70% of Your Sales Reps Are Failing. Here's How to Fix That in 2023

70% of sellers will have missed quota in 2022. Doing the same motions in 2023 will yield even poorer results.

This episode will cover 5 actionable steps for better sales outcomes in 2023.

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Music Credit: Music Credit: Maarten Schellekens - Riviera

Improving Sales Outcomes in 2023

[00:00:00] Dr. Jim: welcome to today's episode of Cascading Leadership. I am your friendly neighborhood talent strategy nerd, Dr. Jim. In today's episode, we're gonna focus on five things that you can do differently in 2023 to generate better sales results. To give you some context, when you look at how 2022 is wrapping up, almost 70% of sellers will have missed quota.

[00:00:21] Dr. Jim: That is a big problem and it's gonna be likely that quota requirement is gonna go up in 2023. If you're a seller and you're thinking about, okay, I didn't hit my targets this year, what can I do differently in 2023, this quick conversation that we're gonna have is gonna give you a framework that you can use,

[00:00:40] Dr. Jim: so let's get to it. And dive right in. Step one is that you have to be willing to use every channel available. Don't just use phone or email in isolation. I think if you're single channeling you're outreach, you're gonna have a lot of problems in terms of getting a hold of the people that you [00:01:00] want to get in front of.

[00:01:01] Dr. Jim: And the reality of it is that single channel approaches are gonna be less and less effective because with the emergence. I, a lot of those traditional channels of outreach are gonna get flooded with bot generated content and outreach, which is just going to add to the noise that buyers are already dealing with.

[00:01:20] Dr. Jim: So what I would recommend is that if you are looking at how you want to be more effective from an outreach perspective, use a layered approach. Use all the different channels that are available to you. So obviously there's phone and email. You certainly want to use virtual networking events.

[00:01:36] Dr. Jim: You want to use private communities that exist on Slack or through newsletters. Definitely use LinkedIn and any number of other social platforms where your buyers are gonna be. Step two is you want to make sure that you're being focused in terms of your approach within your territory. Your territory strategy needs to be well thought out, and instead of just blindly reaching out to your [00:02:00] entire territory, you need to have some sort of idea on how you're gonna prioritize your outreach.

[00:02:05] Dr. Jim: One of the big things that a lot of folks recommend myself included, is that you want to focus in on a segment or a sector and build expertise within that segment and a sector

[00:02:17] Dr. Jim: so drive your outreach to a specific industry specific function. Become an expert in that space, and then leverage your existing customers that exist within those sectors to give you a, baseline level of knowledge where you can speak to a potential buyer with a level of expertise. The third thing

[00:02:34] Dr. Jim: when you're thinking about how can I be more effective in 2023? If you spent 2022 under the mindset that every piece of outreach that I do needs to result in a meeting, then a mindset shift is gonna serve you well heading into 2023. And here's what I mean. If you operated with, Hey, every touchpoint that I have with a customer, or most of the touchpoints that I have with a customer as a seller, needs to turn into a [00:03:00] meeting that's setting you up for failure.

[00:03:02] Dr. Jim: Instead, for 2023, you should be shifting your mindset with an education inspiration, value driven. Focus. And that actually creates an opportunity for you to have more constructive conversations and operate from a p place of curiosity versus a place of of need. So when you're doing your outreach obviously depending on where that prospect is in, in your funnel, you're certainly gonna need to include some elements that focus on converting to a meeting.

[00:03:32] Dr. Jim: But if they've never interacted with you, it's highly presumptuous to think that they're gonna mo want to meet with you and they don't know who you are. Don't know what value add, don't know anything about your company, and that's not an invitation for you to say all those things. It's your invitation to add value and demonstrate and earn a space on that calendar.

[00:03:51] Dr. Jim: The fourth thing that you can do is don't be an island. And what I mean by this is that oftentimes sellers, and especially in today's environment where we're largely [00:04:00] remote we're isolated from everybody else. So you should be in constant communication through.

[00:04:07] Dr. Jim: Constant communication with your team, but also make sure that you're communicating with your partnership team, with your marketing team, and hearing what and getting an understanding of what they're seeing in the marketplace, because that's gonna inform your outreach as well. Leverage your internal stakeholders and your internal team members.

