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How To Improve An Underperforming Sales Team | Air Marketing x Cognism
This article by Cognism features Air Marketing’s Founder & CEO, Owen Richards.
It will tell you:
- How to identify a sales team that isn’t performing well.
- How to discover the root cause of the problem affecting an underperforming team.
- How to solve issues related to activity, data, messaging and climate.
- How to manage underperforming team members and communicate effectively with your staff.
Scroll down to read the Q&A.
What warning signs tell you when a sales team is underperforming?
Owen’s answer here was – it depends on the team.
“If you’re managing an SDR team, look at meetings booked. If you’re managing AEs, then look at pipeline and revenue contribution. For outbound sales, the key drivers are: is revenue coming in and is it staying stable?”
Owen identified a problem with revenue as a metric.
“The problem with revenue is it’s a lagging metric – it’s showing you what happened 2 or 3 months ago. By the time you spot a problem, it’s too late. The sales cycle for most SaaS businesses is between 3-9 months. If you look at revenue today and you see that it’s down, then that’s from 3 months or more ago.”
For Owen, productivity metrics are the ones to focus on.
“Look at things like activity metrics. The number of calls and the number of conversations – remember these aren’t always the same. Look at connect rates – are people calling the right numbers? Post-pandemic, you get better results from calling mobile numbers than switchboards or landlines.”
“Then look at conversion rate – the number of people that your reps speak to and actually book a meeting. Meeting quality is also important – how many of those meetings become opportunities and enter the pipeline?”
Owen stressed the importance of going beyond metrics and considering the mood of the team.
“Look at climate – how does it feel to be in the room? Are people happy or stressed? It’s a tough one to measure but it’s critical.”
“You can get a feel for climate from things like conversation quality, if you have conversation analytics. You can get it from 121s, from your line managers reporting back. It’s a lot less tangible but very valuable, in my experience.”
“In larger teams, employee retention data is a good way of spotting trends. If staff turnover is high, then there’s likely a climate issue.”
Owen gave us his checklist for spotting an underperforming sales team:
- If it’s a reduction in calls – it’s a climate or activity-related problem. Or something’s getting in the way of performance – your reps are being distracted.
- If it’s a reduced contact rate/calls aren’t connecting – it’s a data problem – your SDRs aren’t calling the right numbers.
- If it’s a reduced conversation-meeting rate – either your messaging is off or your team needs more training (they aren’t saying the right things on their calls).
- If it’s a reduced meeting-opps rate – there’s an issue with AE performance.
“Those are the metrics I’m looking at consistently – and usually one of them can tell me where the problem lies.”
Do you need tech to spot an underperforming sales team?
Owen was very clear on this point.
“Can you do it manually? Yes.”
“Can you do it as effectively? No.”
He explained his thinking…
“Manual is very retrospective – it’s all about looking backwards.”
“But with tech, you can spot the problem almost straight away. It also tends to be more accurate. I’ll say that’s not always the case – tech is only as good as the data going into it and humans are capable of messing up data input.”
“But in general, it’s a no-brainer. If you want to be best in class, you need a sensible tech stack. It doesn’t have to be too complicated – the essentials are a good CRM, a good phone system and good B2B data. Conversation analytics and pipeline tracking are also very useful.”
Owen walked us through how reporting worked at Air Marketing.
“I receive daily reports from my SDR Managers. These include activity metrics and conversation metrics. When you report on a daily basis, it means you can jump on problems a lot quicker. It’s been very successful for us.”
Once you’ve identified problems in your sales team, what steps should you take?
Owen’s first step is to diagnose the problem. The second step is to find out why it’s happening.
“To do this, you work backwards through the funnel to find out why. You have to get to the root cause of the issue.”
“If it’s an activity problem, then you have to ask: are we not talking to enough people? Or are we talking to enough people but we’re not getting enough of them to say yes?”
“Then you work backwards. If we’re talking to enough people, but a lot of them aren’t saying yes – then I know it’s a conversation quality issue. If we’re not talking to enough people in the first place, then chances are it’s either the data is wrong or the team’s work ethic is lagging.”
“Or it could be that the team is getting distracted. Are people having too many internal meetings, for example – leaving them with not enough time to call? Then you need to get even more granular – does the problem affect the whole team or just certain individuals?”
The third step in Owen’s process is to solve the issue.
“Think about what you can put in place that will solve the problem. Is it better data or more training around messaging? It isn’t always telling people to work harder – there’s no point getting SDRs to make more calls if they don’t have the right messaging or the right numbers.”
