Struggling to Generate Sales? Take a Look at This!

Generating sales is hard. There’s no two ways about it.

In my 20+ year career, I’m lucky enough to have worked in senior sales and marketing positions for some of the UK’s best-loved brands and I’ve consistently placed among the top salespeople along the way.

But I can’t attribute my success solely to myself.

I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside and learning from some top class salespeople during my career, and it is mostly down to them that I have learned the rights and wrongs of sales, which I am lucky enough to put into practice as part of many successful sales strategies for our client at Bee Social Marketing.

So, in this blog, I’m sharing the top reasons why your sales strategy might not be working and how you can turn it around!

1. Not Targeting the Right Prospects

Wasting time and energy on the wrong prospects is one of the biggest mistakes you can make when it comes to sales.

Before you even implement your sales strategy, it’s important to have a clear understanding of your ideal customer profile and the best ways to reach out and resonate with them.

Clear, concise and personalised messages are always a great foundation for success – but even they are likely to fail if you’re not targeting the right people!

This is where automation software can damage even the best sales strategy, something we’ll cover in more detail below.

2. Using Automation Software

LinkedIn has developed in leaps and bounds over the last few years, and there are a multitude of great ways to target prospects on the platform, but even the best LinkedIn search is likely to bring up incorrect results and inactive accounts.

If you create a search for Managing Directors of technology companies with 51-1000 employees, you don’t expect a Managing Director of a technology company with 1 employee to surface – but this can and doeshappen frequently.

When you, a real human, are connecting manually, you can easily identify this as incorrect and ignore, while a bot will simply reach out to as many people as possible and hope for the best – in our experience, you should probably expect the worst!

And don’t forget, third-party automation is actually banned by LinkedIn. If you want to find out more about this, take a look at LinkedIn’s Community Guidelines.

3. Not Following Up with Prospects

In sales, I was always taught that a no is never a no – unless it’s surrounded by expletives, in which case I’d usually call it a day.

So you can imagine my shock when I recently came across some pretty damning statistics on follow-up rates among salespeople.

Having a follow-up system that enables you stay in touch with your prospects until they are ready to buy or opt out is key to your strategy’s success.

I’ve lost count of the amount of business owners who have enquired about our services and admitted that they have hundreds if not thousands of relevant connections who they haven’t even messaged once!

Sending regular and relevant messages to your connections is vital for keeping your business at the forefront of their minds – but that doesn’t mean that you should be “salesy”.

Building relationships is the real key to success here, and it’s something we’ll cover in more detail below.

4. No Relationship Building

Behind every LinkedIn profile is a real human being and the best way to resonate with real human beings is to be, well, human!

And with more and more people utilising to LinkedIn as powerful sales tool it has the potential to be, spamming your network with generic messages is unlikely to generate results.

We recommend personalising your LinkedIn outreach where possible for each individual prospect, whether this be congratulating them on a recent work anniversary, referencing a recent post or simply wishing them a great day!

For more tips on building relationships on LinkedIn, check out our recent blog, Building Relationships on LinkedIn.

5. No Recommendations, Referrals or Introductions

When it comes to sales and marketing, your existing customers and partners are your biggest cheerleaders – so it’s vital that you utilise them when generating new sales.

We recommend asking at least 3 of your recent clients or collaborators for a LinkedIn Recommendation which will feature on your profile and immediately build trust with your audience.

And if you’re looking for another effective way to generate new leads and opportunities, why not request a personal referral or introduction from a member of your network?

6. Not Tracking & Optimising your Strategy

By constantly monitoring and analysing the performance of your sales strategy, you can easily identify what is and isn’t working in real-time and make adjustments accordingly.

Your successes and failures are two of your biggest learning curves and by experimenting with different methods, channels and messages, you can apply the best practices to your future prospecting efforts.

To Finish

While sales prospecting is never a one-size-fits-all activity, avoiding these five common mistakes is an easy way to improve your results.

But if you do find yourself still struggling to generate results, you may want to consider LinkedIn Training.

Unlike many training providers, our LinkedIn Masterclasses don’t simply cover the basics. We take the time to get to know your business and develop a sales strategy tailored to your target audience, requirements and goals to help you achieve the best possible results.

Give us a buzz on Leeds: 0113 3206266 or Harrogate: 01423 297009 or click here to get in touch today and find out more.