[00:04:26] Dr. Jim: You might even want to deputize your VP or c chief sales officer or revenue officer. As part of your strategy in advancing deals through the funnel, don't think that you have to do everything by yourself. And in fact, if you leverage across the entire enterprise, you're actually gonna be a lot more effective in terms of your sales outcomes.

[00:04:49] Dr. Jim: So again when you're thinking about how should I tackle my territory, you wanna make sure that you are operating from a position where you're leveraging all of your [00:05:00] resources available. The, fifth thing that I would recommend is getting out, and this is another mindset element is getting out of the mindset that there's some extra glory in converting the coldest leads into wins. What you should be thinking about is you don't get bonus points. If you take a cold car prospect and turn 'em into a win. You get bonus points based on how many wins you get. So look for paths of lease resistance that you can get some quick early wins.

[00:05:33] Dr. Jim: Fill your funnel. So you should prioritize your funnel in a way or structure your funnel in a way where you have different buckets of opportunities that you're working. Some of those opportunities are gonna be those cold contacts. Others are gonna be warmer through various channels that you might have, and you want to use that as part of a holistic strategy when it comes to.

[00:05:56] Dr. Jim: Funnel management. So when you're thinking about the, [00:06:00] answering the question, how do I generate warmer leads? Obviously a partnership channel is one way to go ahead and do it, but another way to do it is right on LinkedIn. Think about the problems that you solve as an organization or as a solution.

[00:06:13] Dr. Jim: Tap your network and say, Hey you. Our organization solves X, Y, and Z. Do you know anybody that is looking for these sort of solutions? And if so or is dealing with these sort of problems? And if so, can you can you facilitate an intro? Leveraging your internal network to get introductions to other people in their network will oftentimes lead to higher conversion rates.

[00:06:35] Dr. Jim: And in fact, one of the highest converting types of sales are sale are, prospects that come to you via referral. So you should be in regular conversation with your existing customers in regular conversation with your network, and seeing who do they know that is dealing with the problems that you solve.

[00:06:54] Dr. Jim: And then ask for an intro, and that's gonna give you a higher conversion rate when it comes to [00:07:00] when it comes to close ratios. So recapping what we talked about. If you're thinking about if you're if you're finishing out 2022 in an environment where you weren't successful or you weren't as successful as you'd like, the things that you should be focusing on.

[00:07:16] Dr. Jim: Make sure you use a layered outreach approach. Next, you wanna make sure that you have a defined territory management plan.

[00:07:23] Dr. Jim: Third, you wanna make sure that you're having a mindset, shift, and that mindset shift should be oriented towards driving conversation versus driving meetings.

[00:07:33] Dr. Jim: Next, you wanna make sure that you're leveraging all of your internal channels and resources to be more effective. Use an all hands on deck approach across your internal enterprise and marshal those resources appropriately to move a deal along.

[00:07:48] Dr. Jim: Don't take the mindset that you have to take your entire territory and convert every cold lead into, a deal. Look at what's in your network. Look at your [00:08:00] existing customer bases and see where you can cultivate some referrals so if you're focusing in on those things as you. Your plan for 2023, you're gonna have a better chance at at different results. When you're looking at a sales environment where 70% of reps misquoted this year and, that's 2022 data.

[00:08:22] Dr. Jim: 2023 we're we're already in a recession and that recession is expected to continue. You can't rely on the same things that you were doing to get you different results in a new year in tougher economic conditions. So hopefully this conversation and framework helped in giving you some actionable items that you can use to.

[00:08:41] Dr. Jim: Shift the way that you're looking at your strategy for 2023 as a seller. Let me know what you think. If you have questions or if you have feedback, I'd be curious to hear it. With that being said, you can find cascading leadership. On all your favorite podcast platforms.

[00:08:56] Dr. Jim: We are on YouTube, we're on TikTok, we're on LinkedIn we're also on [00:09:00] Facebook. So anywhere that you see the Cascading leadership handle make sure you follow us and subscribe and leave us a review and tell us what what you think. Until next time, we will catch you again on another episode of Cascading Leadership.

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Improving Sales Outcomes in 2023

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