“So here I’d schedule some refresher training sessions around messaging, cold calling and conversations.”
“Or I could be looking at removing things that are standing in their way – helping them to reduce their admin, for example.”
What’s best practice for solving activity issues?
In Owen’s experience, activity reduction is usually driven by just one thing – climate.
“A number of factors affect climate in your sales team, namely: are your SDRs feeling ok at work? Has their manager left? Maybe some people have come into the team and disrupted it. Maybe there’s been a lot of sickness in the team recently. It could be down to lots of things like that.”
“As a B2B sales leader – you need to understand what’s causing it.”
Owen told us about his solutions for improving climate.
“If your SDRs aren’t feeling as motivated as they should be, schedule some 121s with them and understand what’s causing it.”
In situations like this, Owen is a strong advocate of data-led management.
“You have to provide some proof backing up what you say. Let’s say their activity has dropped by 20% compared to last month – present them with a graph showing this and ask them what’s causing it.”
“Usually, you’ll get a straight answer. If they’ve been distracted, then it’s usually something like they’ve been asked by marketing to contribute to a project or they spent 2 days at an expo. Sometimes they might not even realise there’s a problem.
“Then you ask them a simple question: what can they do to improve this month? Get the SDR to suggest their own solutions. People are more likely to adopt change if it’s their own idea, rather than you telling them what to do.”
The next step is to maintain consistency and accountability.
“Once the SDR has provided the solution, agree to hold them to it. Schedule weekly catch-ups for the next 4 weeks and find out how they’re getting on.”
Owen’s preference for data-led management doesn’t stop at the first 121.
“Transparency is very important. Give the SDR access to their activity data; let them see it and track it themselves. If their activity improves over the next month, then that’s a job well done.”
What about improving climate for a team, not an individual?
“You follow the same principle. Take 2 or 3 people in the team and present them with the data. Ask them, why has 80% of the team seen a 20% reduction in calls?”
“Then involve them in the discussion. Let them recommend solutions. People are always more accountable if they’re working with their own solutions.”
Owen had some great advice for SaaS sales leaders:
“As a leader, you’re not there to tell your team what to do. You’re there to facilitate them and help them to be the best they can be.”
What’s best practice for solving data issues?
Owen had lots to say about how sales teams should best use data.
“If we’re dialling lots of people but meetings aren’t being booked, then I know that’s a data issue.”
“The thing is, data can be good for a period of time. But it doesn’t always last. If things start to go wrong, look at your tech stack.”
“Have you pulled data from a different data provider than usual? Also, consider your targeting – have you gone into a new market or segment where the data isn’t as good?”
“Another problem you often encounter is that sometimes your messaging doesn’t match the data. And if that happens, if the messaging and data don’t match, then your reps will be calling prospects and saying the wrong things.”
“My advice is to structure and segment your data and ensure the messaging is right for each segment.”
Owen keeps a couple of questions in mind when thinking about this:
- Are we calling phone numbers that don’t connect? That’s a sign your data isn’t good to start with.
- Are we calling phone numbers but not booking meetings? That’s a sign you’ve got viable phone numbers but they’re in the wrong orgs.
What’s best practice for solving messaging issues?
Owen said:
“Almost always this is down to reps.”
Why?
“They change what they do without realising it. They listen to podcasts, they listen to each other and they learn new things. They try things out and copy what they hear. Then you get a drift in messaging – they say something new without realising it.”
“Drift happens incrementally, it’s not a radical change. A cold call an SDR made 3 months ago will sound completely different to one they make today. The changes happen subtly over long periods of time.”
Owen shared his process for dealing with message drift.
“This is where call recording software comes in. As I said earlier, you need tech to do this. It gives you the ability to listen back to calls. It’s vital for an outbound sales team.”
What would Owen do if he noticed a rep was having this problem?
“I’d sit down with them and play them their successful calls from 3 months ago and the calls they’re making now. Then I’d ask them: what’s different? What’s changed in your conversation? Are any of those changes conscious and if so, why?”
“Again you need to present them with the evidence that things have changed. The key is listening to call recordings and comparing them.”
The things that Owen looks out for in recorded calls are:
- Has the SDR changed the messaging?
- Is the SDR not handling objections in the same way?
- Are the conversations too short? Is the SDR rushing it?
- Is it their tone of voice? Are they coming across as too pushy or too laid-back?
“The way of solving all of these issues is through more training.”
What’s best practice for solving climate issues?
