Edinburgh based, Business 2 Business Sales Training specialists Klozers have been recognized as one of only 12 companies worldwide for their Sales Blog in the Top Sales Awards.
Klozers blog was a Finalist in the Top Company Sales & Marketing Company Blog, and the only UK company represented in this category of the prestigious sales industry awards.
Created in January 2020 Klozers wanted to use the blog to demonstrate best practice in Inbound & Outbound selling.
Founder Iain Swanston explained:
“When the lockdowns started in March 2020 we lost all of our order book, as we were like every other traditional training company in that our training was all delivered face to face. We regrouped and introduced online learning, but we also doubled down on our blog, as we knew it could help with lead generation.”
With an average Google page rank of 16.4 the blog has over 120 articles listed on page 1 of Google.
These articles have helped the company grow through the lockdown period, with new inquiries generated from the blog accounting for over 30% of revenue in 2021.
The blog has helped raise brand awareness for Klozers abroad, helping them secure new clients in the US, Eastern Europe and the Far East.
Klozers founder, Iain Swanston was delighted with the award and commented:
“As a company we have put a lot of effort into both the strategy, and the blog content itself, so it’s great to see the results in terms of real sales orders and the recognition from the Top Sales Awards body. As the only UK company in the Finals for this category we had stiff competition from some of the US and worlds best sales and marketing experts, so I’m really proud of what our team has achieved.”
As a company Klozers works with small to mid-market organisations to help them compete with the giants and large brands in their industry and win.
Klozers has a full compliment of B2B sales training and coaching courses available online and specialises in helping organisations maximise their Inbound and Outbound sales capabilities.
Few businesses manage to meet or exceed their sales goals without a sales plan, or should I say successfully create a Sales Plan and execute it.
Creating a sales plan helps you to establish your sales objectives, and outline the steps you will take to reach them.
A typical sales plan will include information on how the growth will be achieved (this is sometimes referred to as your sales strategies and tactics) and how sales will be measured.
Measuring the sales of your product or service may seem simple, but there are often important indicators and metrics other than revenue that can and should be used to measure the success of the execution of the sales plan.
Your plan may also feature details about target customers and their pain points, the sales process, roles and responsibilities, revenue targets, revenue goals, business goals and a sales and marketing strategy for your products and services.
Hopefully now you have a better understanding of the benefits of a sales plan you will take the next step and grab a free download our template in order that you can start creating a sales plan for your own business.
2. Different types of Sales Plans
Unfortunately, given all the differences between industries, companies and products there is no single plan that can be applied to every business. There are 3 main differences you should be aware of as follows:
1. Customer Base – are you selling to an established customer base where you need to manage existing accounts or are you selling to a greenfield territory where you need to focus on opening new accounts? In reality, it’s often a mixture of the two.
2. Market Movement – is the market stable enough to allow you to repeat what’s delivered your sales numbers in previous years or is the market changing and forcing you to change at the same time?
3. Business Strategy – the sales plan needs to meet or exceed the objectives of the business plan. The plan therefore needs to be aligned with the company mission and overall business strategy. If part of the business strategy is to divest risk from one income stream, the sales plan needs to reflect this.
Sales are the fuel that powers the ship, however it’s the business that decides where the ship is going.
3. Increasing Your Sales Revenues
At times sales can seem very complicated, however, it’s worth remembering there are only three ways to increase sales revenues as follows:
a) Increase sales by selling to accounts aligned with your ideal target customers
b) Increase sales by selling more to current customers
c) Raise your prices
The growth in your Sales plan must reflect at least one of the above, but preferably all three. You must also allow for “churn” as every business no matter how good they are will lose customers over time.
Even if you do nothing wrong customers will go bankrupt, they will be taken over, they will move away and you will lose business.
Reducing customer churn may well be part of your growth strategy. Anything you can do to increase your Customer Lifetime Value is always worthwhile and will stand you in good stead in the future.
Sales plans are primarily designed to help you achieve more sales. They should include information on what your current situation is, what you are aiming for and what you need to do to make your vision a reality.
Sales plans are like a roadmap your team can follow to achieve success. Without this roadmap they will take longer to achieve their targets as they move slower and possibly even in a different direction.
A more focused and driven team
A key benefit of every sales plan is that it can help make your team members more focused on achieving a specific goal, or series of goals.
Once a sales plan is in place, your team should have a firmer, more coherent idea of what your aims are. They should also have a more specific idea of what steps they personally need to take to achieve them.
Sales plans can also help you prevent a decline in sales over time by keeping your team focused and delivering a constant sense of purpose.
They can also help you make the most of your team’s specific capabilities and assign roles to the most suitable employees.
Creating confidence
Confidence is an important, yet often overlooked part of the sales success in any organisation.
A well written Sales Plan will give confidence and direction to the sales team and once you have a robust sales plan in place, you’re more likely to attract or keep investors and other stakeholders on-side.
