Sales Strategies to Achieve your 2020 Goals

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The new year is underway and many businesses are eager to fine-tune their sales strategies. Think of your 2020 sales strategy as a guiding light your team can use to illuminate your way to a successful year. With the right sales strategies, your organization will be empowered to hold a customer-first mindset, educate prospects, drive higher conversion, and improve ROI. If you’ve made a New Year’s Resolution to improve your sales organization’s strategy, here are some tactics you can employ for better results.

Build Stronger Customer Relationships

The rise in technology has made a profound impact on the sales strategies companies use to convert leads into paying customers. The constant online noise has forced businesses to search for approaches that drown out the competition. Technology will continue to progress throughout this new decade. However, no tactic is better for business growth than building strong, long-lasting customer relationships.

Businesses that place more focus on customer relationships have a better grasp of their prospects and customer’s needs. And as an added bonus, stronger relationships increase word-of-mouth marketing and return customers. To cultivate and nurture customer relationships, you must focus on a variety of engagement techniques. Here are a few ways to build better customer relationships that will differentiate your business from the competition:

  • Surpass customer expectations: Have you ever heard the saying, “under promise and over deliver?” In sales, you shouldn’t make promises you cannot keep. Instead, focus on wowing customers with your products and services.
  • Communicate regularly and effectively: SiriusDecisions conducted research that shows the number-one deterrent to reaching sales goals is the “inability to communicate value message.” In other words, sales reps should be able to clearly talk about what sets your products or services apart from the competition. Price points, value propositions, and customer feedback should be second nature to sales professionals in the field.
  • Ask for feedback: Customer feedback surveys can help you understand the value of your products and how well your customers’ expectations are met. Unsatisfactory results will give insight into what products or services need to be upgraded.
  • Create a rewards program: Customer rewards programs are an engagement tool used after initial purchase that incentivize repeat purchases and reward your most loyal customers.
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    Increase Personalization Efforts

    Consumers are more connected and informed than ever before in history. The rise in technology has forced businesses to change the methods they use to reach and engage with potential buyers. Personalization efforts strengthen the customer experience throughout the marketing and sales process. By observing customer’s behaviors your organization can enhance the buying- and post-buying experience. Additionally, personalizing the customer experience can bolster relationships, improve customer loyalty, and increase sales.

    If you’re looking to employ a personalized approach to your sales efforts in 2020, start by auditing your customer outreach workflow and identify gaps or areas that can be improved with personalization efforts. From there, you can begin to develop messaging that addresses prospect’s individual concerns and segment audiences for personalized emails and website experiences. Additionally, you could bring on an outsourced sales team to employ face-to-face selling tactics in tandem with your online personalization efforts.

    Cultivate the Human Connection

    Your customers are people, not robots or data in a CRM. Data can tell us a lot about a potential customer, but it likely won’t tell you that their favorite band is Fleetwood Mac. Eventually, you need to pick up the phone or meet your prospects face to face to build stronger relationships. Incorporating the human connection in sales will provide insights into customers’ challenges, ambitions, fears, and doubts. Ultimately, customers are more likely to purchase from a brand they know and trust. Placing a focus on face-to-face sales is necessary for developing real, human relationships.

    Keep Sales Representatives Motivated

    Unmotivated teams can negatively affect your bottom line. In fact, businesses that have low employee engagement rates see 18% lower productivity, according to Gallup. Salespeople need to be motivated to keep optimal levels of performance. Sales leaders have a duty to motivate, engage, and support their teams. Every sales rep should know how they can help the company reach its sales goals. Here are a few tips to keep teams focused on your company’s mission:

  • Set goals: Sales professionals need a goal to aspire to. Without goals, they won’t know how success is defined within their role or the organization. Choose goals that are measurable and attainable. You could even use sales contests as a motivation tool.
  • Invest in training programs: Sales training and coaching programs educate professionals on sales best practices and inform management on areas that need improving.
  • Reward success: Incentives and recognition programs will reward sales employees for doing good work and encourage future achievements.
  • Build a robust team culture: Build a team culture that’s value-driven and encourages success.
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    Collaborate Amongst Departments

    According to Salesforce, 73% of sales teams say “interdepartmental collaboration is vital to the overall sales process.” But often, sales and marketing are siloed departments working toward separate goals. Marketing designs sales communications and enablement collateral and creates leads for the sales team. Sales reps use the marketing materials to convert leads into customers. Siloed departments can create gaps in your overarching strategy and damage any progress you’ve made. Ultimately, the two teams should rally around one goal by aligning processes and communicating more effectively. Data should be easily shared across teams to pinpoint better leads and establish stronger marketing to sales hand-off procedures.

    Sales Strategies Are Constantly Evolving

    Sales processes should be continuously adjusted to fit the needs of your organization. As customer, market, and industry needs change, you must be able to quickly adapt your processes for continued long-term success.

    What strategies are you using to reach your 2020 goals? Share them with us in the comments below.

    Brittany Evans
    Organized and diligent operations professional who thrives in fast-paced environments and excels when handling varied and diverse tasks. Strong ability to identify opportunities for improvement and a deep understanding of all aspects of business, customer requirements and service expectations.

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