Know Less About The Product & You’ll Pass More Leads (I Swear It Works)
Posted by
Chris Lang on Thu, Sep 22, 2023 @ 04:02 PM
I talk to a lot of marketing/sales executives that have no idea why their inside team’s lead numbers are down. The call number is in between 80-90 per day, they are having conversations, they know the product inside and out and they are hungry for leads, so what could be the issue? I’ll then look at their conversation reports and possibly listen in on some calls and find out they have a lot of over educated inside reps. Sometimes this is facilitated by management and other times the inside rep shoots themselves in the foot.
The first is something I see in about 90% of the companies I talk to. You bring a rep on board and then proceed to train them for 2-3 months on product, but you never train them on how to run a methodical call process or how to get past the nasty admin that gets paid to be, well….a nasty admin. (sorry to any admins or family of admins…please don’t yell at me when I call) Inside sales rep training should focus on qualifying and not on selling product features. Learning the difference is key. Qualifying a prospect means building enough value to spark interest and then gathering information to ensure they are a fit for sales. You don’t need 2 months of product training to do this. You need to teach your reps the elevator pitch (based on value not features), top objections, key differentiators, industry terms and most importantly how to navigate through a company and get to the right person. Not knowing everything about the product can actually be used to your advantage. When conversations get technical in nature, have the inside reps leverage their lack of knowledge and use it as the transition point to sales. “That’s a great question, to be honest I’m not sure I have the answer for you, can I put you in touch with……”
But let’s not put this all on the company! There are a lot of times where despite their best of intentions, inside sales reps shoot themselves in the foot. This is common with experienced reps. They know the target market and they know the solution inside and out. Unfortunately, they don’t know how to use the information. A sales person knows how to use information to further a sales process. An inside rep doesn’t have that training and I find that they give away so much information that the prospect feels like they have no need to talk to sales. “Well hell I have price, features, integration details, ROI and a presentation. Thank you so much! I will now proceed to send all your calls to voice mail while I stash this information in a file that I will never ever check.” Instead of using the information wisely, they spit out facts and figures with no real strategy behind it. They use information like “artists” use paint in abstract art. Just dump everything you have on the canvas and hope it works out. (It represents post modern feelings about industrialism”…..BS, you just can’t paint anything realistic) Inside sales isn’t abstract art. It’s paint by number. Follow a process and know when to get off the phone and pass the lead to sales.