The sales plan should also include information on the likely and possible challenges you envisage and how you plan to overcome them.
Clarity and coherence
Sales plans should be straightforward, so they can be easily understood by people outside the sales department.
There is no point filling your sales plan full of sales jargon which some team members may struggle to comprehend.
It’s essential that your sales plan firmly outlines your plans and goals for the period that it covers in an easy-to-read format.
If you would like help creating and implementing your sales plan we offer a full sales consultancy service and would love to talk to you about how we can work alongside your team to drive revenue growth.
5. Frameworks for a sales plan
We’ve put together a framework for your Sales Plan in Microsoft PowerPoint so it can double up as a presentation document. It includes easy to complete sections on:
1. Review – Learning what’s worked and what hasn’t from the previous year is an essential part of any sales plan. This way we can repeat or increase what’s been working and reduce, eliminate or adapt what didn’t work.
It’s also wise to look at your past data when setting targets. Do you have a good track record of hitting your targets? If you have failed to reach your aims in the past, do you know the reasons for this?
By closely assessing your past performance, you can optimise the chances of your latest campaign being a success and avoid setting unrealistic targets.
2. Sales Team – salespeople are a key part of the sales success in any organisation and should always be included in the plan.
In addition to showing past performance you should demonstrate how you plan to support them over the life of the plan by way of training and coaching.
Details of the training should be recorded in each employees PDP (Personal Development Plan) and Coaching should be recorded in individual coaching worksheets.
There may be times where every sales person has similar development needs but at as a minimum the coaching should always be bespoke.
3. Strategy – this is simply a high level statement on how you will approach selling to your market. The details such as goals, priorities and milestones of the strategy will be laid out in the Objectives section of the sales plan.
An example of a Strategy would be the Big Bets or Blockbuster strategy. Imagine if you were running a movie company and you were choosing what movies to invest $100,000,000 in over the next 12 months.
Would you take your $100,000,000 and invest £1 million dollars in 100 films or would you invest £10 million and try to create 10 blockbusters?
Perhaps your strategy is to move your customer base from Mid Market to Enterprise accounts. Your strategy might be to expand your portfolio to meet more of your customers needs and keep the competition out.
Your strategy may be the opposite and you might want to reduce and streamline your portfolio.
Removing choice allows you to focus sales and marketing resources and lower operating costs. We’re great fans of the Blockbuster strategy because we love the focus and simplicity it brings.
We accept there is an increased risk when you focus on fewer options, however, there should be some form of validation in your Blockbuster strategy. Will the next Bond movie be a hit? Well based on previous Bond movies yes.
So the majority (not all) Blockbusters should already be proven revenue streams that you are simply doubling down on.
4. SWOT analysis – thi is where you can document your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats to help form and validate your sales strategy. Please remember the SWOT should only refer to your sales strategy.
The SWOT serves as proof that you and your team have undertaken some critical thinking around your sales strategy and have taken the time to think each aspect of the strategy through.
Once you have completed a SWOT analysis you can use the data to form a strategy that minimises the Weaknesses & Threats and maximises the strengths and opportunities.
5. Objectives – Your sales plan must be based around genuinely achievable targets. It will be much harder to get your team to embrace your sales plan if your aims are unrealistic or unreasonable.
It’s fine to be ambitious, but your goals still need to be realistic. Unrealistic or unachievable goals will only serve to demoralise the sales team and lead to them giving up.
Your aims and strategies need to be measurable so you can track the progress that you are making. You must include research that supports your aims, especially if your targets seem particularly ambitious. Setting growth targets/objectives in the plan
Growth targets in a sales plan can vary wildly. Some sales plans are based on what the company wants to achieve over the next quarter, whilst others have longer-term 12 month goals.
It would be unusual to have a sales plan that was longer than 12 months as markets and customers can change so quickly.
Your sales plan needs to be agile enough to respond to these changes quickly. The best sales plans will feature detailed information on which activities need to take place and what kind of resources need to be used in order to generate success.
A simple method for sales forecasting would be to take the previous years monthly sales figures and then add 20% to each month. This provides a monthly sales target that accounts for any seasonal changes, and after 12 months will have delivered 20% annual growth.
It’s normally best practice to list separate sales objectives for: product mix new customers vs existing customers sales by region sales by vertical individual sales reps
Whilst tracking each element may seem overkill, this allows you to quickly adapt your sales plan and implement contingency plans if required. For example, if one vertical is under-performing you may choose to divert resources into other verticals that are more active.
How to Create a Sales Plan
6. Sales Tactics and Techniques – after Strategy and planning comes the tactics. These are quite simply the approaches you will use to deliver the objectives of the sales plan.
Your sales tactics should call out the tasks and activities the sales team will be doing on a daily basis to implement the plan.
Tactics could be as simple as changing the sales messaging to match a new market or retraining customer service teams in up-selling existing accounts.