We’ve all heard about company culture – but what’s company climate?
Owen said:
“Culture is the things you do – socials, perks, training, incentives. A good culture is one that constantly invests in its people and makes the workplace the best it can be.”
“Climate is how it feels to work here. How does it feel to work in that team or walk into that room? Are people engaged and happy? Are they feeling positive? Do they like coming in every day?”
Owen highlighted why it’s important to be aware of the difference.
“You can have a good company culture but a bad company climate. For me, climate creates the biggest impact on how people work.”
“Climate isn’t always consistent; it can change from day to day. But generally, you want your team to be feeling positive most of the time.”
What sort of things affect climate in a sales team?
“All sorts! Someone in senior leadership leaves, for instance. Or if a couple of redundancies are made and then everyone else gets worried.”
In Owen’s opinion, why is it important to measure climate?
“It drives all the other things I’ve talked about. If people are feeling unhappy, they won’t work hard. They won’t put the effort in or be as motivated, so then your activity levels will fall.”
“Climate can cause drift in conversations because if your SDRs are thinking about what’s happening in the business, then they won’t be as focused on their calls.”
“This is a really important part of running a sales team. Reps need constant motivation – it’s a challenging and repetitive job. They’re affected by external factors all day, every day. Often they’re in the early stages of their career; they’re not as experienced or commercially mature as managers.”
What are Owen’s tips for maintaining a healthy climate?
“It all comes down to management. Good sales team managers don’t just manage, they do. They get on the phones, they speak to customers and prospects. They lead from the front. They run team meetings and let their team speak.”
So you need to make sure your SDR team leaders/managers are:
- Demonstrating positive reinforcement.
- Celebrating individuals and their contributions.
- Holding honest 121s.
- Holding good team meetings where everyone has the chance to speak.
When dealing with an underperforming sales team, how important is communication?
Owen answered this question by saying:
“Leadership is all about communication. It’s also one of the things that people find hardest about leadership.”
“As humans, we’re often uncomfortable about having difficult conversations. In a leadership role, you can’t be nice all of the time. You need to have honest, straightforward conversations with people.”
Owen told us about the first thing he teaches new team leaders at Air Marketing.
“Data-led management is one of the most powerful tools in sales leadership. If you’re showing someone that their performance has dropped, and it’s all there in the data, they can’t argue with that. It’s not your gut feeling or guesswork; you’re not singling them out or having a go at them. It’s fact.”
“Presenting them with a problem is just one part of it. You then have to involve them in the solution – what would they do to solve it? Give them the opportunity to come up with a fix.”
And the most important part of communicating with your team? Owen concluded with:
“It isn’t speaking – it’s listening! That’s the key to it.”
“Ask the rep a question, then sit back and let them answer. A really good question to ask is: what would you do if you were managing someone in this position?”
“That gets them thinking like a manager – they get thinking about the solution, rather than the problem.”
“In sales, you can have hundreds of problems every day – but it’s how you deal with them that counts.”
The Importance of Training When Developing High Performance Teams
When it comes to training, I have often found that the main objection I’m met with is cost and the potential loss of investment – “what happens if we train our staff and they leave?” My response… what happens if we don’t and they stay?”
Yes, training can be expensive and in businesses, people come and go. However, if the training is right, the relevant benefits far outweigh the cost. Training is vital in the workplace as it aids both personal and company growth. Training also makes employees feel valued and invested in, resulting in a happy environment and increased productivity.
Training can benefit company growth in numerous ways:
- Best practice: Training expands the knowledge base of all employees within a company. By sharing best practice within the company, all employees understanding of procedures and processes and how to deliver a high standard of quality, can then be replicated daily and maintained throughout the entire team.
- Consistency: Best practice goes hand-in-hand with consistency. With constant and relevant training from day one, all employees should receive a solid foundation of knowledge, which can then be built upon. With this foundation, all employees will possess the tools and knowledge to carry out and deliver work of the same outstanding standard and quality.
- Motivation: It is important to keep employees motivated as it has a direct effect on productivity. An increase in motivation will directly increase the productivity of employees and their overall performance as well as that of a team. In turn, this will generate more return on investment (ROI) for the client and the company, representing the importance of investing time and resources into training.
- Employee satisfaction: Morale is high when productivity and performance throughout the company are strong. This coupled with personal achievements brings employee satisfaction, whereby employees are happy and feel valued, in turn they perform well. It’s a full circle that all stems from and starts with training.
