Sales Prospecting

The Complete Guide to Sales Territory Mapping

There’s a lot of strategy and leg-work that goes into proper sales territory mapping. This is a crucial part in setting your team up for success.

It can be a tedious process, but it’s necessary to ensure your team is canvassing the right area and not just going in blindly.

What is a Sales Territory Map?

A sales territory map is a plan of attack for your sales reps. Mapping gives you the ability to designate areas and assign specific territories to each rep. With Territory mapping software, cut territories that meet your criteria and allocate across your sales team. Not only does mapping out territories mean you only targeting prospects that are viable contenders to make a purchase, it keeps reps from overlapping and poaching each other’s sales.

Benefits of a Clearly Defined Sales Territory Map

Cut territories. Map out territories and assign to reps.
Territory hierarchy. Create hierarchies so everyone on the team knows exactly where to go.
Real-time visibility. Managers and reps can work together to ensure every territory is fully covered.
Stay organized. Easily edit, manage and delete territories as reps move around.

The Old School Approach to Sales Territory Mapping

One of the reasons this process has been such a pain for so long is because of how it’s been done.

Using the “highlighter and Google Maps” method leaves a ton of room for error and confusion. You have no way to determine how many homes you’re assigning to each rep, how many customers you have in each territory you assign, or the demographics for the homeowners you should be targeting.

Not to mention once you send the team out with their printed maps you rarely ever get them back therefore have no historical idea where you’ve worked or haven’t worked.

Using highlighters and maps leaves a lot of room for dispute between sales reps.

Consider this situation:

1. They’ll knock outside of the territory you assigned them claiming they weren’t sure where it ended.
2. Then, the rep who is assigned to that territory will get upset about the sale another rep made in their territory.

Who do you give the sale to; the rep who closed the deal or the rep whose territory that sale is assigned to?

Turning what should be a celebration into a dramatic debacle.

4 Ways to Map Sales Territories

To save time, be more efficient, eliminate confusion and increase performance, create and assign territories for your team using the following strategies:

1. Target Market Demographics
2. Current Customers in Each Territory
3. Evenly Distributed by Number of Homes
4. Evenly Distributed by City / Zip

1. Target Market Demographics

One of the most effective strategies for creating territories is to gather the demographics of your target market before sending your team out to knock doors.

This will eliminate the amount of time your reps spend in the field knocking aimlessly. You shouldn’t want your reps making attempts on homes you know either won’t close, or have a low possibility of closing.

Using a tool like SPOTIO’s Lead Machine will help you to identify key territories, target qualified customers that match your ideal customer profile (ICP), and ensure that your team is knocking doors that have real buying potential.

You’ll also have the ability to track the progress of each of these leads in your funnel through the app. This will prevent leads that you’ve spent money on from slipping through the cracks and increase the return on your investment.

Obviously you have to be able to identify your target market in order to purchase any type of leads. Some criteria are more important than others, like homeowners vs. renters, credit score, home market value and median home income.

The more information you have about your current customers, the better. It will allow you to understand where you’re having the most success and help you to identify higher quality potential customers with a greater chance of buying.

Another tool you can check out is a website called City Data. Scroll down and choose your state and then you’ll have access to hundreds of segmentation options.

To learn how to best use this site download our free ebook below:

2. Current Customers by Territory

Your current customers are extremely valuable to your business, and not just because they purchased your product or service.

Your customers can provide you with some of the highest converting and cheapest leads – referrals. You just have to ask.

Start by generating a list of all of your current customers. If you use a sales tracking app like SPOTIO, it’s simple to upload this list into your account, or you can simply sort the pins in your account by the status you created to signify a closed-won deal.

If you’re not using a sales tracking app, you’ll have to map these addresses by hand individually. It will be a much longer process, but well worth it.

Once you’re able to see all of your customers on a map, draw out territories for your reps to work based on these locations.

There’ are two strategies to this approach:

1. The first is to evenly distribute the number of customers in each territory for your sales reps.
2. The other option if your customers are more spread out is to assign a couple smaller territories to each rep, but still distribute them as evenly as possible.

The goal by doing this is to use your current customers as references when pitching a new prospect. You can also have your team visit satisfied customers to ask for referrals.

3. Evenly Distributed by Number of Homes

Making sure that sales reps have enough doors to knock is essential to their performance and production.

Without a sales territory mapping software, you can spend hours on this process. A sales territory mapping software significantly simplifies this process, saving you many hours and ensuring greater accuracy.

Create and assign territories based on the number of houses you want each rep to work at one time.

Start this process by determining the number of houses you want each rep on your team to have. As you start drawing out an area in SPOTIO, the app will tell you the estimated number of homes in that territory. You can always adjust it if there’s too many or note enough.

Using a territory mapping software will allow you to create even territories for your entire team in less than 10 minutes. If you choose 500 as the total number of homes you want to be in each territory, you just need to be close to that number. It’s not important for it to be exact; 475 or 525 is close enough.

If you want to guesstimate the number of houses in a sales territory consider that on ¼ acre lots which are common you will get 1,000 houses in a 1 mile by 1mile areas.

4. Distributed by City or Zip Code

Creating territories by city or zip code is a little bit trickier because of the size of the area. Even if every city was the exact same size, the number of homes wouldn’t be.

There’s a variety of factors in play when creating territories by city or zip code. The demographics in each city can vary dramatically and will influence the number of potential customers for a rep to visit.

Distributing territories by city or zip code is one of the easiest methods because it’s black and white; there’s no grey area.

You tell a rep, “This is your city or zip code, and if you get a lead or sale outside of your territory, it’s going to the rep that territory belongs to.” Creating territories this way eliminates a lot of the conflict and guesswork for sales reps.

Because cities or zip codes vary in the number of houses, you may need to assign two or three to a rep.

These territories will have a ton of homes to work. They’re not going to be quick to work through and shouldn’t be changed frequently like smaller territories may be. Using a territory mapping software will help you to ensure you distribute the number of houses for each rep to work evenly by the city or zip code.

Bonus: Here’s a free Zip Code map you can use to slice and dice your marketplace by zip codes if you want to create your sales territories this way.

Common Mistakes to Avoid in the Territory Mapping Phase

Here is a short list of issues and errors managers can implement, which will improve their effectiveness in territory mapping:

Mistake #1: Using limited data – and using the wrong territory management tool.

If you don’t know your client and, or account data, you can’t accurately know how well the sales rep is doing let alone make improvements. You also want to refrain from making continuous changes to sales territories, as it will negatively impact client engagement. However, you will want the ability to make modifications in the territories occasionally. Key here, find the ‘BEST’ CRM tool to aid you in this process.

Mistake #2: Leaving your sales team out of the picture.

In order to be effective in territory mapping, you NEED to involve your sales reps and teams. Taking into account the experience of your sales reps/teams will help to motivate them. This will encourage you to have the right reps in the right territories and make sure that the business is in their prospective territory. By doing so, you will ensure you have a plan in place that your sales reps/teams can embrace, and get behind.

Mistake # 3: Getting overwhelmed with spreadsheets.

If you want to ‘win’ in sales performance and motivate your reps/teams, you MUST incorporate the right tools and applications to help you manage and evaluate your reps/teams. This will give your reps/teams the visibility into their targets, schedules, and the ability to align the right reps with the right accounts/products, which will minimize the sales assignment process and increase sales.

In defining a sales territory and determine if the territory mapping is efficient, you need to make sure of a few things:

Make sure the product that’s being sold in the territory is in demand, in the right market, and that there is the adequate transport facilities. You also need to know your competition! If sales are being made on a consistent basis and sales goals are being met, you’ve got the right territory mapping in place!

EXAMPLES of how to determine territory workload:

Workload (#) = [Current accounts (#) * Average time to service an active account (#)] + [Prospects (#) * Time spent trying to convert a prospect into an active account (#)]

The sales potential in a territory can be determined as follows:

Sales potential ($) = Number of possible accounts (#) x Buying power ($)

There is no ‘one size’ fits all when it comes to territory mapping. The most popular territories are done via geographical lines, and doing so will prevent companies from leveraging and optimizing revenue.

The round-robin method is best if going after a targeted market. Geographic distribution is best if you have boots on the ground. With the new advancements that technology is providing via account-based marketing, the best method is obviously going to be scattered among the states aiding in the new territory of adding a time-zone territory as well. So, as you can see, you really need to know your product, competition, market and sales reps to determine the best territory option for your organization.

Highest performing territories – sales by client, new contacts, opportunity-to-win rates, average deal size?

