3 Tips to Land Bigger Deals and Blow Away Sales Quotas
Salespeople don’t have it easy. There’s the pressure to increase revenue, close more, and surpass quotas, all while competing in an economy where the largest challenges to closing deals are low-cost providers. But there’s good news: you can still blow past quotas without increasing the number of deals if you can increase the size of the deals you have in the pipeline.
Building a world-class organization can be hard. That’s why we built an online tool that helps sales leaders start asking the right questions to audit their organizations. Like:
- How much of your time is really spent selling vs other activities?
- What technologies are you using to track sale rep compensation?
According to sales experts, professors, and analysts, there are a handful of surefire tips that will help you increase your deal size.
#1: Build trust with your prospects way before they enter your pipeline.
It’s the oldest sales tool in the book—people want to buy things from folks they trust. But according to author and professor Shane Gibson, the larger the deal, the more trust is required.
Social media is the easiest way to build trust. Use LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social networks to connect to prospects—and convert them into larger customers. For example, you may use LinkedIn to write about your expertise in your product’s field, or Quora to answer questions about your product (or general questions about your product’s category). Both position you as trusted advisor.
#2: Develop your emotional intelligence to connect more deeply with your prospects.
Most salespeople feel like they can “read their clients” and respond appropriately. Sales expert and author Jill Konrath believes salespeople need to go farther, specifically developing emotional intelligence to improve performance, including closing bigger deals.
For example, take time to learn both (1) your own hot-button issues and (2) what makes prospects tick. This is a baseline “people” skill but dramatically enhances your ability to connect at a human level.
#3: Take advantage of money-saving upsell opportunities.
It’s a bit counter-intuitive, but customers will pay more to save money.
“Prospects are always on the lookout for ways to save their companies money,” says Oniel Willams, a sales writer for the Houston Chronicle. Pointing out that a larger sale equates to a lower cost per user [is a great way to get the attention of the CFO].
To upsell effectively, you need:
- something else to sell them,
- and to know what their needs are beyond the initial lead.
The first is in your wheelhouse, and the second relies on having access to data (or a solid relationship) with your prospects.
A little juju
Most salespeople will tell you that selling is more art than science, and even though salespeople live in a world of numbers, the key to landing bigger deals isn’t easy to quantify. But taking these tips from the experts, and understanding how the best sales teams blow their quotas away, are great ways to start growing your deals.
If you want to see how you and your team rank against the world-class sales teams, and get strategic recommendations about how and where your org can improve, use our tool:
