John Kenney, CEO, Cotney Consulting Group
To be successful in today’s business environment, sales teams need competitive intelligence. Good quality data is a window into client behavior. It helps you accurately forecast what your clients will do and what they need. You need to know your client’s preferences and when those change.
No matter how many websites a client visits, they expect a personalized journey and lightning-fast response times. The only way to grow clients is by upping your sales data game. That means utilizing data gathered from collated web content, social media, clients and other credible outlets. In addition, industry experts and even your competitors can help provide competitive intelligence.
Competitive intelligence analyzes data collected about a business’s clients, using a variety of sources to gather insight about who they are and to understand their concerns and needs relative to products or services offered by the business. It is often a top concern among sales teams because they may be ill-prepared to go in front of prospects without it. Success requires your sales teams have the needed information. Much of a sales team’s efforts go into staying ahead of the competition and working to attract and capture potential clients. One report states that 53 percent of businesses say the majority of their sales deals are competitive.
The key to the sale is competitive intelligence. It better understands your target client, improves communication between your sales and marketing teams and causes less confusion about messaging and execution. You need to get the most from your
competitive intelligence to increase alignment and stay ahead of your competitors.
Quality sales data about your clients is what you need. Look for insights that tell you what motivates your leads. Then, double down on what works and tweak what is not working.
Your sales data is insufficient if you don’t know your lead’s pain points in advance. What are their needs and how can you meet them?
Expand your lead exploration process to gather more information about your clients. Use social media to analyze. Then, get that information into your client relationship management (CRM) system to make it effortless for your sales team to access the information when they need it.
Your sales team needs to be data-led rather than emotion-led. Gather objective information to set your agenda rather than gathering information based on your pre-conceived notions. Coach your sales team to understand what data to collect and its significance. Then, explain how they will use it. By doing that, the team will care more about gathering relevant and comprehensive data.
Set benchmarks to track metrics and interpret your data. Sales data alone is not enough to derive meaningful insights. You will need both external and internal benchmarks to compare performance against previous sales drives or marketing campaigns.
Tie these metrics to your bottom line and check to ensure you do not measure the wrong metrics. Create peer focus group benchmarks through trade associations or market research firms and grade your results on a percentile scale.
Sadly, most sales teams are so focused on gaining new clients that they do not set up efficient databases, so they are unaware what loyal clients prefer. To hold onto your clients, you must inquire about their needs. Then, check back in regularly to see how many data channels you have to monitor their needs and wants. If your hard bounce rate rises, you’ll know the existing client data needs review.
Re-examine your data entry process regularly to create standardized data entry. Improve your data quality by updating procedures.
Auto-form filling can be good and bad depending on how your clients are filling them out. Of those who complete them, some may not pay much attention when they fill them out. If you utilize auto-fill forms, the information clients are giving you may not be up to date. Including an open-ended question can help force them to reflect and share opinions. However, make sure you also include valuable content to mold your target audience.
You need to be capturing relevant consumer data so that you can segment new leads. One common mistake is offering them too many options, which can be confusing, leaving users unsure about what to choose. Stay consistent in your procedures to preserve data quality. Do not create too many fields. Users will skip fields if a form is too long, leaving holes in your datasets. Do not ask them to rate something from 1 to 10. Give them five choices, instead.
You do, however, want to move beyond just collecting a name, email address and phone number. Include a couple of in-depth questions. You can easily segment leads once you have gathered rich information. This quality data becomes your foundation for effective sales, crucial to keeping your company competitive and driving more revenue
If sales teams are constantly blind-sided, struggling to segment leads and track progress, finding it difficult to keep existing clients and approach a sales call without proper preparation, something has gone awry with data quality. Again, sales teams need competitive intelligence, which means setting up an excellent data entry system and data tracking processes to collect the necessary information to close sales.
John Kenney has over 45 years of experience in the roofing industry. He started his career by working as a roofing apprentice at a family business in the Northeast and worked his way up to operating multiple Top 100 Roofing Contractors. If you would like any further information on this or another subject, you can contact John at jkenney@cotneyconsulting.com.
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