- Weak areas: Identifying and addressing weaknesses in a company presents the opportunity to carry out refresher training or upskill sessions to educate and share knowledge. This ensures that everyone is comfortable in what is required from them and the level of performance is once again maintained.
- Collaboration: We all know that ‘two heads are better than one’. It makes sense then to share knowledge and experience, both within specific teams as well as between them. Coming together to help one another, as well as bringing different perspectives and opinions can sometimes be beneficial for everyone involved and helps to present various aspects of the company in various ways. This can be a training lead collaboration, whereby everyone can learn and benefit while also feeling like they have a voice.
- Reduced employee turnover: When employees receive the relevant and correct amount of training, they should feel more comfortable and confident in the workplace being able to carry out all aspects of their role with ease. Thus, reducing anxiety, unhappiness and a desire to leave the company.
Training doesn’t always need to be delivered in-house. At times it is necessary to seek out external guidance and assistance. External training really helps with:
- Access to expertise: When specific training is required, it is always best to go directly to the source and get the experts in, as they will know all the relevant information and the current tips and techniques being utilised and will be able to share best practice.
- Fresh look: External trainers may be able to provide valuable insight into inefficiencies within the company and help us to see opportunities for improvement that we could implement smoothly and efficiently. By bringing in an outside view, they can suggest changes that we may have otherwise not been aware of or thought of.
- Stretching our comfort zone: External trainers who are new to the business get employees stepping outside of their comfort zones immediately, as someone new is around.
When our comfort zones are stretched, we find it fosters creativity making us more flexible and adaptable to unexpected change. It also motivates us and increases our overall productivity and performance.
So, if you’re considering implementing a training programme for your team, give it a go, you’ll only know once you try – ‘the proof is in the pudding’ so to speak.
Opinion Piece by Nicolette Karides, Learning and Development Coordinator at Air Marketing.
Morning Buzz Meetings – Demotivating or Motivating?
Motivation can be difficult to achieve in an office environment; hard work can often go unnoticed and the constant pressures of a competitive environment can begin to wear employees down. Research has shown, each day, 10% of employees are absent in call centres due to the lack of appreciation felt in the workplace. This research alone highlights the need, especially in my industry, for touchpoints which allow managers to show their appreciation to their staff, highlight individual achievements and deliver motivational objectives. In this blog post, I will share my experience and tips for achieving the above in one morning meeting.
So, how do you maximise your morning buzz meetings to encourage individuals and create high performing sales teams?
- Strategise
There’s nothing worse than a long-winded ‘motivational’ meeting that is set to demotivate from the offset. It’s therefore important that you plan and prepare; effective buzz meetings should be concise and last no longer than 15 minutes, be armed with your objectives, focus on team wins and pinpoint your collective areas of learning.
- Set the tone
Our physical behaviour influences our mental and emotional approach to the day.
Think of ways to get your team moving, have a walking meeting, introduce a quick-fire game or play uplifting music to get the blood pumping. Increased blood flow creates a positive mood, resulting in employees being more equipped to handle objections, take on new challenges and meet personal milestones.
- Spotlight success
69% of employees say they would work harder if they felt their efforts were better recognised.
This is the perfect opportunity to feature the activity which you want to encourage. Celebrate your teams wins, even if they don’t lead to a direct sale and avoid focusing on losses. Recognising individual and team achievements has become my common practise, as I know this makes the individuals in my team feel more confident and in turn, pushes them to set bigger targets.
- Support and encourage
41% of companies that encourage colleagues to support one another experienced a significant increase in customer satisfaction.
If you want to create a great support network and boost team morale, encourage employees to praise fellow team members, this assures no one’s hard work slips past management and brings the team closer together. If your team is feeling positive it will show in their client conversations, resulting in better relationship building, more sales and higher ROI for the company.
- Strengthen from learnings
Remember, the key for creating a great buzz meeting is positivity. Take negative feedback from the day before and turn it into takeaways and learnings for the team to overcome together. If a client isn’t happy with an element of your team’s performance, encourage your team to think of tactics that will better engage them and the people they are selling to.
- State the day’s focus
90% of business leaders believe that an engagement strategy could positively impact their business, yet only 25% of them have a strategy in place. It’s therefore no surprise that only 40% of employees are well informed of their company’s goals, strategy, and tactics.
It’s time to hit the reset button and introduce a new action plan for the day. Ask each individual team member, “what do you want to achieve today?” I have found that when the whole team acknowledges personal targets, that individual immediately feels more accountability to meet their goal, success is more likely to be achieved and goals are more likely to align to the company’s bigger picture.
