurture existing ones. It’s preferable to include your sales team, as well, in this step to encourage collaboration and establish a joint vision throughout the process.

As a result, your sales team will get many quality leads to work with and great content to use for prospect nurturing.

3 Mistakes Preventing You From Turning Leads Into Sales

Just like there are good practices to follow, there are missteps to watch out for if you’re serious about increasing sales for your company. The tricky thing about these mistakes is that they often seem unimportant to avoid or are hard to spot by sales reps.

Three sales blunders to avoid if you want to close more deals:

1. Wasting Time on Gatekeepers

Gatekeepers exist to screen out salespeople and minimize any outreach attempts that could be a waste of time to the decision maker. They could either be a receptionist, an assistant, or any employee with no decision-making power that is ready to talk to you.

The problem with gatekeepers is that no matter how valuable your offer is, you’ll never advance in the sales process or get to close a deal. That’s why you should always avoid wasting time on this step and move faster to dealing with decision-makers. 

One reason you might find yourself stuck with gatekeepers is that you haven’t made a connection with the manager. It’s impossible to get high-level executives to respond to you and listen to your sales pitch if they know nothing about your company.

Other times, it could simply be that you don’t have the contact information of any decision-makers within the organization. Managers in many companies are trying their best not to have their phone numbers and email addresses easily accessible to everyone.

Here are a few tips to help you easily bypass the gatekeepers:

• Focus on getting past the assistant instead of trying to sell to them
• Show assertiveness but always be polite in your interactions
• Make gatekeepers your allies by respecting their work and gaining their trust 
• Reach out to decision-makers via different sales channels simultaneously

2. Focusing Mainly On Features

“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!” — Theodore Levitt

Focusing on holes instead of drills makes all the difference when it comes to sales. This single tip can send your sales performance through the roof if applied correctly.

A feature can represent what your product or service does and how it performs compared to the competition. A benefit, however, highlights the end result for the customer and what they should expect after taking your offer.

Potential clients want direct solutions to their problems, which is why they’re always after real value. So while you might think the features you’re presenting are awesome, many prospects couldn’t care less about them unless the benefits are clear.

That’s why:

You need to build your sales message around how your product or service can be beneficial to the target company. Your sales pitch must always go over the advantages you can offer — within a clear context — to encourage target customers to make a decision.

3. Not Using Different Outreach Channels

Not converting enough prospects?

The reason could well be that you’re using the wrong sales channel.

A multi-channel approach in your sales process offers great diversity in how you can reach out to prospects. It maximizes your chances of getting quick responses because it gives your leads different options on how they can respond to you.

So how do you adopt multi-channel sales outreach in your company?

It’s always a good idea to start with two or three channels at first — which can be email, cold calling, and LinkedIn. This enables you to reach prospects where they are but without overwhelming your sales team with a lot of duties.

After that…

You can use automation software to handle everything for you from outreach to performance tracking. This is really important considering how such tools can help you maintain contact across multiple touchpoints and personalize messages with no additional effort on your part.

Bottom Line

Spending weeks up to months chasing leads and never closing them is hard on your business. Not only is that a huge waste of time for your sales team, but it’s also a sure way to decrease profits and slow your growth.

Closing more deals starts with having a complete understanding of your target market and which clients you’re going after. The more you know about your ideal customers, the better you can craft your sales message to anticipate objections and ask the right questions.

Using a CRM automation tool is always a must if you want to free up your salespeople’s time to focus on important duties. You should also consider hiring or outsourcing more SDRs if you feel that your sales team is overwhelmed with the workload.

There are also blunders to watch out for throughout the sales process to elevate your success. For instance, it’s common for sales reps to overlook the importance of decision-making power from the start — which makes them spend a lot of time talking to the wrong people.