The best and highest performing territories are those that have been ‘optimized’ as read in this article from Alexander Group. Basically, if you’re not ‘optimizing’, you’re throwing caution to the wind and losing revenue while helping your sales reps underperform. Here are 5 things to consider when ‘optimizing’ your territories:

1. Define the most important targets.
2. Weigh each target accurately.
3. Calibrate your index.
4. Review your results.
5. Make changes to the territories based on those results.

As stated, you can have great products and great sales reps BUT if you don’t ‘optimize’ your sales rep’s territories, you’re losing revenue and not utilizing your best sales reps.

What to Do Next

At this point you’ve either already been creating sales territories for your team or you haven’t. If you have, congrats! You’re one of the organized ones. Feel free to modify your approach based on the information above and if you have anything to add feel free to chime in.

If you don’t currently use sales territories for your team don’t fret. It’s not too late!

Check out these other blog posts to learn more about Territory Management

Below you will find great information on territory management and how you can set your team up for success by utilizing the best practices associated with it. Feel free to check it out and if you have any input let us know.

Stop Guessing: The Truth about Territory Management

____

Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.

SPOTIO is the #1 field sales automation and performance management software that will increase revenue, maximize profitability, and boost sales productivity.

Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.

Weekly Reports Sales Manager Should Run [with Template]

KPI reporting can be time consuming, but good KPI reports are essential to data-driven business. Key performance indicators and metrics must be delivered as accessible, interactive reporting documents which give other staff and management key performance insights.

KPI’s are very important in helping a business achieve strategic goals while allowing management to gauge the actions of sales reps within the broader scope of your enterprise. If you take the time to consider what a good KPI report needs to contain before creating your report, you can deliver meaningful results in under 10 minutes every time. The reports that you generate help managers realize where skill sets are best utilized.

Here we’ll be taking you through a look at essential daily KPI’s to request from your sales reps. We’ll also show you which KPI’s work best for weekly reports and exactly how to put together a clear-clear report for your directors, presidents, or partners.

Daily KPI’s from Your Reps

There are many key performance indicators which are essential to understanding how your staff body is functioning as a team. Project management metrics empower management with the information that they need to run a business optimally. Without the hard numbers behind budgets and performance data, communication and delegation within your enterprise are simply ineffective.

Every target-driven sales environment needs daily KPI reports aligned to the strategic goals of your company. Use all or any of the following daily KPI’s to help optimize your enterprise management.

Daily Sales Revenues

Price Per Unit Sold X Total Number of Units Sold for the Week / 7 = Daily Sales Revenue

This simple calculation lets you see which reps are pushing the most gross sales on a day to day basis. Graphing your daily sales revenue KPI over a weekly or monthly time-period gives a clear overview of underperforming and top achievers. Revenues don’t reveal as much insight as profit figures, however, they will allow you to perform certain types of analysis better. Daily sales revenues allow you to gauge the effect of additional funding and resources on potential profitability and growth.

Daily Sales Commissions

Request a daily sales commissions report from all of your reps to ensure that both parties are up-to-date and informed concerning progress towards goals, and possible incentives. Staying aware of the incoming commissions motivates reps and management while delivering key employee insights.

Daily Wages

Depending on the payment structure of your reps, you may need to include a daily wages KPI. By staying current with wages on a day-to-day basis, everyone knows what they are earning and you always know that you have the fees due to your reps factored into your budget. Some businesses use both wages and commissions. In this case, cite both KPI’s on a daily basis.

Daily ROI

**Daily Sales Revenues / Total Daily Expenses, Wage & Commissions * 100 = Daily ROI**

Return on investment for sales is a calculation which needs to factor in all costs in order to display any degree of accuracy. You need to include fuel, the cost of communications, and any external fees which may be involved in delivering sales, service and support to your customers. One should, however, keep in mind that certain sales pipelines only present a positive return on investment after a significant period of time.

Don’t always accept the daily ROI of your reps as a determining factor of their performance, but rather as a gauge of the efficiency of your funnels.

Opportunity Win Rate

Total Number of Sales Closed / Total Amount of Opportunities = Opportunity Win Rate

This metric will show you which reps have the best closing rate. Sales hinges upon being able to seal the deal, making this KPI integral to finding out who is amassing leads and who is actually selling. Most successful sales managers see the opportunity win rate as one of the most important sales metrics. It allows for a clear overview of which reps are better at closing, which are better suited to each type of pipeline, and presents one with a world of new optimization possibilities when allocating resources to reps.

Weekly KPI’s

The close of every week must be followed by a comprehensive report of the key performance indicators reflecting immediate progress. Include any of these weekly KPI’s to help data-driven decision making by gaining a concise but highly-relevant overview of your business’ performance. Many of these weekly KPI’s could / should be included on your weekly report to upper management which we will cover shortly.

Lead-to-Sale Percentage

**Conversion Rate = Total Number of Sales / Number of Leads * 100**

Comparing the lead-to-sale percentage across your reps is a great way to assess individual performance.

For example, if you made 30 sales for the month out of 100 potential leads then your sales to lead conversion rate is 30%. A lead-to-sale conversion rate will show managers which reps need additional training or replacement to a different department. Any reps falling below the company-wide sales average need individual attention in some way.

Average Cost Per Lead

Total Lead Acquisition Cost / Total Number of Leads = Average Cost Per Lead

Obtaining an average cost per lead lets you know which reps are under-utilizing their budget, time, and resources. Many issues could be at the root of poor average cost per lead performance ranging from logistics dilemmas to understaffing issues.

Get a weekly report covering the average cost of your reps’ lead acquisition, and you’ll soon discover where your sales teams and pipelines need work.

Quote to Close Ratio

**Weekly Quote Total / Closed Weekly Sales * 100 = Closing Ratio Percentage**

The quote to close ratio KPI gives you a great indication of how quickly to follow up on prospects within your sales funnel. Sales reps often fail to perform due to quoting too early or too late. Once you find the right balance within your funnel, your reps will all be closing more sales thanks to attentive quoting at precisely when it’s wanted.

Sales Lead to Close Ratio

**Weekly Sales Leads Total / Closed Weekly Sales Total * 100 = Sales Leads to Close Ratio Percentage**

This KPI shows overall sales efficiency. Depending on your organizational structure, you may want to run this metric for both raw leads and qualified leads independently. You can run the sales leads to close ratio KPI on specific geographical areas in order to get a better feel for where you need to devote your time and resources.

Prospecting Activity

Your sales teams need to capture as much data as possible concerning the resources devoted to seeking and obtaining new leads. Let management and sales staff keep track of calls, emails, meetings, time spent traveling, service or product demos, and any other marketing activities applicable to your sales funnel.

Successful sales prospecting relies on information. Any substantial changes in statistics are usually a key indicator of growth and decline, marking areas that you can improve, replicate, or expand upon as you now know the connection. Capture and include as many prospecting activity metrics as KPI’s as possible to truly understand your potential customers.

Free Download:

Average Purchase Value

Total Value of Weekly Sales / Total Number of Weekly Sales = Average Purchase Value

The average purchase value KPI gives you a measure of the average sales value of each transaction. Average purchase values need to be segmented according to specific demographics in order to reach an accurate comparison of your marketing efforts. This KPI also allows you to identify which reps are best at selling high and low-end products and services. Certain staff may be far more productive when assigned a particular demographic.

Sales by Product Line

Sales by product line will let you identify the most lucrative products and services in your range, while also uncovering which sales pipelines need better sales prospecting and lead nurturing.

Sales by Channel

This strategic KPI works on both short-term and long-term scales. It shows you exactly which areas of customer acquisition are netting you the most revenue.

Client Meetings Attended

The metrics for meetings attended is fantastic for weekly sales reports. Managers are awarded insights into which staff is making the most of their time, and which would be more productive with less out-of-office time.

Weekly Reporting to Upper-Management

Sales managers will need to deliver a selection of KPI’s and performance metrics to their directors, vice presidents, boards of staff, and other superiors. Weekly sales reports can also be shared between departmental heads to ensure that inter-company collaboration is functioning optimally with communications clear throughout.

A weekly sales report needs to present a comprehensive but concise overview of current sales, your team’s progress towards existing goals, revenues and costs, as well as growth. Additionally, recommendations for organizational and staffing changes which need to be passed by upper-management can be suggested along-side the data to back up the decision.

Putting Together a Winning Weekly Reports

When deciding which key performance indicators to include on your weekly reporting, take the time to compare possible metrics against the goals of your enterprise.

If the KPI you wish to cite doesn’t directly correspond to a strategic insight matched to the vision and operation of your business, then no one but you will be able to find any value in it without a lengthy explanation. Simply put, not all metrics are KPI’s and not all KPI’s should be on every weekly report.

There are, however, basic components which must be on every report. Regardless of the type of business, you do or the product/service supplied, good sales reports will carry these following components at a minimum.

