Sales Training and Consulting for B2B Companies

sales training and consulting

Why invest in Sales Training and Consulting?

There are normally two reasons companies invest in our Sales Training and Consulting services. Firstly, they are often in a hurry to find sales growth and are looking for a short cut, a growth hack. 

Often these companies would eventually find the right strategies and tactics themselves, but they may be keen to capitalise on their first mover advantage or satisfy the needs of external investors. 

For these companies we provide a shortcut, we help them avoid the pitfalls and roadblocks that every growing  business experiences. 

When you engage with Klozers your team has access to over 70 years experience in B2B sales and marketing. 

Our sales training can help you get the best out of your team, alongside our consultancy services that will help you deploy the changes identified by our consultancy

Let’s take a closer look at why it makes so much sense to use sales training and consulting services together.

1. Why sales consulting compliments your sales training?

Many companies make the mistake of rushing into training as the solution to improving sales performance. 

Indeed, training may be part of the solution, but it is never the whole solution.  Before any training takes place it’s important to understand the root causes of the challenges within the sales department and only when we truly understand the problems can we prescribe the best possible solution. 

By rushing into training we would be assuming that everything else that affects sales is 100% perfect, and that is simply never the case. 

As with anything, the greater the investment upfront in terms of the diagnosis, the more effective the training will be. 

This is because the training can then be customised to meet the exact needs of the business which makes it much more impactful.

Sales Training and consulting companies

2. Why is Sales Training so effective?

Sales training builds both skills and confidence, and those are simply unbeatable in front of a customer.   

The best salespeople are like athletes and they are hungry to learn more and stay at the top of their game. 

The reason they are so good is that they are constantly looking for an edge, an advantage, and this keeps driving them forward. 

These are small but important things that make the difference and gets more deals over the line.  Our training is designed to keep your team at the top of their game and help them benefit from the very latest insights and industry best practice.

Our sales trainers work hard to keep your team engaged and motivated during training sessions, using a range of mediums to maintain their attention and inspire them.

Your sales trainer will help your team sell more effectively whether that be over the phone, in-person or online.

They can help them improve their lead generation, closing and account management skills, and provide indispensable mentoring services.

3. What happens before training takes place?

Before your training sessions begin, it’s important to identify what you want to get from them. As a sales training provider we offer bespoke services that are based on your specific needs and challenges.

We can provide a full sales consultancy service in advance of any training.  This would typically include an evaluation of your current sales unit in relation to sales maturity and best practice.

We can also provide full training needs analysis so you can gain a better understanding of your requirements before staring any training course.

For sales training to be effective, they need to be delivered in a way that maintains your teams’ attention, which means your sessions will include a great deal of interactivity.

Our sales training sessions include a range of demonstrations, exercises, games and roleplay.

Sales Consulting Services
Sales Consulting Services

4. What is the aim of Sales Training

Our goal as a provider is not to deliver sales training, but to deliver results. 

Therefore we believe the goal of Sales training is to help you meet a range of sales goals faster than you would if you were to continue without any intervention.

Not every company’s needs are the same, but businesses often invest in sales training because they want to improve their staff’s sales skills, close more deals, create more conversions, make their staff feel more supported, improve morale and boost the average value of their sales.

However, ultimately all of these lead to one overall benefit – an improvement in results. Some companies invest in training because they have identified a particular problem that needs addressing which is being caused by a skills gaps within their businesses.

Training may also benefit your team if they seem to be lacking direction, or are feeling unmotivated. A lack of motivation can often occur because staff are unclear on what their roles are, or because the current strategies they are using are not working.

In many occasions this is why Sales consultancy is a perfect fit alongside sales training as it can also help you identify and deal with additional challenges.

5. How can a Sales Consultant help our business?

A sales consultant will help your business by taking a close look at your current situation, identifying strengths and weaknesses, and helping you make positive changes to drive revenue growth.

If you are not currently meeting your sales targets, our sales consultants can help you find out why this is happening and develop strategies to address the issues.

Our experienced consultants can help with optimising your sales processes and ensuring you get the maximum conversion ratios from the leads you are generating.

With our years of experience in B2B sales our sales consultants can introduce you to specific resources that will support your business.

These can include lead generation, marketing, sales tracking, and training programmes and software that will give you a better insight into how your sales team are performing.

Sales Consulting System
Sales Consulting System

6. Adding Sales Experience to your Leadership Team

When you are immersed in the day-to-day running of your company, it can be hard to assess your situation objectively.

It’s often impossible to find anyone around you who is not objective as your team all have a role which in some way will make them subjective. 

Our sales consultants aren’t just there to identify problems that you weren’t previously aware of, we are completely hands on and happy to work alongside your team to implement any solutions.

Where applicable we will highlight your strengths and help you make the most of the resources that you currently have. In most cases this revolves around the creation of a sales plan, which we work with you to develop and if required are happy to help with executing against the plan. 

Our consultants will work with you to help you improve relationships between departments and colleagues. For instance, we are often called upon for detailed advice on aligning sales and marketing departments so you’re delivering coherent messages to your customers.

Indeed aligning sales and marketing is one of our most popular services.

7. Which Companies benefit the most from Consulting Services

We typically have two types of customers of our consulting services.  The first are larger organisations who already have a Sales Plan in place. 

They need help executing and delivering against the plan as they simply lack the internal resources to do this themselves.

The second group are those looking for external and objective advice.  In some cases they have seen a substantial decline in sales recently or aren’t meeting their targets they need to reach and hence are reaching out for support.

These businesses hire us because we have a track record of turning companies around. Alternately you may need external support if you have experienced changes in your industry and you’re struggling to keep up with your competitors.

Companies also may hire us because they feel missed sales targets are starting to affect morale and staff retention rates.

By investing in training and consultancy services, you can show your team you’re determined to improve and start achieving more.

8. Build a Selling System

It’s also common for companies to invest in sales consultancy services because their sales processes are confused and unclear, with team members pulling in different directions.

We are a huge advocate of having a selling system. Finance has a system, operations have a system so why not sales. Building a repeatable scalable selling system is simply a must for any business.

By mapping this out we can help your salespeople to understand how and where they can influence buyers and sell to people on different parts of their journey, helping you secure more sales.

Our consultants can also help you gain a richer understanding of the data available to you, from both your marketing automation and CRM platforms

In many cases our clients either don’t have enough data or they are overwhelmed by data, and miss out on the most important parts.  Either way we can help.  

In Conclusion

Sales is an ever changing environment and more and more businesses are improving their performance, staff retention rates and workplace morale. 

For most of use this means competition is tough and by investing in our sales training and consultancy services we can give you that edge you need to not just compete, but win.  

Sales consultants and trainers can provide invaluable mentorship, help you identify and eradicate weaknesses, and help you make the changes that you need to not only survive but prosper.

Our team can breathe new life into your organisation and inspire people throughout your company. Whether you’ve been missing your targets or are simply ready to build upon recent success and take your business to the next level, there are many great reasons for hiring sales training and consultancy professionals.

If you are ready to hire a sales trainer, sales consultant or both, come and talk with us.

 

Sales Coaching – For Individuals and Sales Teams

Sales Coaching

There’s a new way to deliver sales growth…

Don’t buy Sales Training until you’ve watched this video

1. Sales Coaching - Why Invest in Coaching?

At Klozers we love sales coaching.  Watching people or a company who had previously struggled, suddenly find their feet and take off, is one of the main benefits of our job. 

However, as with anything in business, sales coaching must provide real value and a financial benefit to the business.  Unfortunately, many companies still do not invest in professional coaching for their salespeople and the most common reason for this is the cost. 

One could argue that if you can’t afford sales coaching then there is an even greater need for it.  Perhaps it’s easier for people to blame the cost, than for the coaching profession to admit they could do more to help justify the costs.

We were in that position ourselves until we changed the format of our own sales coaching in order to make it easier for our clients to measure the increases in their pipeline and the subsequent sales revenue that comes from this.  If you would like to learn more about this and how you can change your own sales coaching process then you can jump to the end here.