7. Metrics – it’s important to agree on what success looks like how you will measure it before you start any project.
There are lots of great systems and tools available for this, however, you should make a list of tracking methods that you will be using for the duration of your plan.
These can include your selling strategies, techniques used for monitoring and performance metrics.
Where possible: a) use existing systems and tools like CRMs that are already in place and being used, so you don’t get dragged into a software implementation project.
b) the recording of the measures should not create any additional workload for the salespeople as they are then less likely to complete them.
c) where possible use lead indicators and not lag indicators. Examples of a lead indicator could be the number of qualified new sales leads created and a lag indicator is the monthly revenue.
Whilst the revenue is important if we wait till the end of the month to get the revenue figures and we miss the target it’s too late.
Measuring the lead indicators allows us to take corrective action before the lag indicator is missed.
SaaS companies often track subscriptions to their app which is important but the lead indicator could be as simple as the number of visitors to the website.
You wil need to make a list of tracking methods that you will be using for the duration of your plan. These can include your selling strategies, techniques used for monitoring and performance metrics.
We use Sales Scorecards to record and track KPI’s, however, there are many different methods to track KPI’s from simple spreadsheets to online apps.
8. Budget – sales and selling costs money. Whether it’s a simple Linkedin Sales Navigator subscription or a 6 figure Expo in Las Vegas everything in sales costs money which needs to be budgeted for.
Budgets will vary greatly from one company to another, however you should always attempt to quantify the costs in advance.
Companies that do not have formalised budgets for Sales and work on an ad hoc basis are by nature lower down on the Sales Maturity model.
If you plan to spend a considerable figure during the period, you’ll need to justify this to your stakeholders. The plan should include detailed figures to illustrate where your budget will be going.
If you’re investing in new resources during the period, add an ROI analysis to your sales plan to help justify the investment.
You may also wish to budget for unforeseen costs such as recruitment, should a sales person leave unexpectedly you need to replace them.
If you’re not given the required budget, you may need to make changes to your sales plan, but you don’t necessarily need to scrap it completely.
Your sales plan shouldn’t only consist of text. Wherever possible it’s worth have the document professional designed.
If you choose to use a template like ours you need to include your own branding as a minimum. It’s common for lists, tables, graphics, screenshots and charts to be used to convey key information about the company’s aims and the market you serve.
The sales plan should also feature research about what’s currently occurring in your industry This means it’s important to include statistics based on the latest research.
It’s also advisable to research your existing customers and targets market before you start creating your sales plan.
Depending on what sector you’re based in, there may be more demand from one market segment than there was in previous years.
Conversely, groups you were previously targeting may not be as interested in your products and services as they once were. Wherever possible do research so you can back up any positions you have taken.
Remember, your document doesn’t need to be incredibly formal, but it does need to be coherent and easy to comprehend.
7. Encouraging Buy In
Once you have completed your sales plan, you’ll need to present it not only to your team but your stakeholders and relevant managers too.
If you can’t get these on board, your plan is unlikely to be effective. The more convincing your sales plan is, the more enthusiasm you can generate.
The management is also more likely to release your budget if you can present an impressive well-thought-out sales plan.
With this in mind it’s always best to include other people in the creation of the Sales Plan. Getting buy-in from Sales people will be much easier if they helped create the document and senior management are much more likely to allocate budget if they have been included in the whole process.
With this in mind it’s worth asking your salespeople to create mini-plans and forecasts specific to their territory and then rolling these into the master plan.
A well-designed and executed sales plan can take your business to the next level. Just remember to keep it realistic and comprehensible so others ‘buy-in’ to it.
Whether you are a new business, a small business, a mid market or enterprise organisation the benefits of a well written sales plan are high. When done right your sales plan will position you for both short term and long term success.
Often an effective sales plan will play an important part with aligning the sales team’s activities and ensure everyone is working towards the same goals and moving forward.
Free Sales Plan Template
Download a free template so you can start enjoying the benefits of strategic and effective planning.
The free template is available for download as a Microsoft Word document to get you started.
Followers of our blog here will know we are big fans of the suite of work tools contained in Microsoft Office. As the marketing says they truly do bring Enterprise-Class tools to Mid Market and SME’s. We wanted to share some practical tips on how we and our clients use OneNote for Sales Management to save time and drive productivity.
In amongst Office 365 is Microsofts digital notebook OneNote which is undoubtedly one of our favourites. It did take some time to understand and learn how to use it and we’re pretty sure that we are still nowhere near using the product to it’s maximum.
Since becoming converts we’ve added the Onetastic Addin which gives us additional functionality and a huge range of Macros that simply supercharge OneNote for Sales Management.