Components of a Weekly Report

The sales and performance information of your reps need to be compiled as a weekly report. Make sure that your report contains all of the necessary relevant information such as the branch name, team, and contact details.

Every good report will start off with the date and the time period that the report will be covering. In this case, it’s a weekly duration. Next, it should list the current sales revenue against the year-end target, also displayed in a clear to read manner.

Progress towards your sales target for the month is handy, while a color-coded key and/or structured formatting always helps to keep everything readable. List the KPI’s which you’ll be reporting with a breakdown for each employee, product, or project that you’re reporting on. Keep every week’s report standardized and accompany each report with a short memorandum.

Crafting a Data-Driven Memorandum

Your memorandum should begin with the week’s main accomplishments.

For example, exceeding performance goals by meeting a sales quota early should be an opening statement which is best backed up by a useful metric or projection for next week’s growth based on this week’s numbers. In addition, be sure to provide a meaningful reason for any shortfalls in sales. If a public holiday resulted in you being shut for a day, or an IT-failure interrupted trading for hours, cite the disturbance. This will help the reader understand the full context of the report without needing to be there.

A good basic set of KPI’s to begin with are:

– Weekly Sales Wages
– Weekly Sales Commissions
– Weekly Sales Revenues
– ROI
– Weekly ROI

Feel free to include any other metric which is directly relevant to the organizational structure, strategic vision, and goals of your enterprise. Just keep in mind that directors don’t want to see hoards of raw data. Rather, provide meaningful results which are supported by rich visuals and explanations in clear-speech. Avoid ambiguity and share all results relevant to the profitability and management of your business.

Ideas, tactical advancements, staffing issues, infrastructure suggestions, and any other motivations for change should be discussed openly but supported by the numbers needed to make your reasoning understood.

Growth, Analysis & Your Own Basic Weekly Sales Template

Not all enterprises and business owners will want extensive reports with lengthy memorandums. Smaller businesses will get by and function better with a small selection of meaningful KPI’s reporting the basics.

In the early stages of growth, staying simple and focused is often better than getting lost along a progression of endless optimization. Once established, there are endless ways to analyze information, using key performance indicators as a cornerstone of actionable reporting and data segmentation.

Take a look at our weekly sales report template if you need a spreadsheet to begin crafting insightful daily and weekly reports.

_____

Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.

SPOTIO is the #1 sales enablement and territory management app to increase your revenue, maximize your profitability, and increase your team’s productivity in just 2 weeks.

Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.

B2B Prospecting: What You Can’t Afford NOT to Know

Business to Business (B2B) prospecting is the pillar of lead generation. When prospecting for new business, the idea is to get as many quality prospects as possible, which requires you to be able to identify and target the right prospects. However, this prospecting strategy is not as easy as it sounds and is often an area of opportunity for B2B sales forces.

According to Technology Advice, 70 percent of marketers at B2B companies reported that “improving lead quality” was the primary concern. Also, 54 percent said getting more leads was a top objective as well.

When it comes to prospecting, B2B companies face a quality and quantity problem.

In this B2B prospecting guide, we’ll cover:

What is B2B prospecting?
B2B buyer journey
Top B2B prospecting challenges
Prospecting myths
8-step B2B prospecting system
Key prospecting tools
Prospecting KPIs

Let’s get started…

What is B2B Sales Prospecting?

B2B Sales Prospecting is the search for new business opportunities. Customers, clients, or buyers all start as prospects.

Saleshacker suggests that the sales rep can discover B2B sales prospects or, if the team is broken into different roles, by the business development reps. They will research about, communicate to, and engage the contact with the goal to qualify them as a potential customer.

Leads vs. Prospects

Leads and prospects are often used interchangeably. However, they are not the same thing.

So, what is the difference between a prospect and a lead?

Leads: Potential customers that have engaged in a behavior that indicated interest in your product or service – visited your website, subscribed to a blog, or downloaded a gated resource.

Prospects: A lead becomes a prospect once you have qualified them and discovered that they fit the profile of your target customer. The term prospect can also be used to describe a potential customer that has little-to-no contact with the company.

Leads and prospects share the same goal. In both cases, the salesperson should nurture them through the sales process until they buy the product or service. However, this nurturing process is not as simple as it sounds.

The B2B Journey is Complex

The B2B buying experience has changed – 68% of B2B customers research products online before they ever speak to a sales rep.

And:

More people are involved; often there are buying teams rather than one set buyer for a company. Forrester reports the average number of people involved in the decision-making process has risen to 7.

The consumer mindset is also changing; price used to be the primary concern, but now there is a value mindset. In 2017, 71% of executives said the most significant issue was that sale reps were not able to communicate “unique business value.”

When prospecting for new business, salespeople need to consider these changes and adapt their tactics accordingly. The traditional prospecting strategy works but is not comprehensive enough to cut it in all situations. In other words, smiling and dialing is useful, but should not be the only strategy in your prospecting arsenal.

The Prospecting Problem Most B2B Companies Face

B2B sales prospecting is crucial to any organization. However, there is a significant problem most B2B companies face: sales professionals hate it.

HubSpot found that 42 percent of sales professionals say it is the most challenging parts of the sales process.

Prospecting is what fills the sales funnel. It has a direct causal relationship with top-line revenue. In other words, the success of your organization depends on how successful you are in prospecting for new business.

However, the dread might be based on misconception. Let’s take at a few of the top prospecting myths.

7 Prospecting Myths — Debunked by Data

We are going to address some common myths and share the data that debunks them.

Myth #1: Cold Calling is Dead

This claim isn’t valid. InsideSales.com research indicates that 54% of the buyers agreed to their most recent meeting based on a phone call from the seller. The RAIN Group Center for Sales research found that while email comes in first, 70% of potential clients connect with sales representatives over the phone.

Myth #2: Scripts Are Too Impersonal

Scripts help you have the right words at the right time. Instead of being impersonal, they help you find your way to making a personal connection. However, some salespeople don’t believe in scripts because they think the pre-written lines get in the way of natural rapport building. Rapport building is crucial in cold calling, but a proper script will not interfere with your ability to make a connection with a prospect. Instead, it will help you find out what you need to know while you get to know your potential future customer.

Myth #3: Prospecting Takes a Lot of Time

Prospecting takes time, but not as much time if you have a system and the right tools in place. For example, a tool like SPOTIO will help you focus on the best targets that match your customer profile.

Myth #4: Buyers Hate Speaking to Sales Reps

Buyers do not hate talking to salespeople.. In fact, they prefer to:

   82% of buyers take meetings after talking to sellers
   71% of buyers said they want to talk to sellers early in the sales process
   62% of buyers take meetings to discuss solutions with sellers

Myth #5: Buyers Don’t Want to Hear About Your Product Features

Buyers do want to hear about product features. Sales Hacker found 67% of buyers said that product descriptions influenced their decision to take a meeting.

Myth #6: Prospecting is a numbers game.

This myth could have substance if you are working with unqualified leads. However, if you have quality leads, you will move many more of them along the pipeline. The lesson here is that qualifying leads ensures your spending time on the right prospects.

Myth #7: The Gatekeeper is the Enemy

Sure, the gatekeeper sometimes blocks your way. However, he or she is also your only potential ally when prospecting. Not only will the gatekeeper give you access, but they also help you position yourself for success. you must get the gatekeeper on your side.

8-Step B2B Prospecting System

In many ways, the sales process is a race against the clock. A salesperson’s time is what they have to spend to get the numbers they need by the end of the month, quarter, or year. ‘50% of sales time is wasted on unproductive prospecting.”

To maximize your time, here is our 8-Step B2B Prospecting System:

Research: It is vital to know as much as possible as you can about the prospect.

Qualify: In this step, you want to know if the prospect is ready, willing and able to purchase.

Prioritize: Based on your qualifying step, you should divide prospects into high, medium, and low priority segments within your lead management system.

Prep Outreach: When you qualify, you will have identified some of your prospect’s top pain points. Match these up with the prospect to enable personalization and foster engagement from the first contact.

First Touch: It is time to make contact. The goal is to build rapport.

Follow-up: This step can be under appreciated for its significance. However, when you do what you say you will do in the first touch, you begin to build trust with your prospect, an essential ingredient to getting the close and developing a relationship.

Track: Keeping records of what works and what doesn’t helps you streamline your process and focus efforts on actions that yield results.

Learn: When reviewing your results, Sales Hacker says you should ask yourself the following five questions:

1. What led to the prospect saying no?
2. What features got the prospect to go with the competition?
3. Which part of your process has areas of opportunities?
4. Is there potential for a relationship later with this prospect?
5. Did they have a referral for you?