2. Sales Training vs Sales Coaching - what's the difference?

Many people get confused between what is sales training and what is sales coaching.  Not only is training and coaching different, they also have different outputs which are really important.

Whereby sales training is about the transfer of knowledge, Sales Coaching is about the practical implementation of that knowledge in the field.

The easiest way to think of this is if your company has technical people like engineers or software developers.  The training is what a developer would go through to learn how to write the code.

The coaching is what the developer would need to turn the code into a meaningful application for your business. This means that coaching is the part that drives productivity in the sales team.

One of the main benefits of coaching is that it reinforces the new skills and techniques learnt during the training.  Without coaching studies show that up to 98% of knowledge is lost within 30 days.

In other words, one off event-based training sessions have a very limited impact on sales productivity.

3. When to coach and when not to coach

A recent study on Sales Coaching identified it as one of the most productive activities for any sales team, however, not every sales rep is coachable.  Some salespeople have a “superiority complex” and don’t believe they can either learn or improve. 

This can be falsely reinforced by hitting sales targets that are too low or by being the top sales performer in a group.  Other people will not responding to coaching as improving sales invariably means changing sales behaviours and every human being struggles to change their behaviours.

The last reason some salespeople do not respond to coaching is because they are simply stuck in their own comfort zone, and without any really powerful reason to change they simply carry on as before.

The irony is of course that in the majority of cases these people are in the most need of training and coaching.  With that said, unless there are exceptional circumstances you should not invest time or money in coaching people who have no desire to improve. 

You must either accept them as they are and the potential negative impact they will have on the wider group, or you must have one of those ”management” conversations with them.

Get started with our Sales Performance Coaching

4. Sales Coaching Models

There are many sales coaching models and frameworks that you can choose from.  The one we use both internally and externally is the GROW model which we find provides the simplicity and flexibility we require.  

It’s worth noting that coaching in sales can be very different to other forms of coaching.  For example, in Exec coaching, coaches are encouraged not to provide the answers and to focus on the questions. 

This forces the coachee to come up with the answer and the though process is that because its their idea they are more likely to believe it and then act on it. 

In sales when there are potentially millions of dollars in terms of deal values up for grabs and time is of the essence, the best sales coaches will switch from a consultative coaching process to directive coaching whereby they are training, coaching and advising the coachee what they need to do.

Grow Sales Coaching Model
GROW Sales Coaching Model

Opportunities for Coaching

There are many areas within sales that lend themselves to sales coaching.  The most common areas Managers should be focussing on for coaching we have found are around:

Sales Activity
Accountability
Lead Generation
Pipeline Coaching
Qualifying/disqualifying

Deal Coaching
Field Coaching
Pre-call planning
Post-call debriefing
Storytelling

5. The Six Biggest Benefits of Sales Coaching

1. Growing Sales Revenues

The more adept your employees become at selling, the more revenue they will generate for your business. We use the word employees because sales has changed and the most productive companies have people in every department that can sell to one degree or another. 

For example, many companies who have now aligned their sales and marketing now acknowledge that great salespeople can do marketing and great marketers can sell. 

Best in class companies have expanded this to their operations team who are now positioned as thought leaders and subject matter experts.  This helps build brand authority and helps to differentiate companies in the marketplace.

By investing in training based on the very latest strategies, techniques and market activity, you can gain a real edge over your competitors.

2. Increased Sales Productivity

Productivity can be difficult to measure in many roles, however, in sales there is a tangible figure every month that can be used as a good indicator. 

That’s not to say that your MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) or other revenue goals are the only indicator of productivity, but it’s always the ultimate figure that sales reps are judged by. 

Whereby sales training is about the transfer of knowledge, Sales Coaching is about the practical implementation of that knowledge in the field.  This means that coaching is the part that drives productivity in the sales team. 

With studies showing that 83% of employees want to learn new skills sales training and coaching can make your team more productive and efficient. Quality sales coaching sessions can inspire your team and help them get out of a rut.

You may find that some of your employees feel that they know all there is to know about driving sales. However, the market is always changing, and what works one year isn’t always as effective 12 months later.

Some of your employees may have more sales potential than they think, and training and coaching can help them unlock this.

3. Closing Bigger & Better Deals

Many times human beings create their own glass ceilings and get stuck.  Salespeople are susceptible to this and often suffer from self limiting beliefs around deal sizes, sales behaviours and the whole sales process. 

Sales training can give your staff the skills they need to secure bigger, more lucrative deals, however without coaching they will quickly lose the new skills and revert back to type.

A good sales coach helps embed the new skills and strategies your sales reps learn in training and helps hold them accountable to using the new skills. As your team become more knowledgeable and confident, they’re more likely to close more deals and bigger ones. 

By using highly experienced sales coaches who live and breathe sales you are in effect fast tracking your team past all the typical problems they will encounter that slow down company growth.

Your team will learn about the latest best practices that they can follow whilst attempting to close deals. The more successful your sales reps become, the more their confidence will grow. Success breeds success.

4. Win More New Clients

Often the most difficult activity in sales is generating new business.  Sales prospecting, lead generation, whatever you call it in your business filling the top of your sales funnel is always a challenge in B2B sales.

The problem with prospecting is that nobody wants to do it, but it still needs to be done.  Many of the problems associated with sales prospecting are connected to the mindset of the sales reps. 

It’s easy to churn out 70 calls a day, and even when you achieve some success it’s difficult to get motivated to come back in day after day and make more calls. 

The job of the modern sales coach isn’t just to help improve your telephone skills, or the number of dials you make every day. A great sales coach will take a more strategic approach, and work with you on the bigger picture – revenue goals, sales coals, sales campaigns that dramatically increase your sales results.

This in turn helps to motivate and inspire your staff, and get them thinking more strategically about the sales process.   

5. Boost Workplace Morale

Great sales coaching can also boost confidence and improve morale amongst your staff. Research by LinkedIn shows that 91% of people agree that teams that learn new skills together are more successful.

Furthermore 90% of people surveyed believe that team learning helps foster a sense of belonging to the organisation.

Whilst not everyone will, the majority of your team members are likely to appreciate the effort you’ve put into training them, and helping them improve their knowledge and skills.

Investing in training shows your staff that you care about their career development and want them to achieve more. If staff feel valued, they are more likely to meet their goals and stay with the organisation longer.

Employee satisfaction can be worth its weight is key when it achieving customer satisfaction and meeting business targets. Training can also refresh their knowledge so they can follow and new best practices and anything they may have forgotten or become unclear about.

6. Increased Decision Making by Sales Reps

Many companies struggle to grow because there are bottlenecks in their internal decision-making process.  These bottlenecks occur when sales reps do not have the confidence or knowledge to make any form of decision. 

This makes companies less agile and slow to react to changes in the market.  Many companies are investing in sales training and coaching in order to improve the decision-making skills of their sales leadership team.

Effective sales coaching can help your team recognise and capitalise on opportunities to drive not only your business forward, but their professional development too.

Sales trainers act as a sounding board and can listen to your Teams ideas and help them fine-tune them to make them more effective in real-world situations.

Other benefits of sales coaching are that your team can become more creative and you will foster an environment where they feel more comfortable discussing new ideas.

6. Virtual or Remote Sales Coaching

During the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 many salespeople were forced to work from home. Homeworking was easier for some than others, however, many studies showed that people felt less connected and even unsettled when working from home. 

Many Field Salespeople who had spent their lives on out on the road where suddenly confined to their home and confronted with a completely new way of selling. These are exactly the sort of scenarios where coaching can help people adjust to new circumstances and maintain performance.

In many cases sales reps had to retrain on how to sell remotely using tools like MS Teams and Zoom.  Sales training and coaching can bring your remote team together and make it more than the sum of its parts.

The best sales trainers don’t just focus on boosting individual performance but foster a sense of teamwork and unity between your staff. To close big deals in the modern sales world takes a Team and not just one individual.  

If everyone is using a common sales language and are working together at the best of their abilities, you’re more likely to close bigger and better deals than ever before.