With that said, if you can add any tips that will help us and other OneNote Users then please do so in the comments section at the bottom of this post. So here are the top 9 hacks
1. Note-taking for Sales Meetings
Everyone knows the importance of taking accurate notes during a Sales Meeting with prospects and customers, however, we always found it difficult to remember the questions and steps that we needed to follow in our Sales Process.
In addition to capturing the usual meeting details like attendee names and telephone numbers, we wanted to capture details like the Buyers Primary Sensory Dominance and their Personal DiSC style. All together it was just too much information for us to remember so we created a simple template in OneNote based on a Word Document we’d been using.
In addition to capturing those details we included a visual prompt to help us remember the most important questions and finally, the very last question captures any Next Steps that are agreed. We record these “next steps” using the Outlook Tasks integration inside OneNote which automatically adds this to Task in Outlook.
You can design your own page for Meeting or Project Notes and save it as a template for easy access every time you need it.
Using OneNote for Sales Management – Page Templates
Lastly, it’s possible to use the audio recording function in OneNote to record meetings however we would not recommend this in a Sales Meeting.
PROS OF ONENOTE FOR SALES MEETINGS
We prefer using OneNote because it allows us to take notes freehand and despite our poor attempts at handwriting we can always use the convert to text feature if needed to tidy things up.
In addition to being able to write freehand with the Microsoft pen we also try to use visual note-taking techniques that we know from our sales training is proven to aid memory retention and focus. Everyone is different but we prefer writing notes rather than typing them in a meeting.
The notes not only help us remember what was said and what next steps need to be taken they are great for referring back to when we send a “Thank you for meeting me email” with a summary of the notes and if we need to create a proposal or presentation later in the sales process.
CONS OF ONE NOTE FOR SALES MEETINGS
We suspect the biggest negative will be that unless you are using Dynamics CRM or Salesforce then OneNote may not integrate with your own CRM. That said, I am sure you would be able to cut and paste the notes over into another CRM.
Coaching Salespeople is arguably more powerful than sales training when it’s done well. One of the key foundations of Sales Coaching is keeping accurate notes for both the coach and the coachee to refer back to. As you would expect this should be cloud-based and is one of the easiest things you can set up.
Create a Section in OneNote for each Sales Rep that you are coaching. You may be rightly concerned about privacy here as it’s not normal to have sales coaching notes which should be private available for other team members to view. This is easily solved by setting password protection on each section.
Create a new page inside OneNote and then use a Template for your coaching process. We use the GROW sales coaching model however you can use any model you choose. In our situation where we mostly provide online Sales Coaching we part complete the notes during the coaching session and then finish them immediately at the end of the calls.
Immediately after each sales coaching session, we email a summary of any action points to the coachee so they know what commitments they have made before the next session. As with the Sales Meeting Notes template, you can design your own page around your sales coaching process and save it as a template for easy access when the next coaching session is due.
Using OneNote for Sales Management - Coaching Notes
3. Sales Performance Reviews
If you’re using OneNote for Sales Management it can easily help you review the individual performance of your Sales Team. Again OneNote Make this easy by using the sections function with password protection.
This can easily be included as an extra page inside the Sales Reps section next to their Sales Coaching notes or if the Coaching is being provided by someone other than the manager then you can either set up a different notebook or a different section within the same notebook.
We typically use Sales Scorecards as a way to measure individual sales performance and this can be recorded inside OneNote or in a separate application with only the actual meeting notes being recorded in OneNote.
Again the main benefits are the ease of use and access for both employees and managers in addition to the security and privacy that OneNote provides.
4. Sales Training with OneNote
Historically Sales Training was conducted via 1 or 2-day events with participants receiving a training manual. With the advent of more Online Sales Training OneNote is a great repository to Store your sales training content. It’s easy to set Sections as Learning Modules and Pages as the Individual lessons. Inside the Lessons or pages, you can add Video, Audio or text-based content with quizzes and questions for each student.
Unlike traditional Sales Training which forces all students to learn at the same pace, OneNote allows us to create Self-paced learning modules which delivers much better learning results. In order to check students are meeting or exceeding learning goals, we integrate surveys and questions using the Microsoft Forms application for each student.
It’s also possible to create individual sales training sessions where you can assign learning content for individual Sales Reps allowing you to provide a more targeted learning approach. OneNote allows you to track and measure learning, and provide feedback on an individual basis to students.
Once you have created your Sales Training Lessons as a page in OneNote simply save the page as a Template and you can then insert this into any Sales Reps personal training when required.
A secondary training application if you’re using OneNote for Sales Management is the ability to use the full functionality to create onboarding programmes for new Sales Team members. The main benefit of using OneNote in this case would be the ability to record and document so many different types of styles of content in one location for easy access.
Once you’ve created your Notebook you can easily share Notebooks with colleagues online.
5. Using OneNote as CRM
Whilst we wouldn’t recommend using OneNote as a CRM application it can be. You can download a Sales Template from Auscomp which is based on the Kanban or card-based system, and whilst it doesn’t have the full functionality of a regular CRM, it works well for those who want to keep everything inside OneNote.