Document to Scale: Once you have identified a system that works, document it and systemize it for future prospecting efforts.

8 B2B Prospecting Methods to Fill Your Pipeline

Let’s explore the different ways you can prospect and engage B2B leads.

1. Door-to-Door

Also called canvassing, this method involves walking in and introducing yourself in person. Many times, door-to-door canvassing takes place in a geographic area or an office park. It can be useful because of the personal connection a face-to-face meeting can inspire.

For more information, check out this comprehensive door-to-door sales guide.

2. Cold Calling

Cold calling is when you call a person you have not met to determine if they have any interest or need in your product or service. It is effective because you have direct contact with the prospect and can get immediate feedback. Plus, it can help create a personal connection.

3. Social Selling

Social selling uses social media to connect with potential customers. It can mean prospecting with connections on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or making videos on YouTube, to name a few.

4. Cold Emailing

Like cold calling, cold-emailing is when you email a person you do not have a relationship with to determine if they are a suitable prospect for you. With specific targeting and a particular message, you send emails to potential prospects to see if they respond. It is efficient and often bypasses gatekeepers. In addition, cold emailing gives the recipient an opportunity to you in their own time.

5. Warm Emailing

When the recipient has interacted with your company in some way, they are considered a warm lead. An example of a warm email is a follow up from a web inquiry or after an in-person interaction at a trade-show or conference. Response rates are higher because the prospect has met you in person and has already shown interest in your company’s products and services.

6. Conferences or Events

Meeting people at industry events is an excellent way to find new opportunities for your sales funnel. The secret to this method is to socialize and network with people. Events are most useful for B2B prospecting when the attendees of the conference also match the target customer profile for your organization, e.g., the meeting is for dentists who want additional training for running their private practice, and you have a practice management software platform for dentists.

7. Direct Mail

A physical message that you send to prospects is one of the three preferred methods of contact. From letters in an envelope to postcards and self-mailers, using the USPS can provide an excellent channel for your B2B prospecting strategy. Unlike cluttered online channels, direct mail stands out and catches the prospect’s eye, which can lead to a warmer first contact.

8. Referrals

A referral is a lead received from someone you know or have called upon. An excellent referral source is your current customer base. Ask customers whether they have any associates that would be interested in your product or services.

8 Tools to Accelerate Your Prospecting Game

SPOTIO’s Sales Prospecting Suite

Spotio’s Sales Prospecting Software helps you identify which prospects have the best chances of closing so you can spend the most time working the best opportunities.

How to use it: Three programs – Lead Targeting, Lead Management, and Calendar Integration – will help you target your best prospects, automate administrative tasks, and quickly schedule appointments through the CRM.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn Sales Navigator makes social selling easy with sales tools that focus on helping you find the right prospects to build trusted relationships. Scale your social selling and start putting your sales’ team network to work.

How to use it: The search features help you find the contact you need at the companies that are most relevant to your interest. The lead recommendation feature will give you suggestions for companies to pursue. The Customer Relationship Management (CRM feature) automatically saves your activity. The reporting features help you manage your sales funnel.

SellHack

Sellhack is designed to find prospects, build lists for leads, confirm correct email address and work with Salesforce CRM.

How to use it: You build your list and then use their email verification software to send cold emails and follow-ups automatically. There is also a drip-marketing feature that stays in contact with potential prospects over time.

Hunter.io

Hunter.io is an email finder that helps find any email address for a potential customer.

How to use it: You enter the name and company of the contact’s email you are hoping to find, and it will tell you. The tool can also find email addresses in bulk.

Datanyze

Datanyze calls themselves the leader in technographics, which identifies and segments potential customers into market segments based on demographics, psychographics, and lifestyles for that group.

How to use it: Basically, it will alert you if any of your potential target customers are preparing to make a technology-based purchase by monitoring activity on mobile and web.

Nerdy Data

NerdyData.com give you lists of your competitor’s clients by searching 65 million websites for a software or a source code.

How to use it: Use the results to give your team a list of target accounts, to advertise through platforms with a specific message against your competitor, ascertain market share for you and your competitors, and find websites that are using software when they should not be.

Salesforce CRM

Salesforce describes itself as an all-in-one sales and service solution.

How to use it: Salesforce is at its heart a CRM that records all the data about interactions with your customers and can provide a snapshot of what’s going on in your business.

SPOTIO Territory Management

Spotio’s Territory Management enhances communication between sales managers and sales reps

How to use it: You can create a strategic territory centered around your target market, whether by zip code or by a neighborhood to maximize selling time and optimize potential for success.

3 Metrics to Measure Prospecting Performance

Analyzing performance is critical.You need to know what’s working, and, perhaps more importantly, what isn’t. Here are three crucial metrics you should measure on a periodic basis.

Prospects. How many are you getting and how long does it take? You need these numbers as the baseline for the next two areas, and also to ensure that you are getting enough opportunities fast enough to get a response and fill that sales funnel.

Response Rate. How many of your contacts result in action from the prospect? You determine your response rate by dividing the number of people who answer by the total number of people you sent a query. When you have a response rate, you can see which tactics get the best response and if you need to widen the nets to get enough to fill the pipeline.

Prospect-to-SQL Ratio. How many of your prospects become sales-qualified leads (SQL)? Like a response rate, you divide the number of SQL you get by the total number of prospects you had. If you find that you have a low SQL ratio, you will likely need to change your prospecting parameters to optimize your time.

The better the prospecting, the fuller pipeline. B2B prospecting is challenging and it is essential to success.

The fact is that when it comes to how to prospect for sales, you have many channels and tools at your disposal. B2B sales prospects have ways they like to be contacted, namely email, direct mail, and phone calls. However, social selling and content marketing are highly effective as well.

The B2B prospecting tools we shared today can help streamline your time and maximize your results, like email finders or territory management systems that show you where to prospect. Combined with our 8-step system, you can improve your prospecting ratios and keep the pipeline full.

______

Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.

Spotio is the #1 field sales enablement platform designed specifically for outside sales managers and reps to squeeze every drop out of their field sales efforts.

Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.

____________

Sources:

Peterson, Aleks. “The Hottest B2B Prospecting Strategies for 2016.” Technologyadvice.com. 12 February 2016. Web. 17 December 2018. https://technologyadvice.com/blog/marketing/the-hottest-b2b-prospecting-strategies-for-2016/

Altschuler, Max. “8 Updated B2B Sales Prospecting Strategies to Think About Now Before You Start Another Quarter.” Saleshacker.com. 27 March 2018. Web. 17 December 2018. https://www.saleshacker.com/b2b-sales-prospecting/.

Davies, Cambria. “The Ultimate Guide to Sales Prospecting: Tips, Techniques, & Tools to Succeed.” Blog.hubspot.com 15 May 2018. Web. 17 December 2018. https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/prospecting

Elledge, Shawn. “Why B2B Sales Prospecting is So Damn Difficult—and How to Make it Easier.” Broadsuite.com. 31 July 2017. Web. 17 December 2018. < https://broadsuite.com/why-b2b-sales-prospecting-is-so-damn-difficult-and-how-to-make-it-easier/>.

Wizdo, Lori. “The Ways and Means of B2B Buyer Journey Maps: We’re Going Deep at Forrester’s B2B Forum.” Forrester.com. 21 August 2017. Web. 17 December 2018. < https://go.forrester.com/blogs/the-ways-and-means-of-b2b-buyer-journey-maps-were-going-deep-at-forresters-b2b-forum/>.

“Is 2017 the Year of Value Selling?” avitage.wittyparrot.com. Web. 17 December 2018. < https://avitage.wittyparrot.com/witlink/e18836b8-315d-489f-8dc6-962f2294a9c9/view>.

Levey, Steven. “Have You Adjusted to These Three Changes in The B2B Buying Process?” www.forbes.com. 22 May 2018. Web. 17 December 2018. < https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/05/22/have-you-adjusted-to-these-three-changes-in-the-b2b-buying-process/#2d1fecffc445>.

Mehring, Jessica. “What is the Modern B2B Buying Process?” Snapapp.com. 11 July 2017. Web. 17 December 2018. < https://www.snapapp.com/blog/modern-b2b-buying-process/>.

“Part of the sales process reps struggle with.” Research.hubspot.com. 7 February 2016. Web. 17 December 2018. < https://research.hubspot.com/charts/part-of-the-sales-process-reps-struggle-with>.

Stancu, Livia. “Sales Prospecting Myths Busted.” Blog.insidesales.com. 5 February 2018. Web. 18 December 2018. < https://blog.insidesales.com/prospecting/myths-about-sales-prospecting/>.