At Air Marketing, we have experienced great success from our initiative to focus on our internal company culture. Achieving £18 for every £1 our clients invest, we are performing higher than the industry’s £11 average. I personally believe this success is down to the time we take out of selling to promote appreciation, individual achievements and team objectives. The culture at Air is one that I haven’t experienced anywhere else, our team’s positive and supportive nature is infectious, thanks to our daily buzz meetings we continue to deliver fantastic results for the companies we support.
Opinion Piece by Annie Blundell – Account Director, Air Marketing
How do you say hello?
We communicate every day, through body language, what we wear and how we speak. By our very nature, humans are tribal, we make quick instinctive judgements as to whether a person is a friend or foe. In order to break down the barriers, you will at some point need to say, “hello!”, but how you say hello says so much more about you and the relationship you have with an individual than you might think.
We do not even question our personal brand day to day, we are instinctive to our settings and to the person we are greeting – or so you would hope. So, if we are so instinctive to our settings when we are going about our lives, why is it so hard for business owners to work out how their businesses might say hello?
When you are trying to establish a tone of voice for a business, the simplest question to ask a client is, “How does your business say hello?”
You would be surprised at how often people struggle with the answer to this question. In business, you have to say hello time and time again, to both existing and new customers and it is important that you get it right. When someone comes across your brand for the first time, they will be looking for something tangible, they will ask “Is this the sort of business I want to do business with?” “Are they speaking my language?”
Consider for a moment that you are looking for an IT provider for your business. It is a service that a large proportion of businesses need, but not one that everyone understands – for lots of us they may as well be speaking Elvish. Whilst a provider may be full of professionals who know what they’re doing, they have to be able to translate the complicated world of IT in a relatable way which customers can grasp. It is important that they have a sense of personality whilst also maintaining our view of them as a professional, if, for example, they answered the phone with ‘Yo!’, how likely would we be to take them seriously?
Virgin is a brand which cleverly uses a friendly personality in their approach – they maintain their personality throughout their conversations with all customers, regardless of the product you are purchasing from them. They are fun, friendly and approachable – they appear to be your everyday friend! Lots of businesses may want to mimic this in their brand personability, after all, everyone wants to have friends, but you also need to be able to differentiate yourself and appeal to your target market by standing out from the crowd.
When working with your marketeer, consider who you want to appeal to and how do you speak to them in the most approachable way, what your competitors are doing and how you can do things differently and, simply, how do you want to come across? If you want to exhibit yourself as a fun, dynamic and exciting company, use more colloquial language. However, if you want to be viewed in more of a traditional light, maintain formal communications with your prospects.
So next time you are wondering how your business might come across, and how to appeal to your customers, start with the simple question, “How do we say hello?”
P.S. No geeks were harmed in the stereotypes within this article.
Setting business development goals will help you win clients and influence your team
We all know how important sales are, without sales your business won’t grow, and without growth, your business will collapse. Therefore, it is essential to account for sales and business development within your company.
Whether you’re managing your business development in-house or outsourcing to an agency, implementing a thought-out strategy will help to win you clients and give you the ability to positively influence the individuals within your company.
8 tips that will help you implement a successful business development strategy.
- Identify long-term goals:
82% of B2B decision-makers think sales reps are unprepared.
However, have you ever questioned why this might be?
Tips:
- Establish what success looks like for your business
- Ask why you’re deploying a business development strategy. Have you experienced a drop in inbound enquiries, are you lacking qualified leads or are you aiming to make enquires more consistent?
- Set clear milestones and incentives to achieve the changes needed to reach success and give your team something to work towards
- Measure your current performance:
65% of CEOs rated “inclusive growth” as a top-three strategic concern.
Today, businesses are no longer assessed on traditional metrics, instead their relationships with workers and their impact on society is just as important as financial growth and this, in turn, heavily affects success.
Tips:
- Combine revenue growth and profit-making with the need to respect and support the people which make up your environment
- Invest in a performance management tool. The Performance Climate System for example, is a management tool which can extract information on the current productivity, climate and perception gap between your team and the leaders
- Allow your leaders to implement the changes needed for a more positive environment, a boost in team engagement are highly linked to an increase in sales
- Establish what clients you’re looking to win:
42% of start-ups failed in 2017 because there wasn’t a market for their offering.
Not everyone wants to buy what you’re selling, which is why it’s so important that you identify the needs of your target market.