What’s much more useful in our opinion is to use OneNote for what we would describe as “sales projects”. For us, these are typically large engagements that require some form of customisation and project management. These projects usually require multiple meetings with multiple decision-makers and additional support from contacts on our side.
In our case, we use OneNote inside a SharePoint site within the MS Teams environment that we create for client projects. Teams serves as a great comms platform and we use OneNote for the Note taking and sharing.
For Sales Opportunities that are not yet Customers but still require lots of notes and a degree of project planning, we use OneNote with sections added for Emails – Linked to Outlook Inbox. This allows us to forward emails relating to the opportunity from inside Outlook.
Contacts Linked to the Contacts in Outlook. This allows us to add contact details from Outlook that we need to share with our internal team working on the project.
Meetings linked to the Calendar function in Outlook. This allows us to insert future meetings from Outlook that may require some internal planning.
6. OneNote To-Do List Template
There are numerous free To Do templates inside OneNote which you can use or you can create your own which we have. We created a To-Do section with pages inside that are linked to the Tasks section in Outlook.
From Outlook we can send all Tasks to this page where we add them to a Prioritised To-Do Dashboard before assigning an owner, deadline and categorisation. This allows our whole team to have a single view of the current Workflow whilst still allowing users to work on the original Tasks that were sent from Outlook.
The four sections in the main dashboard with examples of Tasks we use are:
CRISIS: URGENT / IMPORTANT
PRODUCTIVITY: NOT URGENT / IMPORTANT
DISTRACTION: URGENT / NOT IMPORTANT
WASTE: NOT URGENT / NOT IMPORTANT
Using OneNote for Sales Management – To Do List
7. Journaling with OneNote.
Daily Journaling is a powerful tool that helps Salespeople become more productive, set goals, learn through reflection and serves as a great all round personal development tool.
Most importantly journaling helps with Cognitive Processing and improves overall mental well being. In fact many people say that journaling changes their life.
Although not always popular every personal development guru recommends keeping a daily journal. Journals come in many forms and what’s most important is choosing the format that works for you.
The best journal we’ve come across is by the Sales Journal company however we have developed our own shorter journal which takes between 5 and 10 minutes to complete every morning which seems to work better for Salespeople.
Lastly the easiest and most common task for using OneNote for Sales Management is for note taking during a Weekly or Monthly Sales Team Meeting. As with every other task using OneNote for Sales Management we create a simple Agenda template which we can recreate every meeting with One click.
In addition to Note Taking we recommend recording every meeting in order that you obviously have a record of the meeting, but additionally, when members of the Sales Team are absent on holiday or sick there is a recording they can easily access to get ensure they don’t miss anything.
9. Sales Playbooks
We’ve definitely saved the best to last here because OneNote is just an amazing tool for creating, delivering and building Sales Playbooks. Whilst many playbooks are still static documents OneNote provides a live document that can be consistently accessed and updated by as many or as few people as you want.
All of the Tools and templates we’ve highlighted in this post can reside inside your OneNote Sales Playbook which makes the user experience even better.
Our OneNote Sales Playbooks are hosted inside MS Teams where we have dedicated Teams for each of our clients and each Team as their own customised playbook.
In fact when you combine MS Teams, OneNote, MS Forms, you have everything you need to create your own Learning Management System and given the cost of some of the LMS platforms this is a great way for smaller and mid market companies to enter the LMS & Sales Enablement world at a much lower price point.