How to manage sales activity
Behavioural Sales Coaching

7. Sales Coaching Tips

1. Focus on One-on-One Coaching

One of the most impactful sales coaching tips is to prioritize one-on-one coaching sessions. Sales representatives often struggle with specific challenges unique to their roles. By tailoring these sessions to the individual’s needs, a sales coach can offer the most relevant content and actionable advice. This personalized approach enables sales reps to make progress more effectively, ultimately achieving their business goals and hitting quotas.

2. Implement an Effective Coaching Program

An effective coaching program is essential for any sales organization looking to improve its sales performance. By regularly conducting coaching sessions on a monthly basis, sales managers can keep their teams on track. The best coaching programs include a formal process for providing ongoing feedback, focusing on areas for improvement, and setting clear objectives. Implementing such a program can significantly impact your team’s effectiveness and overall success.

3. Encourage Role Play and Real-Life Scenarios

Role play is a crucial component of sales coaching that allows salespeople to practice real-life scenarios in a safe environment. This technique not only prepares them for potential sales situations but also helps them to refine their selling techniques and overcome common obstacles. By simulating conversations with prospects, sales reps can better articulate their value propositions, handle objections, and close deals more effectively.

4. Offer Constructive Criticism and Praise

Balancing constructive criticism with praise is vital in sales coaching. While it’s important to address areas where sales reps need to improve, recognizing their strengths and achievements is equally crucial. Offering encouragement and celebrating small wins can boost self-motivation and foster a positive coaching environment. Remember, the goal is to create an environment where salespeople feel supported and motivated to excel.

5. Align Coaching with Business Goals

To ensure your sales coaching efforts lead to tangible results, it’s important to align your coaching activities with your organization’s business goals. Regularly reviewing progress toward quotas, discussing action plans, and adjusting strategies as needed will help keep your team focused on what matters most. By aligning coaching with business objectives, you can create a win-win scenario where both individual reps and the organization as a whole achieve success.

6. Utilize Technology for Continuous Improvement

Leveraging technology like CRM systems and sales analytics tools can enhance the effectiveness of your coaching program. These tools provide valuable insights into sales performance, helping coaches identify areas for improvement and track progress over time. Additionally, video recordings of sales calls can be reviewed during coaching sessions to offer specific, actionable feedback. Incorporating technology into your coaching process not only improves efficiency but also ensures that your coaching remains data-driven and impactful.

7. Foster a Culture of Continuous Learning

Sales coaching should be viewed as an ongoing process rather than a one-time event. Encouraging a culture of continuous learning within your sales organization is key to long-term success. Provide your team with professional development opportunities, such as sales training courses or workshops, to help them grow their skills. A great coach knows that developing people is a continuous journey, one that requires commitment, support, and the right resources.

8. Best Practices for Sales Managers in Coaching Sessions

When it comes to improving the performance of sales representatives, the role of a sales manager in coaching sessions is crucial. Conducting effective coaching sessions requires a structured approach that leverages insights, encourages motivation, and focuses on the specific needs of each team member. Below are some best practices that sales management can follow to ensure their coaching sessions get the best results:

1. Understand Your Team’s Needs:
Sales managers should begin by identifying the unique strengths and weaknesses of each sales representative. By conducting a thorough analysis and reflecting on past performance, managers can tailor coaching sessions to address the specific challenges that sales reps struggle with, ensuring that each session is impactful.

2. Set Clear Objectives:
Establishing clear, actionable goals is essential for any coaching session. Sales managers should define what success looks like and communicate these objectives effectively to their team. Whether it’s improving close rates, enhancing product knowledge, or mastering objection handling, having a defined goal helps in tracking progress and ensuring accountability.

3. Incorporate Regular Feedback:
Consistent feedback is a key component of successful coaching. Sales managers should provide constructive criticism while also recognizing the achievements of their sales reps. Regular feedback, given during weekly one-on-ones or after team meetings, helps reinforce positive behaviors and correct any areas of concern.

4. Utilize Role-Playing Scenarios:
Role-playing is an excellent way for sales representatives to practice and refine their skills. Sales managers should incorporate role-playing exercises into their coaching sessions to simulate real-world scenarios. This approach not only builds confidence but also helps reps think on their feet and improve their performance during actual sales calls.

5. Foster an Open Communication Environment:
Creating an environment where sales reps feel comfortable discussing their challenges and successes is vital. Sales managers should encourage open-ended questions and active participation during coaching sessions. This open communication fosters trust and allows for a more personalized coaching experience.

6. Leverage Data and Technology:
Sales managers can enhance the effectiveness of their coaching sessions by leveraging data-driven insights from CRM systems and other sales tools. Analyzing sales performance data helps in identifying patterns, tracking progress, and making informed decisions. Additionally, using video recordings of sales calls can be a powerful way to provide targeted feedback.

7. Focus on Long-Term Development:
While addressing immediate performance issues is important, sales managers should also focus on the long-term development of their team members. This includes providing professional development opportunities, offering career guidance, and helping reps build a path toward achieving their career goals.

8. Balance Between Guidance and Autonomy:
A great sales manager knows when to provide guidance and when to allow reps to take ownership of their learning. Striking the right balance between offering direction and encouraging autonomy empowers sales reps to take initiative and develop their problem-solving skills.

9. Track and Measure Progress:
Regularly tracking and measuring the effectiveness of coaching sessions is critical. Sales managers should set key performance indicators (KPIs) and use these metrics to evaluate progress over time. This approach ensures that the coaching process is aligned with the overall sales goals of the organization.

By implementing these sales coaching activities, sales managers can conduct coaching sessions that not only improve individual performance but also contribute to the overall success of the sales organization. Effective coaching sessions are a blend of insight, motivation, and structured guidance, and when done right, they have the power to transform average companies into high-performing sales teams.

9. Sales Coaching Techniques

Sales coaching is a critical part of any effective coaching program, especially in a dynamic sales organization where sales representatives are constantly adapting to new challenges. Here are some essential sales coaching techniques to help your sales reps succeed:

1. One-on-One Coaching for Personalized Development

Personal 121 coaching sessions are an effective way to address the unique needs of individual sales representatives. Often a Sales rep may struggle with specific obstacles in their role, and these tailored sessions allow coaches to provide relevant content and actionable advice. By making personal coaching a top priority, sales coaches can focus on developing core performers, thereby improving overall sales performance and achieving business goals.

2. Implementing an Effective Coaching Program

A structured and effective sales coaching program is essential for ongoing development and quota attainment. According to CSO Insights, a well-implemented coaching process leads to significant improvement in close rates and overall sales performance. By scheduling coaching sessions on a monthly basis and providing ongoing feedback, managers can ensure their teams are consistently making progress. Importantly, these sessions should be seen as opportunities for constructive criticism and praise, helping to motivate and guide reps toward success.

3. Role Play to Prepare for Real-World Scenarios

Of all the sales coaching activities you could implement, Role play is by far the most productive.  Role play is a proven technique that prepares salespeople for real-world interactions with prospects. By practicing different approaches in a controlled environment, the sales rep can build confidence and refine their techniques. This method not only helps reps articulate value propositions more effectively but also enables them to overcome common objections they may face during sales calls.

4. Leveraging Technology for Enhanced Coaching

The use of CRM systems and other sales enablement tools is crucial in modern sales coaching. These technologies provide valuable insights into sales activities, allowing coaches to track performance, identify areas for improvement, and review sales calls for feedback. By integrating technology into your coaching sessions, you can ensure that your coaching is data-driven and tailored to the specific needs of your sales team.

5. Encouraging a Culture of Continuous Learning

Creating an environment that fosters continuous learning is vital for long-term success. Sales coaching should not be a one-time event but rather an ongoing process that aligns with the organization’s goals. By offering professional development opportunities and encouraging self-motivation, sales leaders can ensure that their teams are consistently developing and improving. This culture of continuous learning will ultimately lead to greater job satisfaction and higher retention rates.

6. Aligning Coaching with Business Goals

To maximize the impact of sales coaching, it’s crucial to align coaching activities with the organization’s business objectives. Regularly reviewing progress and setting action plans based on these goals helps create a win-win situation where both the sales reps and the organization achieve their targets. By focusing on these main points during coaching sessions, sales leaders can ensure that their teams are on track to hit their quotas.