“5 Sales Prospecting Myths Debunked.” Pipedrive.com. Web. 18 December 2018. < https://www.pipedrive.com/en/blog/sales-prospecting-myths>.

March, Andrew. “10 Myths About Prospecting.” Naturaltraining.com. 19 March 2015. Web. 18 December 2018. < https://www.naturaltraining.com/about/natural-difference/?doing_wp_cron=1545170583.5641059875488281250000>.

Schultz, Mike. “The Top Prospecting Methods (According to Your Buyers).” www.salesforce.com. Web. 18 December 2018.

“Sales Prospecting: A Comprehensive Guide.” Blog.klenty.com. 15 October 2018. Web. 20 December 2018. https://blog.klenty.com/sales-prospecting/.

B2B Prospecting Guide

Download our B2B Prospecting Guide For What You Can't Afford Not To Know.

You will learn:

What is B2B prospecting?
B2B buyer journey
Top B2B prospecting challenges
Prospecting myths
8-step B2B prospecting system
Key prospecting tools
Prospecting KPIs

Fill Out This Form& Get Immediate Access!

Open-Ended Sales Questions: The Remarkable Importance of Qualifying Leads

Open ended questions are essential for sales success. They allow reps to get inside the head of your prospects and better understand their pain points.

The right open-ended questions help ensure that reps are building rapport, uncovering pain points, establishing need, and clearly articulating the value of their offering.

Below are 26 open-ended sales questions that will help you resonate with any potential buyer.

We’ll cover the difference between open and closed sales questions, talk about how to use them in your business, share examples, and highlight critical mistakes to avoid.

What Are Open-Ended Sales Questions?

Open-ended sales questions are part of consultative sales. Consultative sales is a style where the sales rep discovers problems and then helps the customer solve them with the sales rep’s products or services.

Open-ended sales questions are also called sales discovery questions because they are designed to get to know the prospect better. Core DNA says that open-ended questions begin a conversation with the prospect and are used both during the initial stages with a prospect as well as with the close.

Characteristics of Open-Ended Sales Questions:
They are conversational.

They usually involve Five W’s: Who, What, When, Where and Why; and also How (which some people call the Six Ws—even though How isn’t technically a W).

They don’t have a set pattern, meaning there is no formula or structure to them.

They usually require thought before someone answers.

They are subjective in nature rather than objective, meaning they are about personal feelings rather than facts and figures.

The Objective of Open-Ended Sales Questions:

Open-ended sales questions are designed to create a dialogue between the sales rep and the prospect. They are probing questions used to get a prospect to talk more about their business.

When used in a sales call, the questions enable the sales rep to learn more about the lead’s pain points and needs. The open nature means there isn’t a specific answer; they are designed to facilitate an exchange of ideas. They can also be used to build engagement and help create rapport between the rep and the prospect.

Open-Ended vs. Close-Ended Sales Questions

While open-ended questions seek more information from the source and are answered in the prospects own words, close-ended questions lead to specific answers, like a yes or no, or a multiple-choice option.

Richardson Sales Training distinguishes open-ended questions as those which allow the control of the conversation to flow between sales rep and prospect, while close-ended questions leave the control in the hands of the sales rep alone.

When Should Reps Ask Open-Ended Sales Questions?

Ideally, sales reps should ask as many open-ended sales questions as they can throughout the sales process. The more you learn about a prospect, the more consultative you can be to help them with their goals.

However, the obvious time to ask open-ended questions is in the qualifying stage with a prospect. Sales training organization The Brooks Group says, it gives you the opportunity to learn everything you possibly can about the prospect’s needs and wants. Through asking sales discovery questions, the sales rep can find how their product or service can help the prospect.

26 Examples of Open-Ended Sales Questions (By Category)

Different sales discovery questions are appropriate for different situations. Preparing ahead of time can be useful to help you cover all the areas you want to in the qualifying stages.

Remember, as Sam Parker, sales trainer and author of Just Sell.com says, you are asking the prospect to answer the question. You want to hear what they have to say, meaning no leading, no prompting, and no interrupting.

Qualifying Questions

When you first get a lead, you need to clarify where they are in the buying process. These questions can determine the interest level of your potential customers as well as what they think of the process so far. They can help you manage your sales funnel by letting you know what you need to do next—or whether you should move on for now.

Examples:

1. When do you need to get this issue resolved?
2. What’s your budget?
3. How are you currently solving this problem?
4. Who else needs to be involved in this purchase decision?

Needs-Based or Pain-Based Questions

When you want to discover the prospect’s wants or challenges with their current situation, try Needs-Based Questions, aka Pain-Based Questions. When you are preparing these, be cognizant of what needs your product or service typically serves. In other words, don’t ask about areas that your product or service does not address. Each of the following questions seeks to discover more about what is and isn’t working with the current system the prospect employs.

Examples:

5. When do these issues arise?
6. What is this problem costing you?
7. What would you change about your current solution?
8. Have you given up trying to fix the problem?

Impact or Benefit-Driven Questions

When you want to know how to close a customer, try Impact or Benefit-Driven Questions. Benefit-driven questions help you discover which features are the most vital to your prospect, so you can get right to what interests them most about your product or service. To prepare, review the features and benefits of your product or service so you can ask appropriate questions of potential customers.

Examples:

9. How important would you say solving this problem is to you?
10. What happens if you don’t fix it?
11. What would it mean to your business if you could rely on a trustworthy supplier?

New Future or New Reality Questions

These questions are constructed to help you show the potential customer arriving at their goal and how your product or service gets them to that point.

Examples:

12. How do you think changing this area could improve your day-to-day work?
13. What would you want to achieve in the next year by making this change?
14. If time and money were no object and you had full authority to do whatever you want, what would you change about your current system?

Objection-Based Questions

When you are faced with an objection to your product or service, respond with an Objection-Based Question. These questions are designed to uncover potential objections before they come up in the sales process.

Examples:

15. The common objection is, “I need to discuss this with my supervisor,” so the question could be: Who else is involved in making these types of decisions?
16. The common objection is, “I can’t afford this right now,” so the question could be: What budget do you have allocated for something like this?
17. The common objection is, “I am not interested in your product or service right now,” so the question could be: When are you intersted in learning how I can save you X% with this product/service?

Buyer History Questions

Use Buyer-History Questions to understand the potential customer’s past experiences or purchasing habits. These questions seek to determine their past experiences, and discover how often the prospect or organization makes these types of decisions.

Also, you can discover the state of their relationship with their current provider, which can have significant implications for your sales process.

Examples:

18. What has your past purchase experience been with [insert product/service]?
19. When was the last time you evaluated something like this?
20. Why or why not would you say you were satisfied with your past experiences with this vendor?
21. How would you describe the level of service with your current provider?

Rapport Building Questions

When you are working to establish a personal connection or build a relationship with the potential customer, you can use Rapport Building Questions. As Xactly.com explains, rapport-building requires you to get under the surface of the interaction and get to know the prospect. Without this relationship and information, you cannot consult the account. You have to know what they want and need so you can create a solution with your product or service.

Examples:

22. What can we do to earn your business?
23. What motivated you to take this call with me?
24. Which other vendors are you evaluating?
25. What concerns do you have about making changes?
26. What have I not covered that you would like to know more about?

5 Tips to Perfect Your Open-Ended Sales Questions Technique

Once you have prepared your sales discovery questions for the different areas of the sales call, you must consider how to ask open-ended questions. From what order you ask the questions to how you transition from one area to another, your technique should flow naturally while allowing for unstructured conversation with the potential customer.

The Sandler Pain Funnel is an excellent example of how to ask open-ended questions. Sales reps that have trained in the Sandler method use a series of needs-based questions to uncover the prospects pain.

Similar to a traditional funnel, the pain questions start broad; i.e., “What are some things you would like to change about your current system/provider/product line?;” and then move to more specific questions, i.e., “Can you give me an example?”

The best open-ended sales questions techniques progress to uncover the underlying reason a prospect is experiencing pain in their business.

Here are a few tips for perfecting your open-ended sales questions technique:

Invert the pyramid. A pyramid shape starts broad at the bottom and builds up to a point. In open-ended questions, it’s a good idea to invert the pyramid, so the broad part comes first, and you work your way down to a point (much like the Sandler Pain Funnel example above).

HubSpot suggests asking a broad, non-threatening question to start, e.g., What should I know about your business? Then, look for areas that you should explore in greater detail from their response, eventually drilling down to specific questions that will reveal any areas of opportunity for you.

Exude curiosity. A vital component of this open-ended questioning process is showing a sincere interest. As Core DNA says, “Good salespeople tend to be good listeners, and good listeners almost always tend to be curious.” Perhaps more importantly, you are asking about something that is often very near and dear to the prospect (their business or career) and sharing an interest in it will help form a bond between you.