Sales Audit Part 1 – Sales Skills – Use the first stage of this audit to benchmark and evaluate the core skills of your sales team Sales Audit Part 2 – Functions – Use this stage of the audit to benchmark and evaluate the core areas within your sales function Sales Audit Part 3 – Sales Formula – This benchmarks and evaluates areas outside sales which have an impact Sales Change Management Planning – Any form of sales intervention means change which means you need to understand change management Envision Planning Exercise – This is a great exercise to empower and motivate your team. It also helps identify areas for improvement in the sales function Day in the Life – Understanding People Exercise – This workshop helps sales people understand DiSC and how they need to adapt their sales approach Sales Coaching Worksheet – This template provides a structure and a proven framework to your sales coaching Sales Scorecard Template – This is a simple example of a Sales Scorecard. Use the template as a starting point to develop your own Sales Coaching Final Questions – Use these questions to finalise your coaching sessions with your sales people Sales Training Evaluation Form – Collect feedback after every sales training session using this form B2B Customer Journey Map – Evaluate your customers journey and look for improvements in conversion ratios Sales Campaign Funnel – An example of an end to end sales campaign funnel. Use the template to create your own ADKAR Change Model – Our go-to model for Change Management and simply a must have for any sales leaders Business Case Template – If you’re selling to corporates then you’ll need to be able to write business cases so here’s a template to get started Sales Tender Qualification Checklist – Objectively qualify your tender responses so you can improve your win rates Key Account Management Plan Template – Document and plan your key account strategy with this comprehensive template Handling Sales Stalls & Objections – This template helps sales people prepare for the hardest stalls and objections Sales Call Tracker Template – This tracker highlights where in the call people are struggling so you can coach them accordingly Prospect Profile Template – Profile your best customers and then use the information to target more of the same Prospect Value Calculator – Understand your core value to build highly targeted sales messaging Root Cause Analysis Template – This tool helps you build powerful questions to uncover your prospects real pain Prospect Pains & Goals Template – Know your prospects pains and goals so you they will buy versus you having to sell Sales Battlecards Template – Battlecards are great for identifying your strengths and weaknesses versus your competitors Sales Negotiation Worksheet – Prepare in advance for the boardroom so you get what you want with this simple template Client Case Study Template – Use examples of previous sales wins to generate more with this one page template Preparing to Sell Checklist – Superb check list for new hires ( and maybe old ones) before they get in front of real prospects Consultative Selling Process – Use this tool to reinforce your consultative selling process – slow the sales process down if you want to speed the sale up Time Management Tracker – Help sales people become super productive and track where they lose time during the day Meeting Notes Record – This template reminds you what questions to ask the prospect and take accurate notes on the answers given
This content is available for FREE download in the Sales Playbook
Sales skills include the actions, mindset and strategies that contribute to sales success. The sales leaders audit therefore helps you accurately benchmark the skills of your sales people and will allow you to quickly see where to focus your performance improvement plans for the sales team.
Why are Sales Skills important?
In B2B sales unless you have a powerful brand the quality and performance of your sales team is vital. Indeed when products and services are similar the Unique Selling Point can often be the sales people. Most importantly the audit focuses on the three main areas that sales people need to concentrate on to be successful – Finding new sales, Klozing new sales and Growing existing accounts.
Need an objective external party to lead your sales audit? Check out or Sales Consulting here
Sales Audit – Sales Functions
Sales Tools – Sales Audit 2
What are Sales Functions?
We all know that people are a vital part of every successful sales function however sometimes there can be other areas within sales that are equally important and also have a huge impact on our ability to sell. Consequently these can even be a huge blocker and prevent your team from selling. Every business regardless of what product or services they are selling will have these common sales functions which we can audit.
Why are Sales Functions important?
You can use this tool to quickly evaluate where your Sales Unit is in terms of best practice and from this create your bespoke improvement plans.
Examples of successful companies are all around us in B2B and B2C. Whether it’s national or international, products or services, they all follow the same winning formula. Don’t waste time reinventing the wheel – learn from others who have gone before by applying the sales formula to your business.
Sales Change Management Planning
B2B Sales tools – Sales Improvement Process
What is Sales Change Management Planning?
Sales Change Management Planning is simply a structured approach to transitioning your sales team from where they are currently, to where you need them to be. Planning makes sure your changes work and are embedded in a new improved sales environment.
Why is Sales Change Management Planning important?
By creating a Sales Change Management plan you will minimise the resistance to your changes from some sales people. As a result you will increase the engagement of the team and improve the overall performance. Equally important is the long term affect of failed improvement plans which include missed sales targets, low morale and higher staff turnover.
Envision Planning is a 1/2 day group workshop that facilitates an open discussion to identify and prioritise all the sales opportunities open to the business in the future. The goal of the session is to create a joint understanding of the exact direction you want to take the sales department.
Why is Envision Planning important?
Envision planning helps with team morale, increases the engagement of your sales team and ensures everyone involved is on the same page. Finally the output would include a full action plan with milestones and goals.
A Day in The Life – Understanding People
B2B Sales tools –
What is A Day in The Life?
This is a 1/2 day workshop focused on DiSC – a profiling system that psychologists use to learn and understand more about people. This exercise gives sales people a deeper understanding of the different behavioural styles of themselves, their work colleagues and their prospects/customers.
Why is a Day in The Life important?
This workshop is vital in developing self awareness, teamwork and understanding the preferences both prospects and customers have, in the way sales people communicate with them.
Sales Coaching Worksheet
B2B Sales tools – Sales Coaching Worksheet Tool
What is the Sales Coaching Worksheet?
Our Sales Coaching Worksheet is a simple one page template that managers can use to coach sales people. The template follows the proven GROW coaching model but has been adapted to sales.
A Sales Scorecard Template is a simple one page sheet for recording specific sales activities. The activities are divided between the four most important areas of sales – Finding new customers, Klozing new customers, Growing customer accounts and personal learning & development. As a result if sales people simply do enough of these four activities it’s nearly impossible to not increase your sales.
Why is a Sales Scorecard important?
Sales Scorecards provide a focus to the sales persons activities and ensures those activities are fully aligned with the companies overall growth strategy. They also help identify areas for development and can alert management in advance of potential problems.
