Every minute matters. When you’re in sales, your productivity can swing up or down based on how you manage the minutes.
Maybe that’s why sales hacks are so popular. Everyone’s looking for faster, easier, better ways to get the job done.
Companies are spending big dollars on sales intelligence software and tools to lighten the load on their sales teams. But what about the rest of us -- SMBs, solopreneurs, and sellers who are looking for that extra edge? Without a big budget, how can we save time, too, and take advantage of sales hacks?
Here are five of my personal favorites, all affordable and all delivering excellent ROI for my small business. They make our lives easier, reduce time spent on mundane tasks, and improve our sales effectiveness.
5 Tips for B2B Sales Productivity
1. Google’s tools are easy to use, free, and available.
But a lot of people don’t know what’s available or how to use these in selling. Here are three ideas:
-
Google Alerts: if you have a prospect or customer that occasionally makes the news, set an alert. When the term you used to set the alert comes up in any news source, Google will send you an alert and a link to that article. You’ll always know what’s happening and be able to offer congratulations, condolences, new ideas, etc.
-
Google News: if you’d like to find out if a client or prospect has been in the news recently, go to Google News and search. The results here are exclusively from media outlets, so you won’t have to pore through all the results from a standard search.
-
Google Trends: Planning to call on someone and wondering how to break the ice? Take a look at what’s trending in their country, state or city. Within seconds, you’ll know what the locals are talking about and can open with something other than “How’s the weather?”
2. Set up social media monitoring.
Want to get more insights than the news alone provides? You can also set up social media monitoring to know what your client or prospect is talking about online. Talkwalker will send you alerts about topics or company names. You can set one up for your own company, too, so you never miss a chance to respond when you are mentioned.
3. Personalize your efforts.
Looking for ways to stand out with your prospects and clients? How about sending them a personalized video message instead of a run-of-the-mill mail? VooPlayer makes it easy and offers powerful options so you can track opens, include clickable links and CTAs in the video, add interactive questions that direct the viewer to additional content that suits them, include contests, get analytics, and more. You can use the full suite of features to create automated campaigns that will save you time and make you look like you spent a fortune!
4. Check out Get Prospect.
Would you like to get reliable email addresses for your prospects for free? Check out Get Prospect, an email finder that draws information from LinkedIn. When you visit a LinkedIn profile, a “Get Email” button appears even if you’re not connected to that individual. You can also use the email extractor function to get a list of contacts that match your search criteria. The bulk import feature allows you to import a file with names and company names to find emails in bulk. The free option allows up to 50 emails a month. Modest prices are attached to each next-level tier, and you can purchase the quantities you need on a month-by-month basis.
5. Use CrystalKnows.
My perennial favorite hack is an app that provides personality assessments, predictions for prospect or client behaviors, and live AI coaching to craft an email that will appeal to each individual you write. CrystalKnows is designed to help you understand others’ communication preferences and behavioral tendencies. It draws from social media posts and analyzes texts to give you accurate personality profiles and guidance in writing better emails.
