What's a Sales Huddle?
Sales huddles are short and frequent meetings that allow every person involved with the inside sales team get an understanding of what went well, what needs improvement, and any action items that must be completed by the next sales huddle. Each step of this meeting is very intentional and allows for all individuals involved to voice their excitements, disspointments, and needs moving forward.
Sales huddles are short and frequent meetings that allow every person involved with the sales team get an understanding of what went well, what needs improvement, and any action items that must be completed by the next sales huddle. Each step of this meeting is very intentional and allows for all individuals involved to voice their excitements, disappointments, and needs moving forward.
What Went Well
The first portion of the sales meeting is dedicated to the good stuff. How did we win throughout the last week? Who stepped up and took a risk? Did we meet our leads per hour goal?
It's meant to give the sales person accolades, boost their confidence, and reinforce all of the great things they are currently doing in order to help them focus on doing more of it.
What Needs Improvement
This is where the inside sales team gets honest about improvement. It's a chance for the entire team to offer constructive criticism around the sales script, sales cadence, tone of voice, and ultimately, the results of the sales effort.
We've learned that without being so intentional about this step in our sales huddles, some individuals don't feel as free to ask for improvement from the Account Growth Specialist (AGS) as they should. Instead, we try to make this portion of the huddle as factual and non-emotional as possible. It's also a great time for the AGS to ask for additional coaching and support to make these improvements.
Action Items
This step is self-explanatory. This is a designated time during the meeting to recap any action items necessary, for Account Growth Specialist or management, to continue the things that are working well and to improve on the things that need improvement.
This style of meeting has worked so well for us that we've expanded it to every department at Incept as well as to our client calibration meetings.
We always recap each meeting with an email summary that includes each of the items listed above. It helps to make each discussion point more concrete and allows for more conversation if someone's interpretation of any of the topics differed from others involved.
Download our sales huddle summary template here.
What do I need to get started with an inside sales partner?
To create a quality relationship between a client and inside-sales partner, the first priority is to set up an introduction meeting and ensure key goals and objectives are mutually aligned.
To create a quality relationship between a client and inside sales partner, the first priority is to set up an introduction meeting and ensure key goals and objectives are mutually aligned.
Transparency is encouraged at this developmental stage to better understand the challenges your company is facing and your ideal timeframe to find solutions to meet your goals. This meeting is critical to scope out a lead generation framework, define your competitive advantage, and profile the customers you service the best. When entering any business partnership, this stage is a must.
The next step is to identify your target market. With a market defined, a sales approach can be scripted based on who is the right decision maker and what’s your ask. From here, your inside sales partner should have the capability to offer services at a variety of complexity levels. Inside sales partners should be willing to cater their expertise to your specific business needs.
Our Incept Grows team is happy to go out and meet your customers, ask questions, and build tailored programs from the ground up.
Is partnering with Incept a short-term or long-term thing?
Customers use our on-demand inside sales division both to address short-term needs or really as a resource for their long-term marketing strategy. We absolutely see the best results when our services are designed to complement a long-term project. Short-term relationships can generate attendance for an event or try to generate leads for a sales blitz, but finding a solution to handle the top of the funnel long-term should be a priority for your business.
Customers use our on-demand inside sales division both to address short-term needs or really as a resource for their long-term marketing strategy. We absolutely see the best results when our services are designed to complement a long-term project. Short-term relationships can generate attendance for an event or try to generate leads for a sales blitz, but finding a solution to handle the top of the funnel long-term should be a priority for your business.
Over time, long-term relationships will continue to benefit both parties. The longer you outsource inside sales to a partner, the more time you can spend delivering your core competencies to customers. Furthermore, Account Growth Specialists will begin to specialize in your business, becoming a trusted sales rep and advocate for your business.
At Incept, our intent is to become an integral part of the way you operate and service your customers. We also understand that there are times that our sole purpose is to help you scale to a point that you can transition this process internally. In some situations, we can even create a handoff system where we generate interest and then transfer that back to your team to take it from there. It is essential to select an inside-sales team that will be flexible with your timeframe.
What exactly is on-demand inside sales and why do I need it?
We consistently hear a need in the marketplace from companies facing the dilemma, “Should I incur costs to generate sales or wait until my sales have come so that I can invest back in my business?”
We consistently hear a need in the marketplace from companies facing the dilemma, “Should I incur costs to generate sales or wait until my sales have come so that I can invest back in my business?”