Sales Coaching Final Questions
Sales Tools – Coaching Final Session Questions
What are Sales Coaching Final Questions?
Our Sales Coaching Final Questions worksheet is used at the end of a structured coaching programme. There are 10 questions that the sales person has to answer taking no longer than 45 minutes.
Why are Sales Coaching Final Questions important?
The final session questions are part of “reflective learning” whereby the sales person can reflect on what they have learned and how they have grown through the length of the coaching programme. Furthermore future challenges and actions are also included to ensure continued personal development.
Sales Training Evaluation Form
B2B Sales tools – Sales Training Evaluation Form
What is a Sales Training Evaluation Form?
A Sales Training Evaluation form is used after any form of sales training to gather feedback from participants. The form includes specific feedback questions on the three most important areas of training – the trainer, the content and the training environment.
Why is a Sales Training Evaluation Form important?
Sales Training Evaluation forms helps to identify the ROI and value derived from any training programme and above all provides the data by which future training programmes may be improved.
B2B Customer Journey Map
Sales Tools – B2B Customer Journey Evaluation
What is a Customer Journey Map?
A customer journey map documents what information and actions your sales & marketing take and cross references this with the customers intent throughout the buying process.
Why is a Customer Journey Map important?
The customer journey map provides an audit which helps to identify which information and actions need to be improved and or added to, in order to reduce friction throughout the sales process.
Sales Campaign Funnel
Sales Tools – Sales Campaign Funnel Example
What is a Sales Campaign Funnel?
The Sales Campaign Funnel is Klozers own funnel template that we use in our sales enablement programme ready to be customised to your business.
Why is the Sales Campaign Funnel important?
The Klozers Sales Campaign Funnel is the end to end funnel we use to Find new customers, Kloze new customers and Grow existing customer accounts. It’s a proven step by step system for B2B sales organisations.
ADKAR Change Model
Sales Tools – ADKAR Change Management
What is the ADKAR Change Model?
The ADKAR change model is a proven change methodology from https://www.prosci.com/ the global leader in change management solutions.
Why is the ADKAR Change Model important?
This is highly relevant as every sales improvement project involves change and people do not like change. In our opinion this is the best Change Management Solution available today and we strongly recommend you include this in every improvement programme.
Business Case Template
B2B Sales tools – Business Case Template
What is a Business Case?
A Business Case is a document created to demonstrate the anticipated ROI or benefit of a project or purchase. Our template allows you to create your own Business Case bespoke to your products or services.
Why is a Business Case important?
In larger Enterprise organisations it is simply not acceptable to make a purchase without first justifying it in the form of a business case. Furthermore, Sales people can use this template both to help potential buyers and to document important information after a sale to create valuable sales content.
Tender Qualification Checklist
B2B Sales tools – Tender Qualification Checklist
What is a Tender Qualification Checklist
A Tender Qualification Checklist is an objective way to pre-qualify tenders before you commit money and resources to responding.
Why is a Tender Qualification Checklist important?
Tenders can be an invaluable source of new sales revenue, however they can also be an expensive and time consuming distraction. This is because without any form of pre-qualification many companies commit to tenders that in reality they have no chance in winning.
Key Account Management Template
B2B Sales tools – Key Account Management Plan Template
What is a Key Account Management Template?
Key Account Management is simply a joint agreement between the vendor and the client regarding the next 12 months. After 12 months the agreement would normally be reviewed and updated.
Why is a Key Account Management Template important?
The Key Account Management document sets out in writing the expectations in terms of actions, targets and milestones for both sides. Whilst they are not normally legally binding in the way that a contract is, they help identify to both sides what success is and are essential in managing expectations.
Handling Stalls & Objections Exercise
Sales Tools – Stalls & Objections
What are Stalls & Objections in Sales?
Stalls & Objections are the reasons prospects give to show disinterest in buying or obtain further information. They may be genuine or they may not. Stalls are typically the reasons not to buy now and Objections are reasons not to buy ever.
Why is the Stalls & Objections Exercise important?
The Stalls & Objections exercise provides sales people with the best possible answer or rebuttal to the most common stalls/objections that they receive. Those answers are then drilled into the muscle memory of the sales people so they become both natural and automatic.
Sales Call Tracker Tool
B2B Sales tools – Sales Call Tracker
What is a Sales Call Tracker Tool?
This is a simple one page template that is used to record a sales persons activity throughout the various stages of a sales call, cold, warm or otherwise.
Why is a Sales Call Tracker Tool important?
The sales call tracker acts as a data dashboard allowing the sales person to track their success and their “numbers”. In addition by capturing the relevant data at every stage the sales person can see for themselves where they need to make any specific changes for example with their messaging, their soft skills or their call to action.
Perfect Prospect Profile Template
Sales Prospect Profile Template
What is a Perfect Prospect Profile Template?