7. Fostering Trust and Ownership Among Reps

Effective sales coaching is built on a foundation of trust and ownership. Sales coaches must foster an environment where reps feel supported and accountable for their progress. By involving reps in the decision-making process and encouraging them to take ownership of their development, coaches can empower them to achieve success. This approach not only leads to better results but also helps build stronger, more resilient sales teams.

By implementing these sales coaching techniques, you can create an effective and motivating environment that drives your sales team toward success.

The ROI on Exec Sales Coaching
Sales Coaching ROI

10. Coaching your Sales Team in a Structured Way

It’s common for companies to know exactly what kind of training their teams need. However, many sales management teams are unclear about how the training should be structured.

Structure is important because it ensures that the training sticks and is embedded in the organisation. Without any form of structure you will find participants forget up to 98% of what they learn in training.

Experienced training providers and coaches can help you examine your current sales culture and build a training programme that’s specifically tailored to your organisations needs.

A sales training provider can carry out research such as a training needs analysis before training and coaching takes place. Any training and coaching should also be aligned with the companies sales strategy. 

For example, if there is a need from the business to reduce customer churn the training and coaching on this topic might be a priority. 

Training can also be built around new product launches and sales campaigns and wherever possible should be built around your current sales challenges.

Coaching Sales Behaviours
High Performance Sales Coaching

11. Product and Service Training

Buyers have very little time to spend with sales reps and when they do they want to talk to salespeople who understand their industry, their business and their own products and services. 

For any new sales rep this can be a huge challenge as they get up to speed on products and services. 

Buyers expect salespeople to know all the answers to their questions, and their products inside out. including all their features and benefits. While training supports features and benefits, coaching provides the all important bridge between them, and what relevance and value they provide to the customer.   

Sales coaches can help reps gain a deeper, richer understanding of the context and relevance of the  products that they’re selling.  This in turn allows them to emphasise their value when discussing them with customers.

A quality sales coach will encourage your team members to talk about the most important features of your solutions, so your prospects can clearly see how beneficial they are, resulting in more sales success for everyone. 

12. Coaching Sales Managers

Many companies overlook one of the most important elements of any successful sales coaching program, namely the sales manager. 

In most cases a sales manager also fulfils the role of the sales coach and as such has a huge influence on the success of the sales team. 

Coaching sales people will have limited results if the overall coaching program does not include the sales manager. 

Modern sales managers set the bar in terms of productivity and sales performance, so unless they are learning and improving, neither will their  team be.

Most sales managers have neither been trained in sales management, let alone as a sales coach.

Running an effective sales coaching programme is very different from being a great sales person or sales manager. 

13. Virtual Selling

The pandemic and subsequent lockdowns resulted in many traditional field sales reps being taken off the road and working from home. 

Despite most lockdowns having lifted the traditional field sales role has in some cases merged into a hybrid role and in other cases been removed completely. 

Virtual selling is here to stay and for most organisations this represented an immediate need for sales coaching and training to support reps in their changed environments. 

Sales Managers with no training as sales coaches where thrown into the limelight, and overnight were required to be the sales coach. 

In addition to their management duties, overnight they now had strategic coaching, tactical coaching, sales cycle coaching  team motivation, coaching sales calls, coaching underperforming sales reps, one on one meetings, group sessions to keep their team motivated, boost engagement maintain accountability and sales performance. 

All this whilst managing their own performance and continuing to meet the revenue and sales goals and overall sales success of the organisation.  Sales managers need support, they need professional development programs themselves if they are in turn expected to support other team members. 

Remote selling requires a different skill set and different coaching techniques in order to deliver results.  

14. In Conclusion

If you’re interested in providing structured and effective sales coaching program that’s specifically based on your needs, we would love to talk with you. Sales coaching can reverse any negative sales trends, make your team more adept at selling, improve your sales processes and increase morale within your workforce.

By getting your sales leaders on board and involved in the training and coaching process, you can increase the chances of the training being successful.

Sales coaching can also unite sales teams, help you close bigger, better and more lucrative deals, enhance your revenue, help you win new clients, and retain existing ones. Few companies regret their decision to invest in sales coaching.

Klozers has different sales coaching programs available for salespeople, sales managers and business leaders.  We have built our business on our ability to train and coach sales professionals across various industries and love what we do. 

Comment construire un entonnoir de vente SaaS

entonnoir de vente saas

1. Qu’est-ce qu’un entonnoir de vente ?

Un entonnoir de vente est une séquence d’actions, d’événements ou d’étapes qu’un utilisateur traverse avant d’acheter un produit ou un service. Les entonnoirs de vente sont conçus pour permettre aux spécialistes du marketing de suivre, d’enregistrer et d’optimiser le processus de vente afin d’améliorer les résultats.

Vous pouvez en savoir plus sur notre formation à la vente de produits SaaS ici.

2. Comment construire un entonnoir de vente SaaS

Votre entonnoir de vente SaaS est un élément essentiel de la réussite de vos Apps. Si vous proposez des applications SaaS, la création d’un entonnoir de vente reproductible, évolutif et traçable est l’une des étapes importantes que vous devez franchir.

Ça semble facile ? Alors, réfléchissez-y à nouveau. L’entonnoir de vente est l’endroit où de nombreuses start-ups qui se lancent dans la génération de revenus ont des difficultés, et dans de nombreux cas, échouent.

Avant de commencer à construire votre entonnoir, il convient d’examiner où vous en êtes dans votre parcours d’application.

3. Les trois grandes étapes du développement du SaaS

Malheureusement, dans le domaine de la vente, il n’existe jamais de solution unique, et le point de départ de la construction d’un entonnoir de vente SaaS dépend de votre situation par rapport aux trois principales étapes d’une entreprise SaaS ?

Vous êtes à :
Phase 1: le début du voyage où le fondateur et l’équipe principale essaient encore d’établir l’adéquation produit/marché.

Phase 2: lorsque le fondateur et les principaux membres de l’équipe ont prouvé l’adéquation produit/marché et prouvent qu’ils peuvent mettre en œuvre des systèmes et des processus que d’autres peuvent utiliser pour vendre.

La phase 3, l’obstacle final, où vous avez prouvé l’adéquation du produit au marché, vous avez identifié et prouvé les bons systèmes et processus pour le développement et vous êtes maintenant prêt à développer vos ventes, à vous concentrer sur l’acquisition de clients et à développer votre MRR.

Les stratégies que vous utilisez pour construire un entonnoir de vente SaaS varient en fonction de ce que vous avez appris à l’étape 1 ci-dessus.

Pour les besoins de cet exercice, je supposerai donc que vous en êtes à l’étape 1. Si vous avez toujours du mal à construire un entonnoir de vente aux étapes 2 et 3, c’est que vous avez manqué quelque chose à l’étape 1 ou que quelque chose a changé et que tout ce que vous avez appris à l’étape 1 ne fonctionne plus.

4. Construisez un entonnoir de marketing avant votre entonnoir de vente

Dans toute entreprise, il est important de créer les conditions optimales pour que votre équipe de vente puisse réussir. Dans le monde du SaaS, il ne suffit pas d’avoir un excellent site Web, il faut un site qui.. :

a) vos produits et services peuvent être trouvés dans les principaux moteurs de recherche – Google, Bing, Yahoo et YouTube
b) peuvent être trouvés par les problèmes que vous résolvez dans les principaux moteurs de recherche – Google, Bing, Yahoo et YouTube
c) peut convertir le trafic web en prospects qualifiés pour le marketing

De nombreuses entreprises ignorent ce fait et se précipitent pour mettre en place une équipe de vente sortante. Le fait est que chaque prospect potentiel que votre équipe sortante parvient à intéresser se rendra ensuite sur votre site web pour effectuer des recherches plus approfondies.

Si l’expérience sur le web n’est pas égale ou supérieure à celle que le prospect a eue avec votre équipe de prospection, il se détournera immédiatement de vous.