Keep it personal. Preparation is vital for a sales call. However, too-prepared can be dangerous. It is crucial to keep the exchange personal if you want to build rapport or gain the trust of the prospect. Giving them a script does not elicit the emotional engagement that open-ended questions seek to facilitate.

Get comfortable with “dead air.” You learn more from listening than talking. In the qualifying or beginning stages of the sales cycle, keeping your mouth shut can help you get the information you need. As Leadership Guru Michael Hyatt says, “you will often find that people volunteer amazing amounts of information that you would have never obtained any other way.”

“What” is your friend. When in doubt how to ask a question, remember that the word “what” is your friend. Most questions that begin with what encourage the answerer to elaborate. As Arden Coaching puts it, “questions that start with ‘what’ will be open-ended.”

5 Critical Mistakes Reps Make When Asking Open-Ended Sales Questions:

1. Answering your own questions. It can feel natural to nudge a prospect with a suggested answer that you heard from a similar prospect in the past. However, when the prospect hears your suggestion, it could change what they were going to share. Since you want to listen to what the prospect has to say, ask the question and practice zipping you lip right afterward.

2. Forgetting to listen to the client. Similar to answering your own questions, forgetting to listen to the potential customer defeats the purpose of asking open-ended questions.

3. Interrogating clients. Rapid fire questions that dig a little deeper than a person wants feel more like a cross-examination or an interrogation than a conversation, which is not going to help you build rapport.

Be sure that you follow up enough that you have a better understanding of what your lead was saying, but not so much follow up people wonder if they should have a lawyer present.

4. Asking too many “why” questions. Why is one of the Five Ws, however it is tricky. Sometimes when you ask why, you sound accusatory. As Arden Coaching points out, “Why did you do that?” is more pointed than “What did you use as the basis for your actions?” You can ask why, of course, but be careful how many times and the tone of the query when you do.

5. Jumping straight to a solution. Remember, this part of the sales process is about learning more about the prospect, not pitching your product or services. If you hear a problem that your product or service can help with, resist the temptation to share that information at the moment. Good sales come to those who wait.

Ready. Set. Question.

Open-ended questions for sales are the tools you need to harvest qualified opportunities.

Open-ended sales questions differ from other types of queries. Probing questions for sales give you the opportunity to listen to your potential customer and take a consultative approach to your sales relationship with them.

The best open-ended sales questions help you identify areas of opportunity in potential accounts. Sales discovery questions also reveal pain-points and needs that are not currently being met by the prospects provider. Perhaps most importantly, however, open-ended sales questions allow you to prioritize your prospects to optimize your sales funnel for efficiency and success.

______

Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.

Spotio is the #1 field sales enablement platform designed specifically for outside sales managers and reps to squeeze every drop out of their field sales efforts.

Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.

____________________________________

Sources:

Saltis, Sam. “87 Open-Ended Sales Questions Every Digital Agency Should Ask in Every Buying Cycle.” www.coredna.com. 6 November 2018. Web. 15 November 2018. < https://www.coredna.com/blogs/open-ended-sales-questions#>.

“Open-ended Questions Require and Answer Beyond “yes” or “no”!” richardson.com. Web. 16 November 2018. < https://www.richardson.com/sales-resources/open-ended-sales-questions/>.

Rose, Lisa. “Open-Ended Questions for Sales: How to Get Your Prospect Talking.” Brooksgroup.com. Web. 15 November 2018. < https://brooksgroup.com/sales-training-blog/open-ended-sales-questions-how-get-your-prospect-talking>

Parker, Sam. “Top 30 Open-Ended Questions.” www.justsell.com. Web. 16 November 2018. Web. < https://www.justsell.com/top-30-open-ended-questions/>

Schultz, Mike. “21 Powerful, Open-Ended Sales Questions.” www.rainsalestraining.com. Web. 16 November 2018. < https://www.rainsalestraining.com/blog/21-powerful-open-ended-sales-questions>.

Scott, Jordan. “24 Open-Ended Sales Questions Your Reps Should Be Asking.” Xactlycorp.com. Web. 26 February 2018. Web. 16 November 2018. < https://www.xactlycorp.com/blog/importance-open-ended-sales-questions/>.

Ledwein, Tim. “Sandler’s Pain Funnel: Getting Beneath the Surface.” I10.sandler.com. 24 February 2016. Web. 16 November 2018. < https://www.i10.sandler.com/blog/pain>.

Alessandra, Tony. “15 Tips For Asking More Effective Sales Questions.” Blog. Hubspot.com. Web. 16 November 2018. < https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/10-tips-ask-sales-questions-si>.

Hyatt, Michael. “7 Suggestions for Asking More Powerful Questions.” Michaelhyatt.com. Web. 16 November 2018. < https://michaelhyatt.com/asking-more-powerful-questions/>.

Perry, MA, PCC, Maren. “How (and Why) to ask open-ended questions.” Ardencoaching.com. Web. 16 November 2018. < https://ardencoaching.com/how-and-why-to-ask-open-ended-questions/>.

26 Most Valuable Open-Ended Sales Questions

Download the 26 Most Valuable Open-Ended Sales Questions

Don't wait, download now and start connecting with your top prospects.

Fill Out this Form & Get Immediate Access!

Your Guide on How to Allocate Territories to Avoid Canvassing Conflict

The landscape of canvassing is often far more complex than most people realize. The little intricacies of door knocking often lead to many conflicts that arise whether they’re realized by sales teams or not. If you think everything is running great, good for you! Maybe they are, and we’re not trying to tell you things are bad. But how much do you really know about what’s under the hood?

Think about the process of taking your car or truck into an auto shop. You bring it in to get one minor thing done and what happens…? The serviceman tells you they’re going to do a complete 150-point inspection. If you’re anything like me, the first thought through your head is, “yeah, go ahead and tell me how many things on my vehicle need to be serviced because I know you’re going to try and charge me an arm and a leg, but I’m not buying what you’re selling.”

Aside from the blatant distrust I have toward this oh-so-lovely inspection, I know there’s likely to be other issues with my vehicle that need to be fixed. After the initial feelings of anger feeling like I’m getting ripped off, I start to look at the report and think logically. Sure, some of the issues with my car are minor and not an immediate concern, but the others need to be fixed now, not later.

If you’re picking up what I’m putting down you’ll get this: Your sales process may seem to be running smooth right now and your sales reps may be doing pretty well, but if you don’t correct the canvassing conflicts (minor or major), they’re going to lead to a larger problem down the road. Whether it’s getting a flat tire and needing to replace a member of your sales team or it’s replacing the engine where you need to completely revamp your sales process, you’re going to experience problems by not recognizing or addressing the issues that exist.

The most common types of canvassing conflicts that door to door sales organizations experience:

| How to allocate equal opportunity for each sales rep
| Sales reps poaching their coworkers territories
| How to effectively design sales territories
| How to select the best method of designing sales territories
| How sales reps should handle referrals they receive that are outside their territory
| How to hold sales reps accountable

Designing Sales Territories

One of the most prevalent canvassing conflicts that exists in the door to door sales industry is how managers create and assign territories for their foot soldiers. Well-designed sales territories can actually boost sales rep productivity by 10 – 20%. Establishing an effective and efficient sales territory design process can be extremely time consuming, especially in the beginning, but it’s imperative that you invest the time up front.

The time you initially put it in will pay large dividends moving forward, not only as it relates to how much quicker the process will be, but your sanity as well. There’s countless strategies that door to door sales companies utilize to design sales territories. Without the initial strategizing and design process, you’ll miss out on numerous quality prospects and pull your hair out trying to ensure you covered the right areas.

One reason sales territories create a canvassing conflict is because they’re not updated. Sales territories that are not adjusted periodically can lead to situations where growth in your territories is constrained by as much as 20 – 30%. Limited growth means less potential for canvassers. Less potential means less commission. Less commission equals more frustration and more problems.

Other conflicts that arise as a result of ineffective sales territory design:

| Sales reps targeting the wrong prospects
| Hiring and retention problems in select territories
| Negativity influencing your sales culture
| Neighborhood not being completely saturated

5 Critical Components for High-Performing Sales Territory Design

#1 | Revenue Source

To avoid canvassing conflicts and design sales territories that will produce results, you need to start by breaking down where your revenue comes from, where your current customers are located, and the revenue generated by lead source: inbound vs outbound.

It’s easier to get a new customer in an area where you already have existing customer. Determining where your best and most loyal customers are located geographically is an exceptional strategy to use when designing territories for this reason. Historical sales data will become your new best friend and is the best predictor of future success.