Tips:
- Think quality over quantity
- Create a client profile to give you a clear indication of who needs your product or service, understand their pain points and what long term goals you can help them to achieve
If you’re looking for ‘The Ultimate Guide To B2B Sales Prospecting’, Air’s Group Director, Richard Forrest has all the tips in this world-class book.
- Hunt down your next opportunity:
80% of buyers are those which you must go out and find and it may take an average of 8 cold call attempts to reach them.
Tips:
- Pick up the phone and be persistent in your efforts to build rapport.
- Focus on your prospects need and be prepared to objection handle. For 3 killer ways to handle objections, take a read of our blog here.
- Don’t become a sales robot, your priority is client satisfaction, so don’t let the relationship go cold.
- Make sure your new opportunities qualify:
Business Development Executives make between 100 and 500 calls for every lead they qualify.
Setting qualifying criteria is a way of making sure your business is concentrating on leads that can really benefit you.
Tips:
- Be clear on the decision makers you need to be talking to and what makes a good meeting
- Analyse your prospects BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeframe)
Need more tips on the golden questions you should be asking to qualify leads? Read more here.
- Top ‘Sales Professionals’ don’t sell:
Being a sales professional is not actually about selling, it’s about building relationships and solving problems.
Tips:
- You must be out there, have a presence and be the expert. Offer guidance, regardless of whether it results in a sale or not. You can guarantee that the person you helped, with no immediate benefit to yourself, will come back or refer your next customer
- Use your marketing resources:
Lack of integration between the two can result in wasted efforts and lost opportunities.
Tips:
- Partner with a marketing agency or department! Events, content and consistent company messages can really help nurture leads through your pipeline and close deals
- Checkout our sister company, Roots to Market, who can offer a full-service approach to your marketing strategy or aid in bespoke projects such a nurture campaigns
- How do you know you’ve achieved success?
Business Development is a long-term investment.
Tips:
- Remain realistic when visualising what your success looks like, how much you’re prepared to invest and how long success will take you
- When you have reached your initial end goal, it’s time to start the process again, establish what success looks like now, set a more ambitions turnover, find new competitors, hunt for more rewarding opportunities and create new milestones in order to progress further up the ladder
Done well, Business Development has the potential to transform the dynamic of your business and get you working with more of the right clients. Whether in-house or outsourced, everyone who touches your Business Development Strategy needs to be fully engaged in your long-term ambitions and understand what needs to be achieved to get there.
Get in touch:
Need help with reaching your audience, increasing your client base and growing your business? Contact #TeamAir today on 03332 581394 or via contact@air-marketing.co.uk
How can hashtags help to boost business success?
Hashtags are a familiar sight, with most of us now using social media daily. However, many businesses still aren’t utilising them to the best of their ability. Whilst they may seem like a fun way of sharing what you’re up to with friends and family, they are in fact powerful tools. Twitter states that tweets containing hashtags are twice as likely to be seen. Functioning much like keywords/phrases on websites or SERP’s they can gain traction for your company. Therefore, it is worthwhile aligning yourself to ones which will boost your business and help you to develop a recognisable brand.
With so many of us now using social media, there is a hashtag for everything, whether it is #NationalDoughnutDay or #Brexit – hashtags offer an opportunity for everyone to boost their business and start trending conversations around topics of interest. Even if you are time poor or lack the creativity to generate your own hashtags, you don’t have to worry. Today all social platforms make finding popular hashtags easy, as most offer a list of the days trending hashtags so that you can see which ones you can use to optimise your business’ presence.
So, even if you aren’t a doughnut company, your company could produce reactive marketing material around #NationalDoughnutDay. For example: You may buy your whole team doughnuts, why not take a photograph of yourselves enjoying them and post against #NationalDoughnutDay? In jumping on hashtags such as these, it also offers a sense of transparency to your business, showing humanity and your business personality. The wider you reach the more likely you will be seen by your target market.
Using hashtags makes your company relatable. However, it is important to make sure that your company is staying on brand allowing clients and prospects to create a solid concept of what your business offers and values.
If you are an energy company, for example, the hashtags you’re regularly using should help you to portray a message relevant to those that you want to reach. As a suggestion, in using the hashtag, #RenewableEnergy, you will be linked to like-minded businesses, leading authorities in your industry and potential clients, or simply people with an interest in the topic. As a note of caution, it is vital to not use hashtags that could be misconstrued, if you’re an energy company that doesn’t work with renewable energy steer clear. Hashtags that don’t align with your brand message will demonstrate lack of transparency causing your audience to retreat and ultimately damage your company image.