Pour construire un entonnoir marketing, vous devez créer un “contenu convaincant pour l’utilisateur”. Il s’agit du contenu que l’utilisateur recherche activement, et non du contenu que vos équipes de vente et de marketing veulent promouvoir.

Votre entonnoir de marketing SaaS est un élément essentiel de votre stratégie de vente Inbound. Pour y parvenir, vous devez créer du contenu de haute qualité à chaque étape du parcours de l’acheteur, comme indiqué ci-dessous.

Le contenu doit subtilement raconter l’histoire de votre marque et le succès que vous avez apporté aux autres utilisateurs. Faites de vos utilisateurs précoces des héros, pas vous.

TOFU – Haut de l’entonnoir
La première partie de votre entonnoir de vente, autrement appelée TOFU, est l’étape de sensibilisation de l’entonnoir. Le prospect est conscient des problèmes qu’il rencontre et cherche des solutions.

Votre site Web doit avoir un contenu qui aborde ces problèmes et positionne votre entreprise en tant qu’expert en la matière. Le contenu le plus populaire ici serait :

Guides d’utilisation
Vidéos explicatives
Articles de blog
Aimants de plomb

À ce stade, le prospect est en mode recherche, pas en mode achat et il se contente de recueillir des informations.

À ce stade, il se peut que votre prospect ne soit même pas intéressé par des solutions, car il essaie encore d’auto-diagnostiquer avec précision ses propres problèmes. Il est peu probable que votre prospect veuille parler au service commercial à ce stade.

Nous vous recommandons d’utiliser l’automatisation du marketing pour suivre les articles/pages sur lesquels vos prospects entrent sur le site, car c’est le problème qui les préoccupe le plus. En sachant cela, il est plus facile pour les vendeurs d’avoir une conversation pertinente avec eux.

Vous pouvez également réussir à engager le prospect avec des chatbots sur votre site, mais beaucoup voudront rester anonymes à ce stade.

Milieu de l’entonnoir
Le milieu de votre entonnoir de vente est le moment où les prospects commencent à évaluer des solutions spécifiques sur la base de ce qu’ils ont appris à l’étape 1. Le contenu du milieu de l’entonnoir pourrait inclure :

Présentations
Démonstrations
Études de cas

Concrètement, ils auront établi une sorte de liste restreinte de fournisseurs potentiels, puis ils approfondiront les détails de chaque solution potentielle.

À ce stade, il est possible que le prospect ne s’engage pas avec vous, car il effectue souvent des recherches pour le compte d’autres personnes au sein de sa propre organisation et sa priorité reste la collecte d’informations.

Fond de l’entonnoir
Lorsque votre prospect a atteint le bas de votre entonnoir de marketing, il a souvent déjà “acheté” un fournisseur ou une solution en particulier.

Ils ont pris leur décision en grande partie sur la base de leur expérience de la marque sur le web, de votre message de vente et de votre capacité à vous positionner non seulement comme un leader du marché, mais aussi comme un leader d’opinion qui comprend leurs problèmes.

Le contenu de la partie inférieure de l’entonnoir comprend des éléments tels que :

Fixation des prix
Tableaux comparatifs
Témoignages
Critiques

Pour les solutions plus simples et moins chères, vous constaterez qu’ils sont prêts à faire un essai si vous leur proposez un appel à l’action (AAC) fort, tandis que pour les solutions plus coûteuses et plus complexes, ils se tourneront vers les ventes.

L’image ci-dessous montre la transition entre un entonnoir de marketing simple et un panier d’achat, et la transition entre une vente B2B plus complexe et un prospect pour les ventes.

Le succès ne réside pas dans le choix du bon modèle, mais dans la construction de votre propre modèle basé sur des données et des essais et erreurs.

Entonnoir simple de marketing SaaS
Entonnoir de vente SaaS

La plupart des logiciels de marketing suivent désormais le comportement des utilisateurs sur votre site web et peuvent utiliser le lead scoring pour avertir les vendeurs du meilleur moment pour contacter les prospects de manière proactive.

D’après notre propre expérience, le moment est presque toujours trop précoce et un programme de maturation des prospects bien défini est tout aussi efficace.

Pour ce faire, vous devez intégrer à votre stratégie de marketing au moins trois aimants différents qui vous aideront à transformer vos visiteurs en abonnés afin de pouvoir rester en contact avec eux.

5. La publicité pour remplir votre entonnoir de vente

De nombreuses entreprises parviennent à remplir leur entonnoir de vente par la publicité. La publicité numérique a atteint un niveau de maturité tel qu’elle permet un suivi et un reporting importants, vous permettant de comprendre en quelques semaines ce que seront votre taux de conversion et votre CAC.

En premier lieu, nous préconisons les “campagnes de reciblage”. Il s’agit simplement de placer des publicités devant les personnes qui ont déjà visité votre site Web.

Des études montrent que le reciblage est sept fois plus efficace que les nouvelles campagnes, c’est pourquoi nous le préconisons comme point de départ.

Cette stratégie fonctionne très bien avec une solide campagne de marketing de contenu. Le canal d’ajout le plus populaire pour le B2B est LinkedIn, mais de nombreuses entreprises ont également obtenu de bons résultats avec Facebook et Instagram.

Il va sans dire que cela sera défini par votre public. La publicité peut être utilisée dans des entonnoirs simples pour stimuler les ventes et dans des entonnoirs plus complexes pour susciter de nouvelles demandes de renseignements pour les représentants commerciaux.

Les ventes plus complexes peuvent nécessiter une séquence définie dans laquelle les utilisateurs cliquent et annoncent pour recevoir un aimant à prospects, chaque prospect coûtant 3 $.

Si vous parvenez ensuite à convertir 5 % de ces nouvelles pistes, vous pouvez alors attribuer à votre CAC 60 dollars par vente provenant de la publicité.

Vous pouvez construire une séquence ou un modèle traçable à partir de n’importe quelle activité, pas seulement la publicité. Par exemple, les événements, les webinaires et les téléventes vous permettent de comprendre quelles activités sont les plus rentables, non seulement pour remplir votre entonnoir, mais aussi pour convertir en commandes.

6. Comment construire un entonnoir de vente SaaS

Votre entonnoir de vente variera en fonction de votre stratégie de vente. Vendez-vous votre application directement ou par l’intermédiaire de partenaires ? Sur quels canaux avez-vous décidé de vous concentrer dans un premier temps ?

1. Identifiez le profil de votre prospect parfait. Il s’agit de la version des commerciaux d’un persona marketing. Il comprend tout ce qu’un persona marketing comprendrait, plus quelques informations supplémentaires qui aident les ventes à comprendre et à communiquer à un niveau plus profond avec le prospect.

Modèle de profil de prospect de vente
Modèle de profil de prospect de vente

2. Construisez votre message de vente. L’adéquation produit/marché consiste en partie à comprendre quel problème commercial ou personnel votre produit résout.

D’après notre expérience, les services SaaS les plus réussis sont des solutions commerciales qui résolvent des problèmes commerciaux.

Une fois que vous aurez compris le lien avec votre propre produit/service, vous pourrez commencer à élaborer votre message de vente.

Ce sont les mots et le langage nuancé que vous avez prouvé que les prospects se connectent avec. Il ne suffit pas de connaître ses propres activités et solutions, il faut aussi connaître ses clients.

Vous devez savoir exactement comment votre solution aide votre client à économiser de l’argent, à en gagner et à lui faciliter la vie.

3. Campagne de génération de prospects.

Une fois que vous avez identifié vos prospects cibles et élaboré votre message de vente, vous devez commencer à travailler sur une campagne de génération de prospects.

Il existe deux approches principales de la génération de prospects :

a) Génération de pistes entrantes. Les campagnes de génération de pistes entrantes sont celles où le prospect vous contacte en premier. Ils peuvent remplir un formulaire sur votre page web, vous téléphoner ou vous envoyer un courriel. Pour générer des pistes de vente entrantes, vous devrez recourir à la création de contenu, à des campagnes publicitaires, à des webinaires, à des programmes de recommandation ou au référencement.

b) Génération de prospects sortants. Les campagnes de génération de pistes sortantes consistent à contacter des prospects par téléphone, courrier électronique, courrier direct, événements ou marketing basé sur les comptes. Les campagnes d’appels sortants signifient invariablement que vous devez mettre en place une équipe d’appels sortants, ce qui peut être coûteux.

