The ABCs (easy as 123) of Productive Sales Teams
The year is 1970, and The Jackson 5 have just exploded onto the music scene. Their hit songs “I’ll Be There” and “ABC” will not only endure the test of time, they’ll mark the beginning of the meteoric career of the king of pop himself, Michael Jackson. Sales success stories don’t get much better than that. Who better then to give us all a refresher course in the ABCs of successful sales productivity?
Here are five simple tips (one for each member of The Jackson 5) that could boost your sales productivity to the top of the charts in no time:
1. Let your sales team sell. In their debut year, The Jackson 5 released four albums and replaced The Supremes as Motown Records’ best-selling group. Compare that output to Pace Productivity’s estimate that an average sales representative is only able to spend 22 percent of the workday selling and the disconnect quickly becomes apparent.
Get your hands on tools that automate time-consuming tasks like researching key data, visualizing competitive insights, and unearthing past purchases. Your sales team will be free to make more sales and the real-time data they’ll be armed with will help them win more often too.
2. Get social. Before The Jackson 5 made it big, the group was championed by both Gladys Knight and Diana Ross. Even if you don’t have your very own Empress of Soul to rely on, you have access to the biggest audiences to ever exist: social media. Customers do research on social sites long before they reach out to sales representatives. By establishing a social presence of their own, your sales team joins the buyer’s journey earlier on. Connect with your existing customers too. You’ll make it easier for them to recommend you to a friend.
3. Inspire the masses. The joy and energy the Jacksons imparted was infectious. It made those hearing the group feel that they were part of something bigger than themselves just by listening. Make your own customers the heroes of your company’s story. Personalize your interactions with them by tailoring their customer journey just for them. With collaborative sales technology like videoconferencing and chat on your side, you and your team can provide support and solutions from day one of the sales process, even if you’re selling to a client from across the globe.
4. Give the people what they want. In 1973 The Jackson 5 departed from their pop roots and topped the charts with the decidedly disco Dancing Machine. The song embraced current trends and rocketed The Jackson 5 back to the top.
If you read the signs and gather insights into the minds of your own customers, you can keep yourself on top too. Why call the general information line at a prospective company when you share a contact with its CFO? Aided by tools that do the digging for you, your team will know who to reach out to and when.
5. Stay ahead of the trend. In 1971, Motown Records launched 13-year-old Michael Jackson’s solo career, delivering unto the pop music scene an artist who’s inherent showmanship and perfectionism would change the name of the game forever. Keep your finger on the pulse of your conversion rates, win rates, and pipeline value with intuitive analytics tools that give you a holistic view of sales while also providing the depth of insight to discover even the most surprising of trends.
That’s it for our retrospective on The Jackson 5, but if you want to dig deeper into the essentials of sales productivity, check out our e-book: Always Be Closing: The ABCs of Sales in the Modern Era.
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