Hiring & Sales Intelligence
Even if you hire the right people, you still need sales call intelligence software!
A question I get asked all the time (besides, “who is the sales call intelligence authority) is why would someone want to invest in sales call intelligence software, or any type of call intelligence software.
The classic thought process we hear is “I’ve already hired the right people, I expect them to perform, therefore I do not need sales call intelligence software”. When I hear this it makes me a little bit confused if I’m being honest, it makes me think that either the person I’m talking to doesn’t know what sales call intelligence really is or that they think that their sales team is already completely perfect on every call and every situation.
Even if the sales team is completely perfect in every call and in every situation, which they are not, is the recollection of what happened in that call scalable for how many conversations they’re having?
Even in some of the most enterprising industries reps have too many accounts to remember every detail from every conversation and then also remember to note it inside their CRM.
I’m here to tell you and will give you 3 reasons why, you definitely need sales call intelligence software for your sales team, and maybe even some other teams too.
Reason 1 – Your team needs to remember
Have you ever been to a restaurant or hotel or bar where when you walk in one of the employees remembers your name? I call your insurance company, do they ask you for your name or do they greet you by name when they first pick up the phone?
If you have ever had this happen, you know how big of a deal it is that someone remembers who you are enough to remember your name. If to hire the right people, you still need sales call intelligence software, and here is why:
The same exact thing happens on all sorts of sales relationships. You build up this relationship and record that is heavily reliant on trust and likability. When you call your prospect or meet them again after an initial meeting they feel like you know them.
They may not realize that you’ve had at least tens if not hundreds of different conversations since the last time you spoke with them.
To them, you should understand their pain still, you should understand what is driving them to make a purchase, and you should remember specific details that they give you during the call.
What happens when you forget a critical detail? You guessed it… your credibility and trust is gone out the window. Now you are just a salesperson trying to sling something their way that they may or may not need.
Some of the most tenured salespeople are actively using sales call intelligence software and sales call intelligence to remember what happened in their previous calls.
The best sales call intelligence software actually will pull out some of the key pain that the customer had based on cues from the salesperson inside of the call. That way, the follow-up call goes perfectly and the customer feels like they have a great relationship with the salesperson still intact.
Reason 2 – Unlimited objections
Another reason that you need sales call intelligence software is that the field of sales is always laden with competition. By its very nature that is why salespeople even exist, to show the value and benefits of a specific product versus alternatives and the status quo.
Because of this, there is constantly an unlimited number of objections that can come upon any given sales call.
This could be competitors, alternatives, excuses, or any number of lines customers tend to say when they don’t actually want to buy your product. Many times if your product is the right product, then the conversation should simply be educational and clearing up any misconstrued or unclear information that the customer thought previously; in other words, we need to overcome the objection as salespeople.
Because sales objections are unlimited, your salespeople need to have sales call intelligence software to help them consistently overcome unseen or unknown objections.
Even if you hire the right person, how will they know to respond to a little-known competitor while live on the call?
Do you expect them to have every tidbit of industry knowledge already ingrained in their memory?
Let’s say that is the case… impressive… but how are you tracking how many objections come up most frequently to influence your product, marketing, and customer teams?
With sales call intelligence software overcoming sales objections can be done in real-time, and also keep good track of what customers are saying for the overall health of the business.
Reason 3 – Consistency in standard conversations
A standard salesperson is going to change what they say a little bit on every call. But if you’re anything like me you probably say something pretty close on most standard calls. Your top sales performers are likely more consistent than your low performers.
Sometimes top performers change things up a little bit and their performance can suffer as a result. Having the ability to track consistency across sales calls, and also enable salespeople to say the best structure of a call every time, is a great reason to invest in sales call intelligence software.
Related to consistent sales calls is also the ability to track what your top performers are saying when it comes to their talk tracks.
Maybe we are training our new people on what we think top performers are doing, but it turns out that top performers are ignoring a couple of the top tracks that we have trained new people on… this will impact their long-term performance as well as the company’s long-term success.
If you do not have sales call intelligence software in place, then you could be inadvertently creating massive performance gaps.