We recently held a sales training webinar on 10 inside sales tips that will transform your game and you can view the video and download the slides here.
Tip #1 – Don’t Sound like a Salesperson Trying to Sell Something
The first inside sales tip is to try to minimize how much you sound like a salesperson that is trying to sell something. Even though you are, we want you to sound more like a business person with help and value to offer than a pushy salesperson that is trying to close a sale.
Many of the other inside sales tips will help you to achieve this, but the reason we make this recommendation is that your prospects get approached by a lot of salespeople and this can decrease the guardedness that you trigger.
Tip #2 – Deliver an Elevator Pitch
One way to not sound like a salesperson trying to sell something is to minimize how much you talk about your product and company. You may be concerned about what you will say if you don’t talk about your product. The answer is to create an elevator pitch that focuses on how your product helps and to use this in your sales pitch.
Tip #3 – Perform a Soft Takeaway
Another one of the inside sales tips that will help you to sound more like a business person is to perform a soft takeaway at the beginning of your calls. This is a soft statement that expresses doubt as to whether the prospect fits with what you have to offer.
Tip #4 – Have a List of Pre-Qualifying Questions
Always have a list of pre-qualifying questions to use as a guide when making inside sales calls. These will not only help your calls to be more conversational, but they will also help you to gather valuable information.
Tip #5 – Be Aware of Problems You Help With
Whether you are wanting to grab a prospect’s attention at the beginning of a call or try to recover when a call hits a wall, it can help to share some of the common problems that you help to resolve.
Tip #6 – Don’t Sell the Product, Sell the Conversation
This is one of the more powerful inside sales tips and it is to focus more on selling the conversation than selling the product in early sales cycle stage interactions.
Tip #7 – Have Responses for Anticipated Objections
You are guaranteed to face sales objections and you can improve your results by simply preparing responses for the objections that you can anticipate.
Tip #8 – Have a Game Plan for Gatekeepers
You could face gatekeepers up to 50% of your phone prospecting time. By having a game plan for how to get around gatekeepers, you will make the most of that large percentage of time that you will spend interacting with them.
Tip #9 – Use Some Sort of Call Cadence
Have some sort of call cadence that provides a structure for how often to call and email prospects.
Tip #10 – Use Some Sort of Call Guide/Playbook
In a lot of these inside sales tips, we discuss things that you should say and it can help you to keep all of that organized and at the top of your mind by using some sort of call guide or sales playbook.
Also, read How to Use a Value Prop on a Cold Call.