How can you make your sales force close deals faster?

It is the duty of a Manager to keep his sales team up-to-date with the industry knowledge, know what the competitor is doing in the accounts, share with them different blogs and industry newsletters, so that they feel where they are, may be already in pipeline and then to close it finally you need to make your team continuously follow-up with the right person at the right time and this will automatically make them feel what the competition is all after and may even open up ideas for craeting a new prospect.

Finally put it in CRM and again the Manager should analyse the data from the CRM and help his team members to ping the clients to make the final closure. Also train the team to say almost the same words what top management suggests the Manager to say, be more open and share your experience, not only the good ones but also the failures. It helps.

The biggest demotivator a sales guy faces especially in international sales is when the other party has given all the go-aheads, but the back-end of your own organization is making you dance around to still more "qualify" the lead.  This word "qualify" can be a extremely loaded, like a six-pack pointed at your head, as now   you are caught in a very bad stressful situation, especially if you have a good funnel.

Tools and gadgets are toys that work well, but the key thing a sales person wants is support, moral or otherwise, because his biggest weapon is enthu and self-motivation, with confidence.

The next thing he needs is budget for PR, especially in times of lows. That is sometime of the year he just goes, shows up his face at the client and works to build good and personal relationships. The e-business age has killed this personal relationship building, but this is the most valuable thing to keep the bonds strong.  It is not say ICICI or Levers giving you business, it is someone human sitting out there in a cabin, who likes your close confidence and ability to give solutions "paid or otherwise", and is willing to go the extra mile as a sounding board for the other guys "bright ideas" he can't always share with his internal teams, but need a bursting out.

Keep your team on toes and make the customer feel the need of the product and the importance of the product in his domain

I think this where most organizations need to pick up - "bridge the gap b/w mktg & sales".

With Online marketing, Email marketing, SEO / SEM being taken to an all new level, we can track your potential clients online behaviour - when they are interested in what products and more importantly when they are ready for the "buy". With most marketing technology tools being easily integrated into sales force, it would make the sales team's job easier to differentiate b/w hot leads and just warm leads; and this makes all the diffrence!

I always feel one should provide the sales team with technology gadgets like Automation applications that helps in keeping customer and deal information in one central location for analysis by managers. Automatic proposal and contract generator is another useful tool when an organization seeks to ensure uniform quality and consistency of information when giving a proposal or signing a contract....... 

Sales people must be aware of the business and technical functionality of a product, which they should pass to the customer,  backed with a good marketing force, they can do wonders.

Business networking helps the sales personnel get positive response on their products which inturn speeds up the closure of deal as the customer will be able to pick up the recommended products. Proper follow ups at proper timing helps the customer as well as the sales force.

All these will do good only if the product is not over saturated in the market and is having a value which make it salable/marketable.

Selling is always called as a skill which everybody has imbibed within oneself.Proper understanding about the ways and means will take any person to a greater heights in this field.When we analyse about closing of deals through our sales force,its all about understanding the people with whom we are dealing with.

Every person is different and so will be the approach towards them should also be different.As a leader to get the things done well and with in a specified deadline i feel we should be their backbone first understand their selling skills and work towards motivating them on those lines.

Guys..

I am in machine tools but sales is same universal irrespective of the mode of sales.

I would say that we need to have a good rapport witht the customer, here customer is not only the company its an management or the team which concludes your order.

Strat intracting from person to person who are involved in your case and if required invite them for an dinner, be a friend to the customer and close.

I hope it works, but one thing we need to give our ego's and mould ourself to their attitude.

Cheers

venky 

to close the deal , its important to know whether its a one time customer or a repeated customer . for a fresh cutomer start the deal with the quality u offer and end the deal with the profit he is gonna earn by the deal . never enter in conversation about the competitors. always persist in making open ended question which u r best at answering .

quality of the product ( honest company , honest product) and the sweet words of the seller

are the only prerequisites in cultivating a customer who recommends the product to his seven generations :

otherwise for fly by night operators :: we need management lessons courtesy dharward business school , USA

competitor's products knowledges is also very important to converd a lead into sale

In order to enable sales close deals faster, I consider providing them with account centric intelligence in a templatised format is very important.If you happen to be in an IT services marketing, building account intelligence is not any easy job. One needs to collaborate with the research, delivery, marketing and finally product alliances to package something called account centric value proposition.(only God knows what it is) With this knowledge,  I reckon the sales force is all geared up for a customized conversation with the prospect's buying centre.  Some of the tools to build AI are hoovers, onesource, crush reports, analyst reports and other online forums/associations.

sales force req. a clear concept abt. their product , they have to speak very clear to sale the product. in these days salesperson speaks so much things which is not available with their product after some time customer unable to understand the brand value.

i think through reguler followup with clearity sales force close their deals faster.

B2B Sales it self is a time consuming one.... It also depends on Products to products:

For a Typical Product Sales... as the Consumption pattern is Quick the deals can be closed faster and repeat orders can be taken up.... as Low investment involved... on the contrary in B2B High Value products as high Investment is required in Crs or so... it will take the time which is obvious.. and Decision is based on Reliability of the supplier...

 We are basically in to Project sales and it takes several months time to close one deal successfully as many Technical, Enviornmental and Feasibility issues involved in the selection.... Cost plays a vital role for same.....

For reducing the time spam one shud always try to Focus on the TARGET period of Customer as it is buyers market.....

What can be done is prioritizing the customers accordingly... like in Initial phase, Mid phase and hot one....simultaneously looking at the Financial Status of the Customer..

this can be also minimised by high sales push up and continuous meting wid customer....

I feel best Segementation and Targeting can solve a problem a bit.......

Help the sales person to find the targeted market of the product. The sales perosn should be educated to study the process and find the pain areas of the user. Then he needs to do homework for what value addition he can do with his and benefits the company can get. Try to organize one seminar involving all from user to decision maker and present your fact finding and sharing similiar kind of success stories. Ofcourse making good relationship with customer to know about the budget allocation and priorities are good way to forecast when the deal will close.

Empower your sales force with the techniques of closing and give them that latitude where without cutting the base costs. Hands on in the field this helps big time when the sales guy knows that he is getting his customer and he is biting the bait!!

KAM: This is the core of managing your best customer or Key customers where you have the liberty to sell to the cluster with similar discounts or trade discounts that will bring in the moolah in bulk!!

Many a times it happens that the Sales team comes up with a big pipeline, but realistically speaking this pipeline needs to be further broken down into 4 parts

1) Who will buy immediately

2) Will take the decision after 2-3 months

3) Will take the decision after 6 months and above

4) Will buy after 1 year and beyond

After break up assign after prioritizing as per above

You can also tell the Sales person to come to a conclusion of 'NO" (not buying) (this is because many a times prospects keep saying Yes and eventually dont buy anything and waste your valuable time and your time and effort are valuable-if theirs is) more than yes. The prospects on hand after this process are your real prospects.

It is not easy to close deals faster for sales force. Because in market only sales guys are people who directly in touch with end customers. But if your self motivated, Self Involve then surely sales force can close their deals faster. Self Motivation is important in sales becuase whenever you enter the market & meet people for sales purpose then there people who inspite purchasing, demotivate us regarding our business, our process, our company etc. 

Self Involvement is also as important as Self Motiavation becuase if sale force itself doesnt involve & takes interest in their jobs then it is useless for them. For sales force Self Involvement is most important.