La majorité des entreprises SaaS utilisent une combinaison d’appels entrants et sortants, mais elles mettent presque toujours l’accent sur l’un plus que sur l’autre.

À titre d’indication très approximative, les services SaaS à faible coût et ciblant les PME sont axés sur le marketing et se concentrent principalement sur l’approche Inbound.

Les services SaaS qui sont plus expansifs et qui ciblent les entreprises de taille moyenne ou les grandes entreprises auront une approche plus axée sur les ventes via le marketing basé sur les comptes.

7. Quelles sont les étapes d’un entonnoir de vente SaaS ?

entonnoir de vente saas
Comment construire un entonnoir de vente SaaS

Les étapes de votre entonnoir de vente sont simplement une série d’étapes que vos prospects franchissent pour passer une commande.

Ces étapes peuvent varier considérablement et il n’existe pas d’entonnoir unique applicable à toutes les applications. Même si les étapes sont les mêmes, la méthode par laquelle vous faites passer les prospects dans l’entonnoir peut varier.

Votre entonnoir de vente est un endroit idéal pour commencer à collecter des données afin de mesurer les performances et d’apporter des améliorations au fil du temps.

En général, les prospects doivent passer le plus rapidement possible dans l’entonnoir de vente – c’est ce qu’on appelle le cycle de vente ou la vitesse du tuyau.

Mesurer la vitesse à laquelle les prospects avancent dans le cycle vous permet d’identifier les blocages dans votre entonnoir et les zones où les prospects ralentissent.

C’est sur ces points “sensibles” que vous devez chercher à apporter des améliorations.

8. Quand dois-je faire la démonstration de mon produit SaaS aux clients ?

Le timing des démonstrations d’applications SaaS dans le processus de vente a fait l’objet de discussions pour de nombreuses entreprises.

La réponse à cette question est malheureusement “cela dépend”. De nombreuses entreprises réussissent à faire une démonstration de leur application au début du processus de vente, mais elles sont tout aussi nombreuses à faire une démonstration au début du processus, puis à voir leurs prospects disparaître dans le trou noir des boîtes vocales et des courriels sans réponse.

En bref, plus la solution est simple et bon marché, plus la démo peut intervenir tôt dans le processus, et plus la solution est coûteuse et complexe, plus la démo doit être repoussée aussi loin que possible dans le processus de vente.

démos d'applications saas
Comment construire un entonnoir de vente SaaS


La réalité est que les entrepreneurs et les vendeurs ont tendance à se précipiter pour faire une démonstration de leur application, en espérant que cette démonstration convaincra le prospect de s’inscrire.

Même si le prospect est qualifié et qu’il convient, une démo sans aucune forme de diagnostic de la douleur du prospect risque de le perdre.

Votre prospect a besoin de savoir que vous le connaissez et que vous comprenez son univers. Cela ne peut se faire que par un questionnement intelligent et ciblé. Si vous voulez accélérer la vente, ralentissez-la.

La démo est généralement le principal levier du vendeur et si vous la donnez trop tôt, vous perdrez ce levier et, selon toute probabilité, le prospect.

En règle générale, repoussez la démonstration de l’application aussi loin que possible dans votre processus de vente.

Les démonstrations coûtent du temps et de l’argent, surtout dans le cas de ventes complexes où, le plus souvent, une démonstration sur mesure est nécessaire.

Toute démonstration sur mesure ne doit être présentée qu’aux décideurs de haut niveau de l’équipe d’acheteurs potentiels. Le cas échéant, vous pouvez même avoir deux démonstrations dans le cadre du processus de vente – il n’y a pas de règle, si ce n’est que si ça marche, faites-le.

La plupart des représentants commerciaux commettent l’erreur d’utiliser cette partie du processus de vente pour expliquer plus en détail les avantages du produit.

Quand tu racontes, tu ne vends pas. Utilisez des questions d’approfondissement intelligentes pour amener le prospect à vous dire comment la solution résoudra ses problèmes professionnels.

Vous devez éviter de parler de caractéristiques que vous jugez pertinentes pour eux. Si vous ne l’avez pas découvert au cours de la phase de découverte du processus de vente, il est intrinsèquement risqué d’introduire quoi que ce soit de nouveau plus loin dans le processus.

Pour les solutions plus simples et moins chères, vous constaterez qu’ils sont prêts à faire un essai, tandis que pour les solutions plus coûteuses et complexes, ils s’adresseront à un représentant commercial.

Afin de démontrer qu’ils ont fait preuve de diligence raisonnable, ils s’adresseront toujours à deux ou trois fournisseurs potentiels.

Il ne s’agit pas nécessairement d’écraser un fournisseur sur le prix, mais parfois de faire comprendre au groupe d’acheteurs plus large de l’organisation pourquoi il a une préférence.

Les essais d’applications sont également un bon moyen d’inciter les utilisateurs à s’inscrire, mais le taux de conversion des essais en ventes est généralement faible dans la plupart des cas de SaaS.

En fonction de la tarification, vous pouvez proposer un essai géré, afin qu’ils puissent évaluer votre logiciel pendant que vous les accompagnez dans le processus de vente.

Pendant un essai, le prospect peut voir comment le produit fonctionnera pour lui dans la pratique. Il est important de choisir le bon moment pour le procès et de s’assurer que vous avez convenu à l’avance de ce qui se passera si le procès aboutit.

Nous avons créé le graphique ci-dessus pour essayer d’expliquer visuellement comment cela pourrait fonctionner pour votre organisation.

Il convient de noter que, dans l’exemple, la majorité de votre CAC sera constituée par le marketing, tandis que dans l’entonnoir plus complexe, vos coûts comprendront le marketing, les ventes et l’accueil des clients.

9. Exemples d’entonnoirs de vente SaaS

Les entonnoirs de vente ci-dessous sont des exemples. Vous ne devez PAS les reproduire, sauf si elles correspondent à votre processus de vente.

Ils sont conçus pour être un point de départ pour ceux qui cherchent à développer un entonnoir de vente.

Comme vous pouvez le voir sur le graphique, il existe de nombreuses alternatives aux étapes qui composent votre entonnoir de vente, selon le type d’entonnoir que vous créez.

Pour les entonnoirs purement numériques, vous pourriez avoir :

Page d’accueil Lead Magnet – où les prospects arrivent après avoir cliqué sur votre annonce.
Page de confirmation – pour confirmer votre offre gratuite, votre essai ou votre achat.
Page de vente incitative – où les clients potentiels ont la possibilité d’ajouter des services supplémentaires ou de passer à une version supérieure.
Page de paiement – où les clients potentiels paient pour le service.
Page de félicitations ou de remerciements – où vous pouvez indiquer aux prospects les prochaines étapes à suivre.

Entonnoir de vente avec pipeline
Comment construire un entonnoir de vente SaaS

10. Mesures de l’entonnoir des ventes SaaS

En ce qui concerne les mesures, nous pensons qu’il s’agit des mesures et des indicateurs clés de performance des opérations de vente que la plupart des gens connaissent. Il va sans dire que ces indicateurs sont importants et que vous devez les enregistrer et en rendre compte.

LTT – Conversion des pistes en essais
Il s’agit du nombre de prospects qui ont été convertis en essai.

DCR – Rapport de conversion des démos
Le nombre de démos qui se convertissent avec succès à l’étape suivante du processus de vente.

TTS – Conversion des essais en ventes
Il s’agit du nombre de prospects de l’essai gratuit qui se sont convertis en clients payants.

LTV – Valeur à vie du client
Il s’agit de la valeur totale moyenne qu’un client dépensera avant de quitter le service. Ironiquement, il peut être plus difficile de mesurer l’amélioration de votre produit, car si les clients ne partent pas, vous ne saurez pas combien de temps ils restent et quelle est leur valeur totale pour l’entreprise.