Inbound leads are a cheap lead source with a high conversion rate. The only leads that are cheaper with a higher conversion rate are referrals. Focus on the demographics like geography, industry and size before building a strategy to divide them up as evenly as possible across your sales team. Focus on the amount of revenue generated vs the number of leads generated.

#2 | Rank Talent

Sales is an extremely competitive environment and your canvassers know that. Evaluate your team using metrics to find out how they stack up against each other and identify your top, middle and low level performers.

| What’s their quota?
| Do they consistently achieve their targets?
| How many current customers and prospects are in their funnel?
| How many viable prospects are located in their territory?
| After ranking each member of your sales team, match the most fruitful territories with the highest performing sales reps.

#3 | Goals

Accountability produces results. Establish SMART goals to outline what you want to accomplish as a company.

Profitability (Least Risky): If your goal is increase your profit margins or reach profitability, determine which territories you’ve had the most success in and double down on what’s already working. You should also analyze what made these sales territories successful and identify similar territories for your team to work.

High-Growth: If your focus is to simply drive revenue, focus your attention on identifying the characteristics of territories that have performed well. After identifying those, create all new territories around these characteristics. Territories that haven’t been worked mean prospects haven’t heard from you. You’ll be able to generate some quick wins. This is a long-term play that will generate growth over time.

Prospecting / New Markets: To establish yourself in a new market segment or determine if it’s viable territory worth spending the time in, send a canvasser into an area to accomplish a specific task. For example, send your top 3 canvassers into an area you’re interested in working to knock 200 doors and see how many appointments they’re able to set. Is this higher or lower than their average, and the team average? This will help determine exactly what’s needed to succeed in that market.

#4 | Measure Performance

“What gets tracked gets measured.” Tracking performance against your main KPI’s for each territory is extremely valuable because it will provide key insights into how each canvasser is performing. You’ll have the ability to recognize trends and determine efficiencies and inefficiencies within the sales department.

These metrics will help you to design higher quality sales territories and reduce canvassing conflicts to set each member of your team up for success. To accomplish this, I’d highly recommend implementing a sales enablement tool like SPOTIO to help you measure and see:

| Team performance in relation to your sales funnel
| Data from custom statuses and fields based on KPIs
| Graphs representing team performance, best time and day to knock, etc.
| The number of attempts it takes to establish contacts, get leads and make sales

#5 | Include Salespeople

Involving your sales reps is an important step in this process. Your team may surprise you with ideas you likely wouldn’t come up with on your own. It may take a little longer to develop the plan, but they’ll have a greater sense of importance by being included, which will eliminate most of the typical frustrations associated with change.

Allocating Equal Pipeline ($) Opportunity

The number of leads each salesperson has to work is always a huge area of canvassing conflict. While the number of leads plays a considerable role in allocating leads equally, the more important metric that should be the determining factor for deciding whether opportunities are getting distributed evenly is opportunity value – the amount of revenue a lead would generate if it converted to a customer.

Assigning opportunities evenly can mean many things based on your sales process. For example, it could literally mean that each sales rep is assigned an equal amount of opportunity value ($), but if you distribute opportunities based on performance then you need to establish which tier each salesperson is in before ensuring each rep has equal opportunities.

You could always distribute leads using a round robin approach. This is one of those timeless sales concepts where sales reps essentially “get what they get.” Of course, if you’ve already assigned territories you should be distributing leads based on geographic location. Another option you have is by product or market segmentation.

In order to prevent canvassing conflicts from arising, even distribution is going to require a certain amount of tracking and monitoring. Conduct a pipeline review once every 30 days, at least, calculate the average opportunity value, and determine the number of opportunities each sales rep has to work.

A sales rep may have an equal amount of opportunity value but only have large leads to work, meaning there’s less for that person to do. Another rep may also have an equal amount of value but have too many leads to keep up with. Track the touch points being put on each lead. If leads are starting to slip through the cracks, reassign the leads not being worked to sales reps with the ability to dedicate the proper amount of time to each prospect.

Working Referrals

When a salesperson is assigned a territory they tend to take complete ownership over it as if they personally own it. They throw fits when their coworkers knock doors in their territory whether it was on purpose or not. If someone enters those imaginary lines and says anything other than hello they’re considered fighting words.

This is major source of canvassing conflict among door to door sales organizations. So what happens if a member of your sales team actually does their job and gets a referral after closing a deal, but it happens to be in someone else’s territory?

Very simply put, they should 100% be allowed to work that lead regardless of where it’s located, assuming they want to work it of course. If they don’t want it, distribute that lead to the sales rep who owns the territory where the lead is located. In order to prevent canvassing conflict, referrals need to be proven.

The first thing that should happen when a salesperson gets a referral is for them to put that information into your door to door sales tracking software. In SPOTIO, you can create custom fields for each piece of information they’re required to collect and enter, like the referral’s name, phone number and email. Once this information is entered and saved it will be dated and time-stamped for proof if needed later.

Because referrals are the highest converting and cheapest lead source, they should be valued and prioritized. One strategy is to implement a lead play clock. This means the sales rep who got the referral has “x” number of days to work and convert this lead before it gets turned over to the owner of the territory.

You should also require them to make first contact within a certain number of days due to how valuable these leads are. If they don’t put their first touch point within that time period, the lead will get turned over to the sales rep who is working that territory. When you conduct pipeline reviews, require salespeople to list all of the referrals they’ve received so you can ensure they’re being worked properly.

Clearly defining the rules pertaining to when certain leads can be worked regardless of location or territory will help reduce the amount of canvassing conflicts that arise and continue to promote positivity through structure.

Holding Sales Reps Accountable

Many salespeople tend to resent company rules and procedures until canvassing conflicts arise and one of their coworkers does something they don’t agree with that ticks them off. This most commonly occurs when a sales rep works a lead that is outside of their territory or wants to work a lead that another sales rep isn’t working properly.

To prevent these sources of contention, each member of your team should be held accountable regardless of performance or any other factor to ensure fairness.

The Golden Rule: If it isn’t in your CRM – it didn’t happen.

What the Golden Rule is really saying is that everything should be logged and tracked in the CRM you’re using, like SPOTIO. To prevent additional canvassing conflict, sales reps should log all of their attempts, notes, contacts, referrals, emails, and any other sales activities they complete as soon as they happen. If they enter all of this information as it happens, you’ll always have a date and timestamp for that activity. If you ever need to reference it, you’ll have that ability.

Sales Rep Tracking Tools

To promote honesty and accountability, SPOTIO has two features that will change the way you handle and manage any issues that may arise.

Verified Locations: When sales reps knock a door outside of their territory, you’ll easily be able to see it on the map. Where verified locations truly comes to the rescue is when salespeople say they’re doing one thing when they’re really doing another. Anytime a sales rep on your team logs an activity on a pin in SPOTIO, we’ll tell you whether it’s verified or not – meaning the sales rep was within 300 feet of that home when they entered the activity, or they weren’t.

This is especially beneficial when a sales rep says they’ve been working leads that they haven’t. They won’t be able to quickly go back and enter fake attempts or information without it being noticed because the location won’t be verified, and the dates and timestamps will be within minutes of each other.

Track My Team: Ever want to know exactly each member of your sales team is at without having to drive to each person to check in on them? Enter the Track My Team tool. With the click of a button, SPOTIO will show you the geographic location for all of your sales reps on one map. This can actually help you prevent canvassing conflicts from arising. See a rep that’s in a territory they shouldn’t be? No problem! Send them a message without ever leaving the app asking them why they’re in that territory.

Conclusion

Canvassing conflicts can destroy the attitudes of sales reps. They can cause a lot of unneeded tension and stress that could have been avoided with proper processes and procedures. Sales territories and equal opportunities are always at the top of the list of frustrations among door to door companies. Like a car, your sales team may be running smooth now, but issues that are not properly addressed will likely break you down sooner rather than later.

—-

Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.

Spotio is the #1 field sales enablement platform designed specifically for outside sales managers and reps to squeeze every drop out of their field sales efforts.

Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.

Door to Door Lead Generation – The Complete Guide

This eBook shows you how to maximize ROI and get the most from your D2D sales teams.

You will learn:

How to Find Your Best Lead Source
Recruiting and Building Your Team
How to Handle Leads
and much MORE...

Fill out this form to download your free eBook:

6 Strategies for Getting Past the Toughest Gatekeepers (with Scripts)

Follow these 6 steps to get past the toughest gatekeepers:

Sales men and women are great with people. It’s just part of the job. But there’s one person that all salespeople fear. A person they dread interacting with. A person who can drain their motivation and slow momentum. A person they fear like the monster under the bed. This person is known as the gatekeeper.

