etailinsights eCommerce Data and Sales Blog
3 Sales Myths You Need to Leave Behind in 2016
posted by Darren Pierce
1) More Calls = More Sales
Most salespeople were taught that the more prospects you could call the greater chance you had to meet your quota. This isn’t necessarily the case anymore. With so much data on hand, we can get laser-focused with our marketing and selling efforts to target only our bullseye customers.
Why pick up the phone and call 100 potentially qualified leads when you can use data and analysis to identify the ten people on the list that are most likely to buy? Truly, we need to be more focused on quality than we are on quantity these days.
2) Educating Prospects Is A Must
Educating prospects about your products and the necessity of them is practically a thing of the past.
Why?
Because prospects are already educating themselves. They’re looking at your website, case studies, and blog posts. They’re also looking at your competitors’ content too. By the time they’re actually on the phone with you, they already know the basics and are more interested in skipping right to the part where you tell them what kind of value you could bring to a company like theirs.
3) Analytics > Relationships
This myth is a little more current, but it’s still worth addressing. I love data and analytics. I use them every day. The whole point of etailinsights and Technology Spy is to use data to find prospects.
Sometimes I think we can get too caught up in believing that our customers are just data points on a spreadsheet. While analytics are helpful, relationships still have to take precedent. Knowing the digital behavior of a lead may help you identify certain qualities the prospect has, but it doesn’t allow you to connect with that prospect in a relational way. Only conversations, time, and trust can do that.
The practice of selling is ever-changing. Are you changing with it?
