Blog Archives - Page 2 of 13

How to build rapport in a socially distanced world

Posted on 24 September 20203 July 2023 by Doug Roots

Building rapport is essential to creating successful business relationships. It is a well-known belief that body language accounts for 55% of our communication effectiveness. Tonality accounts for 38% and our words just 7%. But in a world where it’s difficult to meet in person right now, how do you make sure you’re communicating as effectively as possible?

Post-Covid-19, people are seeking connection more than ever before; it’s time to capitalise using methods that will keep your prospects engaged and help you build that trust and affinity that leads to longstanding relationships.

Get your body language right: On a video call, presentation matters. Keep your attention on the call, make eye contact and demonstrate your interest in what they have to say through positive body language. Even if you’re on a voice call, endeavour to correct your posture and smile. It will have a positive effect on your communication style, your energy, your tone and even your vocabulary.

Say their name: When you use your prospect’s name regularly, you reassure them of your interest and hold their attention.

Mirroring to establish connection: If you mirror the way your prospect speaks, you will focus more attention on your words and sentiment rather than their surroundings. If they speak slowly, try to replicate it; if they speak quickly, try to keep up with their pace.

Tailor your approach: Try to identify how your prospect approaches business and tailor your own approach to suit. Some people tend to be conceptual and strategic and don’t like getting bogged down in detail. Conversely, detail-oriented people will be reassured by a detailed and analytical approach.

Matching communication style: Identify quickly if your prospect is a visual, auditory or kinesthetic communicator and match their style. Listen for words like; see and look (visual), hear and listen (auditory), feel and sense (kinesthetic). Your prospect will feel better understood and a stronger connection if you mirror their words back to them using statements like: “let me show you”, “I hear what you’re saying” or “I sense there is an opportunity here”.

Active listening: Listen closely to what your prospect says and reaffirm their thoughts back to them, where you can to show that you’ve listened and are committed to finding the right solution for them.

Ask searching questions: These questions give your prospect the opportunity to talk about their pain points and give you far greater insight than limiting them to a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response. It also fosters a much more organic conversation, and the more your prospect is involved in the conversation, the more engaged they’ll be.

Demonstrate your expertise: Establish who you are and shed light on the problems you solve for customers, staying focused on the end-user benefits. This is where you can compound your active listening skills by demonstrating how your service could make a difference to their business.

Show empathy: Use phrases like “I understand where you’re coming from”. Showing genuine empathy helps you to gain the prospect’s trust and leads them towards accepting that you really may be able to help.

Communicate the purpose of your call: Always communicate clearly and professionally, the desired outcome of your conversation. Your prospect will appreciate knowing the purpose of your call from the outset and they will see that you value their time. At Air, we’re experienced in building rapport and shaping the right sales approach for our customers. To hear more about how we can help you achieve your sales goals, get in touch today or call us on 0345 241 3038.

Five ways to make sure your sales approach stays ahead of the game

Posted on 26 August 20203 July 2023 by Doug Roots

When it comes to successful selling, there are a few universal truths you can’t ignore. Sales success takes persistence and investment in building relationships. And rather more brutally, if you don’t make sales then your business will stagnate. We’re emerging from a period of uncertainty, which adds further pressure into the mix; it’s difficult to take a risk on a new approach when the past few months have been monopolized by more operational concerns.

Statistics show that buyer confidence has taken a hit but hasn’t completely evaporated. Your customers may be changing their behaviour and re-evaluating their spending in non-essential areas, but you can still make sales.

1. Reconnect and listen to your customers

Authentic conversations are definitely the way forward in the current climate. A renewed appreciation for human connection means people welcome trust and transparency in their business exchanges. It’s essential for you to nurture your existing customer relationships, and stay close to your target market during this time. Buyer behaviour is rapidly changing due to the virtualisation of the sales process. How your brand performs can make or break your reputation.

Insight is power. If you can get a pulse check across your customer base, you can make sure that your offer reflects their changing needs, attitudes and behaviours. You can also find out if your service is where it needs to be and discover any improvements you need to make.

2. Demonstrate your ability to solve customer pain points

Good salespeople will already be focused on demonstrating this value to customers but now it’s more vital than ever. When you’re talking to clients and prospects that are being forced to make hard decisions in their own business, they need a different approach one that’s sensitive to the current climate, yet pragmatic about their needs. You need to have conversations that are aligned to solving their problems. Ask yourself what your customers need most right now and what’s the best way to communicate that. If a specific element of your service is particularly valuable to them right now, be sure to lead with that message.