Hashtags are like the dividers in a filing cabinet, when you use a certain hashtag you are telling the social media platform what you’re posting and what category you’d like your post to sit. Hashtags are typically associated with Instagram and Twitter, but Facebook and LinkedIn are now trialling the use of hashtags. Why not jump on the #trend here too? Especially with LinkedIn, a platform developed for growing businesses, where content shows up in Google searches meaning that using hashtags can greatly benefit your business by putting it in front of a larger audience.
Ultimately it is up to you how and when you choose to utilise hashtags on your social media platforms. Whether it’s just to garner support from likeminded businesses, create your own unique brand hashtags, show your interest in current affairs or to start discussions within your industry – promoting yourself or your business as an authority figure within your subject, we encourage you to optimise this simple marketing tool which can make a big difference to expanding the conversations surrounding your business.
#Enjoy! #BusinesstoBusinessMarekting #hashtags
Cold Calling Vs Social Selling – Let’s settle the debate.
There is a long-standing debate raging among sales professionals – which is more effective, social selling or cold calling? To me, the answer is simple.
Now, I am not going to bore you to death with stats which, depending on who you speak to, can be validated both ways. Instead, I’m going to give you some insight that I have gained as a Sales Professional who has sat on both sides of the fence, sometimes stuck in the middle, for over a decade.
So, my insight:
Logging into a webinar recently, I watched keenly as the debate in discussion swung from side to side, with each team offering their opinions. On one side, the UK’s top social seller and on the other, a Canadian based CMO from a well-known Sales Engagement Platform provider and advocate of cold calling. Both camps provided stats to back up their arguments, making it a close call. Although either could have come out on top, in my opinion, cold calling won this round. However, was this down to the geographical benefit of the stats, a more engaging presentation or more tangible evidence? I’m still unsure.
Since this debate, I’ve viewed multiple posts, blogs and podcasts to try and determine a winner for myself. I came across a recent Hubspot blog which appeared to settle the debate in favour of social selling, boldly stating that prospective customers and sales people alike “hate” cold calling. The blog consisted of impressive conversion figures, with the origins of these stats referenced, however, what is often left unclear is the industry, target, sales cycle, resource or end result of these stats origin. Without knowing the full picture, how can we possibly judge what is best for our businesses?
My background includes an enjoyable period as an Event Manager, assisting in the growth of the largest sales and marketing expo in Europe. At this event, exhibitors included direct sales people, cold callers and, what appeared to be, the more passive social sellers. All evidenced by the solutions which they were there to present. There has always been one impression that stuck with me after this event. Whilst the direct sellers had a constant sense of energy and approached any delegate who came within talking distance, the social sellers would wait to be approached – usually sat on their mobile phones. I’ll leave it to you to conclude whose stands were busier…
Now, it seems that these characteristics are commonplace, as shown to me by a recent experience. A well-known, international sales trainer recently posted on LinkedIn, “I have an associate looking for support in their telesales process.” The post had received dozens of comments and recommendations, however, with the benefit of having their phone number, I picked up the phone and introduced Air, asking how we could help. I was astounded to find out that from a 2-day old post requesting TELESALES SUPPORT I was the first person to pick up the phone and call. Now, yes, I was connected to and known by this person through social media, we’d swapped some niceties and a few messages which supported our conversation, but I was the only person to call and actually have a conversation! Whilst multiple people had attempted to social sell, guess what? The prospect wanted a conversation and, funnily enough, I was the only one introduced to their associate.
If this doesn’t settle the debate, I don’t know what will… it pays to use both!
Both cold calling and social selling have their place, it’s not really a matter of which one is better. When used together, they maximise the effectiveness, reach, efficiency and quality of your process. Each prospective client will buy in a different way and their more likely to notice your company if you get on their radar in 2 or 3 different ways. Any marketeer or sales professional worth their salt will tell you that a multi-channel, multi-touch approach will always maximise effectiveness.
Here at Air, we have multiple ways to win new business for ourselves and our clients. We run targeted email campaigns, sponsored LinkedIn mails, Facebook ads, engage traffic using IP trackers, networking events and referral channels. I will social sell, but I will still pick up the phone and cold call too. One shameless stat I will give you is that we’ve seen 257% growth in a year. We’re an award-winning company who are about to go through our second office move in less than 12 months due to increasing demand and our work with well-known household brands. And do you know why? Because wherever our clients and their customers are, and however they like to buy, we ensure we’re there too. Simple.