The solution
On-demand inside sales - a fractional and variable cost approach to lead generation. On-demand inside sales programs are built to give companies the ability to rent sales consultants at a rate that allows them to scale their businesses without the burden of fixed cost.
The value of on-demand inside sales is growth potential. Having on-demand inside sales gives you the ability to create top of the funnel activity without having to fully commit to hiring, training, or managing a full-time employee.
Could you successfully generate leads in-house?
This is a valid option to consider; you could absolutely hire and train this position to be an internal resource. Strategically though, if you have a product you want to distribute and don’t want to be in the business of creating top of the funnel activity, prioritize your core competencies and leave the lead generation up to an on-demand inside sales team.
4 Ways To Engage Your Leads After The Sales Call
You've cold-called your way through a list and talked to people who were either ready to buy, interested but not ready to buy, or not interested. So often, the ready-to-buy group becomes the focus of inside sales representatives, and the rest of the list is forgotten. What you really need to do is keep your brand in front of those interested-but-not-ready-to-buy folks so that when they run into a problem your organization can fix, you're the first company that comes to mind.
You've cold-called your way through a list and talked to people who were either ready to buy, interested but not ready to buy, or not interested. So often, the ready-to-buy group becomes the focus of inside sales representatives, and the rest of the list is forgotten. What you really need to do is keep your brand in front of those interested-but-not-ready-to-buy folks so that when they run into a problem your organization can fix, you're the first company that comes to mind.
Here are four ways to engage your cold call list after the sales pitch:
Send an email newsletter
One of the easiest things you can do to keep interested-but-not-ready-to-buy folks (and even your not-interested folks) engaged with your company is through an email newsletter. A monthly email filled with relevant articles, helpful content and industry news is the perfect way to stay in front of your contacts.
Many of you have shied away from sending out an email newsletter because of the time commitment and consistency it requires. You might be able to write enough content in the first few months, but when things get busy, it's the first thing to fall off your to-do list. I'm here to tell you that you don't have to generate all of the content you send!
A few years ago I was sitting in a session at Content Marketing World that was extremely thought-provoking. The speaker shared several stories from around the world about how content marketing helped to drive small businesses' success. I immediately projected all of their ingenuity, creativity, and success onto the speaker since he shared the stories. That same principle can be applied to your email newsletter.
Our secret to consistency is by using the incredible content that other companies are already generating. There are so many great articles online that authors and businesses are begging to be shared with your audience, and as long as you point your contacts back to their website, you're good to go.
Create content for your website
Even better than sharing other people's content is sharing your own! Write about topics your future buyers care about and want to engage with.
What questions are they asking? What questions are they Googling? We're big believers in the Sales Lion strategy of 'they ask, you answer:
This strategy is incredibly simple - listen to the questions your customers have been asking you all along! Use this information to drive the content you create. Make sure you are detailed, informative, non-biased and answering their questions as comprehensively as possible.
This content not only allows your prospects to continue engaging with you through other channels and help them through the buying cycle, but it also helps other potential leads find you through search. It's a win-win.
PS - add your blogs to your email newsletters too.
Enroll your leads in drip campaigns
As defined by Pardot, "drip campaigns are automated processes that send a set of messages or content to sales leads at the right moment to move them through the sales cycle. Drip campaigns allow you to consistently “touch” leads with relevant information based on time intervals, actions taken by prospects on your website, or other parameters, freeing up valuable marketing and sales resources without neglecting your prospects."
Take your group of interested-but-not-ready-to-buy folks and send them additional content to figure out what they're really interested in. They way they engage with that email and content offering will help you learn a lot more about their problems and/or interests.
Take Incept for example - we help our clients generate top of the funnel sales activity. While our initial pitch may have been about cold calling to support lead generation activities, that's not the only way we support our clients. We may include introductions to other services in our drip campaigns so see if that's something that aligns more with their problem and/or interests. Cold calling wasn't a good trigger? We might try sending a lead generation follow-up blog, a white paper about strategic list building, or a video about our customer service work.
Call Them Back In 90 Days
Just because they weren't interested in your solution three months ago doesn't mean you shouldn't continue to check in with them periodically. Ninety days is usually a good starting point, but depending on the length of your sales cycle, you might need to shorten or extend that window.
So whatever you do, make every effort to continue engaging with your leads!