It’s already late November and if you factor in the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, there is hardly a month left in the last quarter.
But chances are, a good number of sales and revenue managers will still be far from their targets and scrambling to boost numbers in the coming weeks. To be honest, that’s not entirely their fault either. Q4 is tough. Though a bonanza for consumer-facing industries, Q4 generally remains sluggish for the B2B segment for two key reasons:
First, most businesses have already started planning for the next year and for that reason, they have almost wrapped up their purchasing cycle for this year.
Second, it’s the holiday season! As many salespeople often report, a large chunk of prospects they contact during this time is simply away from the office, further delaying the sales cycle.
Now if you wish to jump those hurdles to match your Q4 goals in a matter of weeks, here are 4 surefire ways that top sales managers rely on:
Reach Out to the Right People
Desperate times call for desperate measures. There is no time to follow the regular sales processes where you start with, say, 10K people at the top of the funnel and after 5-7 touch points over a few weeks, start reaching out to qualified leads. You need to skip the whole cycle and get straight to the qualified leads.
How? Use a sales intelligence platform that, besides providing contact data, also offers data enrichment, technographic, firmographic, and intent data.
This will enable you to precisely map where all your target customers are and reach out straight to them. Also, make sure you use highly accurate data and maximum direct dials so as to not get slowed by bounced emails and gatekeepers.
Use a Multi-Channel Approach
While the multi-channel approach is always the preferred sales and marketing approach, it is absolutely critical when you are running short on time. With just 30 days to go, you simply do not have the luxury to slowly prospect your way to the top. You need to get aggressive. Once you map your target list, identify the buying center, and reach out to each person through multiple channels. Be it through emails, warm calls, social media, or organizing an event, your sales numbers are then limited only by your imagination.
Create Urgency
“Hi John, I am following up on the sales opportunity we had discussed earlier.”
“Yes, I had a meeting with the stakeholders and we are interested in your product. Let’s discuss it after Thanksgiving”.
These are some of the common lines every sales professional will come across during this time of year. The only way out of these sticky situations is to create some kind of urgency. Be it offering some kind of discount, speedy delivery, priority service, or a bundled offer, clients that have a definite interest must be immediately converted. You might have to take a hit on ROI but you are destined to overshoot revenue targets.
Cycle Back to the Sales Funnel
This is an extension to the previous point. Every quarter, there are some prospects who have shown interest in your product, but as the sales funnel progresses, they are left behind unattended.
These are mostly qualified leads who see the value in your product and are most likely to convert with minimal efforts. Go back to your sales funnel for the previous three quarters to recognize those leads with significant engagement but no conversions. Ask your sales team to get in touch with these prospects to score some quick wins. Not only would this enable you to meet your Q4 targets, but also help neatly wrap up the sales funnel of the entire year.
While each of the strategies is effective on their own, they can be best leveraged when deployed in tandem. To summarize all that we have discussed, you should get a reliable sales intelligence platform, launch an end-of-the-year sale, and leverage your empowered marketing engine for effective outreach. On the same note, SalesIntel is the finest sales intelligence platform on the market that offers all that you need to quickly boost your numbers.