If you would like to discuss how we can help your business, give us a call: 0345 241 3038, or email: contact@air-marketing.co.uk.
Opinion Piece by Simon Murthwaite, Sales Director, Air Marketing Group
It Pays to be Patient
At Air, we pride ourselves on our honest and transparent approach towards our customers. We want those who we work with to succeed and so we keep nothing from you, you can have as much or as little involvement in your campaign as you would like. As one of Air’s Account Directors, I sit down with our prospective and retained clients, making sure to spend time with them in order to create the right strategy for their budget and business goals. But also, I want to ensure that clients understand that developing returns on their investment takes time. Markets are saturated with new businesses and whilst outsourcing telesales is a step in the right direction, clients shouldn’t expect a quick fix. The clients that I work with are often looking to invest in a long-term telemarketing campaigns, have long sales cycles and therefore need to understand that telemarketing does not instantly create ROI.
Despite this level of client engagement, when it comes to the end of the first month I sometimes find that clients have concerns if they haven’t yet closed a big deal or aren’t yet receiving high ROIs. Whilst I understand that clients put a lot into their businesses and obviously want them to be a success, it seems that often people forget that success isn’t always instant. More often than not, it pays to be patient.
It is for this reason that, as part of our business proposals, myself and the other Account Directors at Air recommend a long-term commitment after the initial 3-month trial pilot period. During this pilot period, the outcomes teach us learning’s about the business’ message, the target audience, the objections and the sales cycle of a client. This time is essential for a business, it allows us to test the messaging of the campaign, the data we receive and actually get hold of the right people for the client – all of which takes time if done right.
We don’t want our clients to stress or be kept in the dark, which is why we have created our unique client portal, where they can have a clear view of their campaigns progress – our clients are able to follow the peaks and falls of their entire campaign and see the feedback or objections we receive. It is most important to listen to this information in the beginnings of a campaign and not be overly concerned if sales are slow to begin with, as brand and business development should be nurtured not rushed. By considering this information, we are then able to use it to adapt the campaign and help it develop with momentum in the long term to generate the client impressive ROIs. After all our average campaign ROI is £18 for every £1 spent, so your investment is in good hands.
Opinion Piece by Keryn Seal, Account Director, Air Marketing Group
We’ve been shortlisted for the BESMA Awards 2018
The British Excellence in Sales Management (BESMA) Awards are an annual event held by the Institute of Sales Management. With the purpose to recognise and reward the most successful companies and individuals in the sales industry.
We’re delighted to be shortlisted amongst some of the industry’s biggest players …
This time last week #TeamAir took to the bright lights of London to present in front of the BESMA panel. We demonstrated the success we’ve achieved over the past 2 years and how this has been made possible due to the hard work, commitment and passion our team continue to exhibit.
We’ve been shortlisted for the four following categories:
Best Telesales Team
Best Sales Employer
Best Rising Star – Marco Alfano-Rogers
Best Key Account Manager – Shaun Weston
We were excited to share the presenting stage with some of the biggest names in the country, companies which include:
Yell, Gamma Telecom, McAfee, PwC, Indeed and SSE Electricity Limited.
Reflecting on our growth …
Writing the BESMA Awards have truly allowed us to reflect on how much we’ve all achieved, not only in the last year but since our inception.
Having started with a modest fund of £25,000 in 2016, we first operated out of a boardroom within someone’s office with a total of 1 employee!
Now recognised as the fastest growing companies in Exeter, in the last 12 months’ #TeamAir have grown from 11 to over 50 employees and continue to acquire an increasing number of clients, and household brand names. We are currently operating out of two offices in Exeter’s city center and are soon to be moving into a new office with 100pax capacity.
We are extremely proud of our own growth and the growth we continue to achieve for our clients’. Our success is measured by the fact our team implements telemarketing campaigns that perform at twice the industry average. This allows our clients to achieve an average return of £18 for every £1 they spend with us.
What’s next …
With a strong team driving us forward we are confident that we will continue to evolve our company and elevate business for our clients.
Our office move comes with exciting new internal structures, new areas of expertise and even more possibilities for our clients.
BESMA’s well-deserved winners will be announced on 26th October 2018. Overwhelmed by the recognition our team has already received, winning the BESMA Awards would give solidarity to our team’s loyalty and hard work. It’s safe to say #TeamAir have every finger crossed.
If you would like to find out more about Air Marketing Group and how we can help you achieve your business goals visit our website: air-marketing.co.uk or call us on: 03332505686