This Prospect Profile Template helps to identify the top 20 characteristics of the prospects most likely to buy your products/services.
Why is a Perfect Prospect Profile Template important?
If you are trying to sell to everybody then in reality you will end up selling to nobody. Therefore this prospect template goes deeper and wider than traditional marketing personas, as it contains specific information to help and coach sales people.
Sales Prospect Value Calculator
B2B Sales tools – Prospect Value Calculator
What is a Sales Prospect Value Calculator?
A prospect Value Calculator helps you identify the key metrics by which a prospect measures the value of your products or services.
Why is a Sales Prospect Value Calculator important?
The Prospect Value Calculator is an essential tool for identifying and building the best messaging around your value proposition. Once captured this information can be adapted for use in telephone calls, emails, networking in fact every touch point that sales people have with prospects and clients.
Root Cause Analysis Template
Sales Tools – Root Cause Analysis Template
What is a Root Cause Analysis Template?
Our Root Cause Analysis template helps identify the most important questions to ask prospects to uncover their business pain.
Why is a Root Cause Analysis Template important?
Root Cause analysis is the foundation of the Consultative Sales Process and is essential tool for discovering the best questions, the best order for those questions and how to ask them.
Prospect Pains & Goals Template
B2B Sales tools – Prospect Pains & Goals Template
What is a Prospect Pains & Goals Template?
A Pains & Goals Template identifies the prospects business pains, their goals and desires, their fears & limitations and their dreams & aspirations.
Why is a Prospect Pains & Goals Template important?
The Prospect Pains & Goals template is an essential tool for building messaging and sales campaigns from your value proposition. In addition it provides sales people with an insight to the real thoughts and feelings of their prospects.
Sales Battlecard Template
Sales Tools – Sales Battlecard
What is a Sales Battlecard Template?
A Sales Battlecard template is a one page flyer that is used to clearly demonstrate the key points of differentiation between your product/service and your competitors.
Why is a Sales Battlecard Template important?
Sales Battlecards are typically used as a “leave behind” after a sales meeting with a prospect. Most importantly they are used for training to help sales people develop both product and industry knowledge.
Sales Negotiation Worksheet
Sales Tools – Sales Negotiation Template
What is a Sales Negotiation Worksheet?
A Sales Negotiation Worksheet is a template used to identify the vendor and the buyers goals, criteria, trades & concessions. In addition the template includes both the vendors BATNA’s (Best Alternative To No Agreement) and the prospects.
Why is a Sales Negotiation Worksheet important?
As the saying goes “In life you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate”. This is simply a must have in terms of planning and preparing for any sales negotiation.
Client Case Study Template
B2B Sales tools – Client Case Study Tool
What is a Client Case Study Template?
A Client Case Study template is a one page template used to gather the key information from any successful implementation of your product or service.
Why is a Case Study Template important?
Case Studies are one of the best ways to build trust, demonstrate tangible results and generate new business. Furthermore once the information is gathered using the template you can use it to create content in multiple formats such as presentations, proposals and sales campaigns.
Preparing to Sell Checklist
B2B Sales tools – Preparing to Sell Checklist
What is a Preparing to Sell Checklist?
This checklist identifies the minimum “must have” information that every sales person needs to know, understand and memorise before speaking to any potential customers.
Why is a Preparing to Sell Checklist important?
Given how much money companies spend on marketing to simply get sales people in front of customers it’s vital to maximise those meetings. Whether you are on-boarding new sales people or looking to upgrade your existing sales teams skills this will help.
Consultative Selling Process
Consultative Sales Process
What is a Consultative Selling Process?
A Consultative Selling Process is a sales methodology based on asking prospects specific questions in order that they themselves can determine if there is any need for what the sales person is selling.
Why is a Consultative Selling Process important?
A true consultative sales process helps the prospect uncover their unique personal reasons for buying which are always the most powerful reasons. This is an essential part of modern selling, especially complex solution sales.
Time Management Tracker
B2B Sales tools – Time Management Tracker File
What is a Time Management Tracker?
A Time Management Tracker records the planned time versus the actual time throughout the working day.
Why is a Time Management Tracker important?
A Time Management Tracker is an essential tool for increasing productivity and identifying any distractions that may occur whether genuine or not.
Meeting Notes Record
B2B Sales tools – Sales Meeting Notes Record
What is a Meeting Notes Record?
A Meeting Notes Record captures all the relevant information when a sales person meets with a prospect or client. This template includes question prompts to help the sales person remember the most important questions they need to ask. In addition the template includes the ability to record both DiSC and the Primary Sensory Dominance of the prospect.
Why is a Meeting Notes Record important?
Recording and keeping accurate records is a vital part of the sales process. Furthermore failing to take notes in a sales meeting sub-consciously tells the prospect you are either unprofessional or simply not interested.
This content is available for FREE download in the Sales Playbook