Churn – Nombre de clients qui quittent l’entreprise
Les clients partiront et ce n’est pas toujours une mauvaise chose. Si les clients qui partent correspondent à votre PIC (profil du client idéal), vous avez un problème. Les clients qui partent et qui ne correspondent pas à votre PCI peuvent libérer des ressources précieuses qui peuvent être consacrées à votre PCI.

MRR – Revenu mensuel récurrent
Le revenu mensuel récurrent vous donne une vue d’ensemble de votre succès, mais ce n’est qu’une vue d’ensemble et vous devez examiner les détails des données pour obtenir une image plus précise.

RAR – Revenu annuel récurrent
Le revenu annuel récurrent donne un bon aperçu de l’activité, mais comme pour le MRR, vous devez étudier toutes les données pour obtenir une image plus précise de la santé de votre entreprise.

Cycle de vente – Le temps écoulé entre le premier contact et la conclusion d’une commande.
Ce délai est généralement court pour les solutions simples de faible valeur et plus long pour les ventes complexes aux entreprises. Par exemple, une vente à une banque de niveau 1 peut prendre 18 mois entre le premier contact et la conclusion.

CAC – Coût d’acquisition des clients
Il est important de comprendre ce que vous coûte l’acquisition d’un seul client. Dans un monde idéal, vous le découvrirez dans les phases initiales de l’entreprise, lorsque vous prouverez la proposition de valeur. Sans ce chiffre, il est impossible de mettre en place les systèmes et les processus nécessaires pour faire évoluer l’entreprise, car vous ne saurez pas combien vous pouvez dépenser pour le marketing et les ventes.

Negative Churn –
Le taux de désabonnement négatif est une mesure de croissance puissante qui indique que les recettes provenant de la vente incitative et de la vente croisée des clients existants sont supérieures aux recettes perdues lorsque les clients partent.

11. Soumission de propositions SaaS

Après la démonstration finale, vous ne devez jamais proposer d’envoyer une proposition.

Les propositions coûtent du temps et de l’argent et si votre prospect est intéressé, il vous demandera une proposition.

Si votre prospect ne vous demande pas de proposition, cela signifie qu’il n’est pas intéressé par une collaboration avec vous et que vous devez remonter le processus de vente pour comprendre où vous vous êtes trompé.

Lorsque le processus de vente s’arrête, c’est rarement à cause de quelque chose que vous avez mal fait à ce moment-là – le plus souvent, c’est quelque chose que vous avez manqué plus tôt dans le processus de vente.

Assurez-vous que tous les avantages du logiciel leur ont été clairement expliqués et qu’ils ont été évalués en fonction de leurs besoins.

Dans la mesure du possible, demandez toujours à votre chevalier blanc de vous aider à co-créer la proposition et vérifiez avec lui une version préliminaire avant d’envoyer la copie officielle.

Avant d’envoyer votre proposition, vous devez avoir une idée claire des étapes à suivre en cas de victoire ou de défaite.

Sans cela, vous risquez fort de passer les trois prochains mois à chasser les fantômes dans les boîtes vocales.

12. Fixer le prix de vos contrats SaaS

De nombreuses entreprises n’affichent que peu ou pas de prix sur leur site web, parce qu’elles ne veulent pas que leurs concurrents voient leurs prix ou parce qu’elles pensent que cela fera fuir les clients potentiels.

Vous devez être fier de votre prix et de la valeur que vous apportez. Laissez les concurrents vous sous-évaluer et mobiliser toutes leurs ressources sur des affaires non rentables.

Les gens achètent rarement la solution la moins chère, alors permettez à vos prospects d’être moins chers que vous.

Si vous êtes toujours inquiet à l’idée d’afficher vos prix sur votre site web, pensez à ce que vous ressentez lorsque vous recherchez une solution qui vous intéresse et que vous constatez que la page des prix est remplie de POA.

Si vous êtes comme la plupart des gens, vous trouvez cela vraiment ennuyeux et passez rapidement au prochain fournisseur potentiel.

Enfin, un autre avantage d’afficher fièrement vos prix est d’exclure toute personne qui n’est pas prête à investir à ce niveau.

Cela peut vous faire gagner beaucoup de temps et de ressources avec des prospects qui ont simplement un niveau de budget différent.

De nombreuses stratégies de tarification s’offrent à vous, mais, d’après notre expérience, la seule chose qui est garantie, c’est que vous changerez votre tarification.

En règle générale, si vos prix sont trop élevés pour un contrat à court terme ou une période d’essai payante, le prospect risque de ne pas profiter de tous les avantages du logiciel avant la fin du contrat et de décider de ne pas le renouveler.

Dans la mesure du possible, vous devez récompenser les prospects pendant la période d’essai pour avoir ajouté des informations et utilisé le service.

Par exemple, proposez une période d’essai plus courte et incitez les utilisateurs à compléter leur profil ou leur compte.

Offrez une période gratuite supplémentaire pour les encourager à utiliser le produit, par exemple s’ils téléchargent des données dans le système.

L’idée est d'”embarquer” vos nouveaux utilisateurs étape par étape et de rendre votre produit aussi collant que possible.
Si le prospect veut aller de l’avant, vous devez utiliser des contrats avec signature numérique pour accélérer le processus de vente.

N’envoyez jamais de contrats par courrier électronique ou de liens vers des contrats numériques, car ils peuvent être facilement ignorés.

Arrangez-vous pour avoir le prospect au téléphone et discutez du contrat avec lui. Une fois qu’ils ont accepté tout ce que contient le contrat, demandez-leur simplement de le signer pendant que vous les avez au téléphone.

De cette façon, vous gardez le contrôle du processus de vente.

13. Pourquoi l’entonnoir de vente est si important pour les fournisseurs de SaaS

De nombreuses entreprises ont échoué après avoir eu du mal à mettre en place un entonnoir de vente. La commercialisation et la vente de produits SaaS peuvent s’avérer extrêmement difficiles, et il y a de fortes chances que vos clients cibles soient déjà submergés par les offres de fournisseurs de logiciels concurrents.

Réfléchissez à la partie du budget existant de l’acheteur à partir de laquelle vous allez gagner des revenus. À quels concurrents directs ou indirects allez-vous enlever du budget ?

Vous pouvez être en concurrence avec certaines des marques les plus grandes et les plus puissantes du monde qui proposent des solutions génériques aux mêmes problèmes que vous.

Cela signifie que vous devez offrir quelque chose de distinctif dont vos clients ont réellement besoin.

Selon une étude de CB Insights, 42 % des start-ups SaaS échouent parce qu’elles proposent des produits dont leurs clients cibles n’ont pas besoin.

Il est essentiel de convaincre les clients potentiels que votre logiciel offre une véritable valeur ajoutée.

Pourquoi les start-ups saas échouent

14. Gérer les attentes des prospects

Créer un entonnoir de vente, c’est construire un parcours qui va du visiteur web à l’abonné, en passant par les démonstrations et les pistes, pour aboutir à la signature du contrat.

Votre entonnoir de vente doit mettre l’accent sur chacune des étapes clés que vos prospects franchiront pour parvenir à un accord.

Soyez ouvert, franc et partagez à l’avance les étapes du processus avec vos prospects.
Vous devez prêter une attention particulière à tous les points de friction qui peuvent survenir lors du parcours de vos prospects dans votre pipeline de vente.

Cela vous donnera l’occasion d’apporter des améliorations à votre entonnoir pour l’avenir.
Le plus important est d’enregistrer tous les points de données de votre entonnoir de vente.

Cela vous aidera à prendre des décisions en vous basant sur des faits plutôt que sur votre instinct. Il faut parfois du temps pour que votre entonnoir de vente devienne pleinement efficace, et il se peut que vous deviez apporter plusieurs améliorations avant d’avoir un entonnoir de vente réellement optimisé.

De nombreux clients n’ont pas une idée précise de ce dont ils ont besoin lorsqu’ils vous rencontrent pour la première fois. Proposez des solutions et pas seulement des produits en aidant les prospects à faire le lien entre les deux.