Joking and drama aside, getting past the gatekeeper is among the most common challenges salespeople face. The ability to get past this potential roadblock is a critical skill for earning time with new prospects, yet many salespeople lack a strategic approach to engage gatekeepers. With the right plan, tools, tenacity, salespeople can get past the gatekeeper, or even better, get this person on their side to improve their odds for success.

In this post, we’ll discuss the role of the gatekeeper and provide proven tactics and scripts you can use to get past them and set more appointments.

What is a Gatekeeper in Business?

When you think of a gatekeeper in the literal sense, you might envision a security checkpoint – a person hired as muscle to keep unwanted traffic from reaching something or someone precious. A gatekeeper in sales is practically the same – It’s a person whose job it is to protect a decision maker’s time, energy, and priorities.

Gatekeepers and salespeople don’t usually mesh well. On one hand, a salesperson is looking to score meaningful time with a decision maker. Meanwhile, the gatekeeper is there to buffer uninvited distractions.

The gatekeeper role is often played by a company’s receptionist or a decision maker’s administrative assistant. In other businesses like a restaurant, it may be the waitstaff or a hostess, protecting management from day-to-day inquiries while allowing them to focus on meeting company objectives.

Since decision makers are often responsible for managing important company priorities, gatekeepers are put in place to help them maintain their focus. They do this by screening calls and turning away those that they think are not important. While often glossed over, gatekeepers are often some of the most intelligent, intuitive, and needed members of an organization.

6 Steps to Get Past the Toughest Gatekeepers (Scripts Included)

Getting past the gatekeeper is an art. Depending on the customer’s industry, internal politics, current situation, and time of year, your success with different strategies will vary. In this section, we introduce 6 strategies and scripts to get you started right away.

1. Lead with respect and integrity

When dealing with a gatekeeper, keep in mind that the person is playing an important and valued role in the organization.

By treating this person with respect, you show that you recognize their value and are committed to working with them, not around or above them. Little touches such as learning and using their name, and openly valuing their perspective and opinion go a long way.

Script:

Hello, <NAME>.

My name is <your name> and I’m calling on behalf of <company name>. I’m interested in speaking with your team about an offering, but I’m not completely sure that it’s a good fit for your team. Can I please steal 10 minutes of your time to get your opinion? I know your time is valuable, so I promise I won’t use more than 10 minutes.

Thank you.

By showing right away that you value the gatekeeper’s opinion, you remind them that they’re not simply a gatekeeper, but a valued member of the organization.

The key to this strategy is not just saying you value their time and opinion, but actually following through and honoring that throughout your engagement.

If you say you’ll only use 10 minutes of their time, set a timer and stick to ten minutes. If you say that you truly value their opinion, ensure that you spend more time listening than talking and incorporate their thoughts into your next steps.

If you’re able to get them on board with what you are offering, you may even turn a gatekeeper into an advocate within the prospect’s organization.

2. Add a personal touch

Another way to build credibility with a gatekeeper is to show your genuine interest in them as a person. When you have a chance to meet with a gatekeeper, take notes in your CRM, your phone, or even a pen and paper about their personal interests. Take genuine interest in these things and consistently remind them in your conversations that you’re interested in them as a person.

To take it a step further, look for ways that you can make their lives easier, either through your company’s offerings or otherwise. Sometimes the best way to do this is to simply ask, ”Is there anything I can do to make your life easier?”

Script:

Hi, <Name>.

I thought of you the other day when I passed by the tennis courts. How did you do at your last match? I remember you were concerned about your knee.

“Have you heard of <xyz product for your knee>. A friend of mine recently had the same challenges, and she swears by the results.

It’s important not to let the small talk detract from what you’re there to do – You’re there to sell. Your goal is to simply demonstrate that you value the gatekeeper as a person and respect their position of authority. Be mindful that you’re the one asking for a favor; you need them more than they need you.

3. Use basic manners – Please and thank you

This is perhaps the simplest and most overlooked strategy. When speaking with a gatekeeper, manners should be used in every sentence.

Examples:

| I’m not sure who the right person is for my call. Can you please help me figure this out?

| I know <decision maker> has been extremely busy lately, can you please help me find a time on his or her calendar that won’t interrupt his or her <specific goals or activities>

| Thank you so much for taking my call. I am looking for the person who handles <specific function>. Can you please help direct me?

It shouldn’t be a surprise since people love to be treated with respect. Using manners goes a long way in building rapport with gatekeepers. Just as well, it reminds gatekeepers that they are important and helpful. It’s human nature to appreciate being reminded of these things.

4. Show you’re listening

Nobody likes spending time with someone who doesn’t listen and show empathy. This is no different for gatekeepers. When dealing with a gatekeeper, it’s important you listen – both for literal information and subtle hints that help you understand how your strategy is landing.

“Asking someone a question and truly listening to the response, rather than beginning to formulate a response while the other person is speaking, is so important.” In fact, small business owners may have a distinct advantage in connecting with customers because they are in touch with them so often. “The smaller the size of your business, the more encounters you’ll have and the more opportunities you’ll have to listen to your customers,”

– Matt Eventoff, owner of Princeton Public Speaking

You can demonstrate that you’re listening and responding to their needs and concerns by repeating back important details, going off script and asking specific questions related to what the gatekeeper has shared with you, and finally, by summarizing anything the gatekeeper shares with you at the end of the call. You may also clarify anything unspoken that you pick up on; sometimes calling out the elephant in the room is a way to show that you’re in tune with reality.

Script:

Gatekeeper: <Mr. or Mrs. Decision Maker> is in meetings all day. Can I take a message?

You: I realize <Mr. or Mrs. Decision Maker> is incredibly busy with meetings. Is it possible to get time on <his or her> calendar on a day when <he or she> is a little less booked?

Gatekeeper: <Mr. or Mrs. Decision Maker> is in high demand. If you leave a message, I’ll make sure <he or she> gets it.

You: Okay, thank you. I realize it’s your role to make sure <he or she> is focused on the most important things. I value that. Can you please let <Mr. or Mrs. Decision Maker> know that <your name> from <your company> called about <specific topic related to Mr. or Mrs. Decision Maker’s known business challenges>. In the meantime, if you can think of a better way for me to get him this information, I really appreciate your perspective.”

By showing that you are listening, you demonstrate that you’re not just there to sell, but instead you’re there to understand challenges and provide an actual solution.

5. Ditch the small talk

Another strategy at the opposite end of the spectrum is to ditch the small talk altogether – particularly if you are dealing with a busy and focused gatekeeper. By starting the conversation with confidence and demonstrating that the decision maker is either expecting or will appreciate your call, you may avoid triggering a defensive response.

Script:

You: “<Decision-maker’s name>, please. This is <your name>.”

Gatekeeper: “What is this regarding?”

You: I have some information for <him or her> about your <specific product, strategy or function>. I was going to send it via email but wanted to take a few minutes to explain some of the important points.

Thank you.

The key here is not to be dishonest, but to set a tone that your call is important and anticipated.

If the gatekeeper presses harder, be direct and firm.

If the gatekeeper asks if the decision maker is expecting your call, respond with “I do not have an appointment, but can you please tell <him or her> that <your name> is on the line?

If the gatekeeper asks if the decision maker will know what this is about, respond with, “No, not specifically, but can you tell <him or her> that I’m calling about your <topic>. I’m happy to hold. Thank you.”

6. Do your research

While some people take prospecting as a numbers game, your chance at getting past a gatekeeper will improve if you know and understand the prospect’s specific pain points. This is more important and easier than ever with the vast amount of information available online. Between specific company information and data, and personal data available through social networks, there’s little excuse for vague, untargeted calls.

Do your research and learn as much as you can about the decision maker and the gatekeeper before reaching out. You don’t want to come across creepy though, so instead of blatantly calling out your research, find ways to work what you learned into your conversations.

Did the decision maker mention exceeding sales goals as their top accomplishment on LinkedIn? This indicates that exceeding sales goals is something they value and find important.

In this case, you may want to lead the conversation by mentioning that your offering will help the gatekeeper and the decision maker knock their sales targets out of the park in the coming year.

Script:

Hello <Name of Gatekeeper>.

I realize that you and <Decision Maker> are immensely focused on making sure you exceed your sales goals. I was hoping for some time with <him or her> to review something that I think could help. Is this something you think <he or she> would be interested in?

Ready, Set, Close.

While getting past the gatekeeper is known to be one of the most challenging aspects of sales, it all starts with the basics.

Follow the 6 steps below and you’ll be setting more appointments in no time:

1. Lead with respect and integrity
2. Add a personal touch
3. Use basic manners
4. Show you’re listening
5. Ditch the small talk
6. Do your research