Don’t be afraid to be different. Don’t sound like every other salesperson. Own where you're from. I use the word 'Aloha' like crazy to let my clients know I‘m from Hawaii and where I am from we treat each other with Aloha (love). It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.
It isn’t that deep. I think as salespersons, we sometimes forget to be ourselves and feel like we need to recreate a perfect, stereotypical sales persona and we leave our personality at the door. When I reach out to a prospect (whether it’s on the phone or email), I like to personalize my pitch by adding a cheesy play on words using either their company name, mention I spoke to their colleague before getting transferred to them, etc. It is still important to keep it short and to the point, but short doesn’t need to be boring. This will break the mold of sales pitches everyone is used to hearing and will hopefully lead to a more natural conversation. If it doesn’t, at least you will make your prospect smile and leave them with a positive feeling about your company, product or service.
My hack to help salespeople save time is to build lists through etailinsights. It helps me stay organized and helps me find fresh prospects with new leads that are being added to their platform daily. Spending less time cross referencing and searching for accurate prospects also leads me to be able to close deals quicker.
A simple ‘sales hack’ I’ve used with success is simply leveraging etailinsights' watch alerts function, along with ‘Google Alerts’. This allows me to stay on top of any relevant company alerts or announcements of prospects or customers. This can be a good indicator as to the current needs or goals within a company, including areas they are looking to focus on or expand – especially if these are areas you know your offering can benefit!
I have always employed a laddered prospecting approach. What that means is that while my most relevant contact is the VP of Ecommerce, I will pull contacts that are in supporting roles (manager level) for the same person and cross functional colleagues. The reason being, people in manager level roles are often more aspirational and looking for kudos internally, so they are more apt to take the time to digest a prospecting note and either respond or flip to the VP of Ecommerce. In this case, the senior colleague is more receptive to a conversation since it's been vetted internally. The same is true for their cross functional colleagues--since it's not their bailiwick, they are more apt to flip it to their colleague. Etailinsights gives me all the contacts from Manager to C-suite, enabling me to successfully deliver laddered outreach approach.
Make friends with everyone you meet and don't take yourself too seriously! You will leave a lasting impression being genuine & listening. Not every conversation you have with a prospect has to be a hard sales pitch. It is fun getting to know people, and what drives the passion behind their projects and brands. The discussions you have where you empathize with your target, hear their goals, and support their visions are the ones that convert!
This is perhaps less of a hack and more of a philosophy, but the most important tenets for us to consider when approaching new sellers are transparency and fairness. We are only interested in win-win partnerships, so we'll look to structure transactions that provide maximum value in areas most important to sellers. We're always fully transparent about both our intentions and our thought process. Above all else, we want to be known for doing business the right way, and we've found this philosophy to be a tangible differentiator in attracting sellers.
First of all, I don't think any "hack" out there will ever outperform persistence. With that being said, the etailinsights Technology Spy hack comes into play when I send out personalized cold emails at scale. Leveraging this feature, I may receive an email notification from Technology Spy telling me an online retailer is new to Shopify Plus. When I click on their account in etailinsights, I find out they're using Yotpo for reviews and Klaviyo for email. The intel that Technology Spy provides, leads me to quickly craft a personalized prospecting email that talks about how LimeSpot integrates with both Yotpo and Klaviyo.
A tip I always remember from my first day in sales -- 'Keep it short, concise and to the point.'
For context, when writing an email; Applying this hack is to limit every email to 3 lines or less. Be very clear on the purpose of your mail (information sharing, asking for advice, doing a concrete proposal) and limit yourself to 3 lines maximum. End your emails explaining in one sentence in your signature why you keep your mails so short.
This simple method will force yourself to think about the purpose of the mail, and to be short and concise. The people you communicate with will benefit, and will hopefully return the favors.
If you're an etailinsights user, you should take advantage of their powerful feature -- Ideal Client Profile. I highly recommend users to spend time setting one up and updating it as they hone in on where they are finding success. There are few better feelings in sales than when a solid lead lands in your lap, so I check the ICP dashboard daily!