Il est également vrai que les utilisateurs achètent souvent ce qu’ils veulent et non ce dont ils ont besoin.

C’est pourquoi il est si important de poser des questions ciblées afin de déterminer avec précision leurs besoins et de positionner votre logiciel de la manière la plus favorable.

Ces questions vous indiqueront également dans quelle mesure ils sont proches ou éloignés de la prise de décision.

15. L’essor des solutions SaaS

Il semble que tout dans le monde soit désormais alimenté en ligne par des applications SaaS. De Netflix et Amazon Prime à LinkedIn et Microsoft M365, nous sommes désormais entourés de solutions SaaS d’une description ou d’une autre.

D’un point de vue financier, le SaaS est intéressant, car il permet d’éviter de lourdes dépenses d’investissement initiales et de dérisquer la solution.

Après tout, si cela ne fonctionne pas, vous n’êtes généralement engagé que pour une durée maximale de 12 mois. Parmi les autres avantages du SaaS, citons le fait qu’il est normalement rapide à déployer et ne nécessite aucune maintenance de la part du client.

Les mises à niveau sont normalement fournies automatiquement, les clients se voyant généralement proposer des niveaux de service garantis.

Les sauvegardes et la récupération des données sont généralement effectuées pour le compte du client, qui peut ainsi se concentrer sur ce qu’il fait de mieux, sachant que tout est géré par les développeurs de logiciels eux-mêmes.

Lockdown a mis le turbo sur le SaaS
Le travail à distance était déjà en hausse avant même la pandémie, et le fait que les produits SaaS permettent aux individus de travailler et de collaborer depuis n’importe où n’a fait qu’ancrer encore plus profondément le SaaS dans notre vie quotidienne.

Des milliers de nouveaux produits SaaS sont développés dans tous les pays du monde, la concurrence est donc féroce. Cependant, l’appétit des consommateurs et des entreprises pour les solutions SaaS ne semble pas s’arrêter.

Un entonnoir de vente cohérent peut faire la différence entre un succès viral et un retour à la case départ.

How to Sell to BIG Companies

How to Sell to Big Companies

Discover how to Find, Kloze and Grow Large Enterprise Accounts

Next FREE session – Tuesday 2nd Feb 2021

Register Here

We’ve got all the templates & tools to make it easy for you

How to sell to big companies
How to sell to big companies

How to Sell to Big Companies. In order to sell to big companies you need to first create a shortlist of targets that meet your perfect prospect profile. Next, focus all your sales and marketing resources to research and create a unique sales approach for multiple contacts within the big company you are selling to.

What’s Inside

SESSION 1

The WHO

Introduction to Enterprise Selling

Selecting the right targets

Segmenting your accounts

Mastering the complex sale

Prep for Session 2

Get this session FREE

SESSION 2

The WHAT

The Door Opener

Right content, right contact, right time

How to write persuasive copy

The cadence of big account selling

The profitable, easy to deliver and replicate offer

SESSION 3

The HOW

What to say to Big Companies

How to control the sales conversation

The Contact Plan

Listen & Learn LIVE over the coaches shoulder

Your personal Action Plan

Course Author

How to sell your app to big companies

Iain Swanston

Founder, Klozers


After 35 years in B2B sales Iain just loves solving sales problems.
If you’ve ever attended one of his live events you’ll know, even during the breaks and after the event he always likes talking about sales. Iain is an Author, Speaker & our Lead Sales Coach.
Iain is on a mission to make sales easier for B2B companies and their salespeople.

“In the short time I’ve been working with Klozers I’ve used his guidance to develop positive new sales activities, techniques and a mindset that has significantly helped my sales confidence. As a results I’ve already seen excellent performance benefits that are directly attributable to working to the coaching.”

Alan Wood

Scotland Director

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

“This was my first ever sales training and genuinely still the most pertinent in my sales career. Iain taught us how to take leads through the sales journey from lead to opportunity to closure, I still use these skills today and encourage my colleagues to do the same. My earnings have more than doubled since Iain gave that pertinent training and his latest blogs have been shared internally between our sales and marketing teams as the advice rings true to what we are currently working on as a department”

Lynne Hall

Strategic Accounts Manager

E-On Energy

My coach was really flexible and was happy to talk in between my scheduled coaching slots, especially when I had burning questions and needed support fast. The debriefing calls we had after my sales meetings not only helped me understand where I could improve, they also gave me the right words to say, in the right sequence and at the right time.

Elliott Boll

Enterprise Learning Consultant

Docebo

Get started now and get
your first session FREE

How to sell to big companies
How to sell an app to big companies

Get all the templates
you need to sell more now

Register here

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Get the coaching you want, when you want it, at your desktop

How to sell to a big company
Remote Sales Coaching – Sales Playbook

“The first session was full of useful and practical sales information. I took so many notes and have come away with exercises I will carry out to help further clarify our approach to sales. I would highly recommend”

Rebecca Pick

Founder

Pick Protection

“Great training session with so much information packed into an hour. Looking forward to completing sessions 2 and 3. “

Max Anderson

Director

SuperBot Experts

Very insightful content from Klozers this afternoon. Thank you Iain Swanston for the invite to attend. This shall be hugely beneficial for our business moving forward and I am looking forward to putting my learning into practice

Laurie Wilson

Regional Sales Manager

CMP Products

Learn How to Sell to Big Companies

If you are new to sales at some stage you will want to learn how to sell to big companies.   It’s common for most ambitious sales people and businesses, yet this can be a challenging or even, a near impossible experience. 

For example, finding the right people to talk with (yes there will also be more than one decision maker) can be like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack, and then trying to coordinate all these decision makers can be like herding cats. 

The longer sales cycles that inevitably arise from having multiple decision makers in a complex sale, then frustrate most sales people as time drags on. 

The large revenues that Enterprise sales can deliver, more often than not, prove so elusive that the salespeople give up and focus on smaller opportunities, they know they can convert. 

However, in some circumstances it can take the same amount of sales resources to convert a small opportunity as it does when selling the same product or service to a big company, so don’t give up just yet.

Learn More, Sell More, Earn More

How to sell your app to a big company
How to sell your app to a big company

How to Sell an Idea to a Big Company

Maybe you don’t have a product or service but instead you have an idea that you want to sell. It’s the sames process and the fact is, it is possible to sell to big companies and large enterprise organisations, although it does need a slightly different approach.

The first FREE 60 minute session in this course walks you through the preparation and planning required before you approach big companies.

When you sell to big companies you may also need some additional sales resources that are not as commonly used when selling to smaller organisations, such as a Business Case, a Cost Benefit Analysis – don’t worry we’ve got templates you can use for all of these.

If this sounds like lots of work, then Yes it is, and because of this many companies will not rely on any one individual, instead they will work as a team to win large accounts. Part of that team should include Marketing in order that you can target the right people in the buying organisation, with the right messaging, at the right time.

Run the sales campaign as a mini project with scope, roles and responsibilities, costings, objectives and milestones. Needless to say that it usually makes sense to be targeting more than one big company if you are going to do this professionally, but don’t make the mistake of having too many, as the campaign can then turn into a marketing initiative which by their very nature are more generic.

The key to success is that all the messaging must be bespoke and relevant to every target which takes time, which is time that you won’t have if you have too many targets. Again this course covers everything you need.

Before you start selling to big companies there are however two important considerations you should address as follows:

1) Does your company have the capability to successfully deliver a project on the scale that a big company will require?
In most cases you will only get one chance to sell to a big company and delivering success for your first big company will also give you a reference point that will help you sell to other big companies.

2) Does your company have the financial resources required to sell to a big company?

If you buy materials in January to create stock for February and have agreed 90 day payment terms this means you have to run 150 days without being paid. Some small businesses are not sufficiently funded to do this, so be careful what you wish for.

Selling to big companies can transform your business, but like most things in life that are worthwhile it’s usually not easy and doesn’t happen overnight, but it certainly can be worth it.

Get started now and get
your first session FREE

How to sell to big companies

Get all the templates you
need to sell more now

Register here

.