3. Don’t panic, just pivot

What do your customers need now? You have to think about how to remove risk for them in the short term and how to ensure loyalty and confidence in the long term. You also need to protect your internal sales people from burnout; they will be feeling the pressure of achieving targets in an uncertain time, coupled with the fatigue of homeworking. For example, outsourcing lead generation or elements of new business to an expert provider could be a valuable way to free up their time to focus on key, high revenue clients. The benefits of outsourcing range far beyond bridging short term gaps and needs, for more insight read our blog ‘Outsourced Sales vs Hiring In-House – The Debate Continues’.

4. Support buying decisions with relevant and valuable content

People will be spending more time reading online and researching products and services than previously. You can influence buyer decisions with well-thought-out product specs, webinars and engaging thought leadership articles. If you empower them with information about your products and how they specifically relate to solving their challenges, they will feel more supported in their buying decisions and you can tailor future campaigns to the content they find most engaging. For ideas on how to better reach your customers through targeted marketing content, check out this case study from Air’s sister company, Roots to Market. It’s also a great example of close collaboration between marketing and sales activity for enhanced success.

5. Stay focused and consistent

In our recent blog, ‘whatever you do, don’t stop selling’, we looked at why consistent activity is essential to sales success. Those businesses that have been quietly nurturing their customer base during a challenging time will be thankful they went the extra mile. This doesn’t mean hammering the phones in the hope of generating leads and filling your pipeline quickly but taking a considered approach to quality sales conversations.

It might seem counter-intuitive to invest budget in outsourcing elements of your sales strategy right now, but there’s a strong rationale for doing so – it allows you to be more flexible and scale your approach with ease without the headache of fluctuating headcount. You can access sales and lead generation expertise that will refresh your approach. Our focused and dedicated lead generation experts will have meaningful conversations on your behalf, aligned with your brand’s values.

At Air, we have demonstrable success in hitting the right note with customers across a range of industries, even in the midst of a global crisis. To hear more about how we can help you achieve your sales goals, get in touch today or call us on 0345 241 3038.

How to Build and Leverage Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn

Posted on 10 July 202027 July 2023 by dukadmin

We all know the phrase ‘first impressions count’. Thanks to social media, that first impression now happens before your first meeting with a client. Your social presence, specifically LinkedIn, is a fantastic opportunity for you to breathe life into your business, showing people the personality behind the brand.

Research shows a direct correlation between time spent on developing your personal brand and consumer trust. 82% of customers trust a company when their senior management members are active on social media (GoGulf, 2013). 89% of top performing sales people say social networking platforms, such as LinkedIn, are important in closing deals and are part of their sales strategy (SuperOffice, 2020). So this tells us the old adage still rings true – people buy from people and connections matter.

Check out the competition

This is an important litmus test. Before you can start developing your social strategy and content plans, it’s vital to research what your competitors are doing on LinkedIn and use it to your advantage. Look at their most successful posts. What types of content do the people in your desired market engage with? What are the key themes that people are discussing? Think about how you could create content that responds to the conversations you’re seeing in the comments, or start a conversation that matters to you.

Define your tone of voice

When everyone is talking, it’s hard to cut through the noise and make an impression. It’s not about being bold and extrovert. If that’s simply not you, it won’t ring true with your audience. Try to find your authentic voice, own your material and don’t be afraid to voice your opinions. Remember, you’re an expert in your business and there’s nobody who knows that story better than you. If you need help telling it, that’s OK. A trusted provider can help guide you on that and draw out the key elements your audience will find most engaging.

Getting started

A basic but important first step is to ensure your profile is up to date. As mentioned previously, first impressions count and if your profile doesn’t reflect your current role or campaigns you’re working on, it’s going to jar with your audience. Take control of this and let people know you’ve got it covered. Think of it as your own personal elevator pitch. Let people know that connecting with you will open the door to interesting content and opportunities.

Consistency matters

It’s easy to get caught up with posting furiously when you start out because enthusiasm is high, then letting it slide during more hectic times. Consistency is the key to success. An easy way to stay on track is to put together a content schedule. Planning ahead doesn’t mean a dearth of creativity – mix up scheduled content with more spontaneous posts that capitalise on topical industry news.

Content rules

Everyone talks about engaging content but think hard about what this means to you. Maybe you’re a natural storyteller who finds it easy to weave the fabric of daily business life into anecdotes and thoughts that spark ideas. Maybe you’re a direct person who sees something incredible and can’t help but hit share. Whatever your preferred methods, write content that’s enjoyable to read and include relevant hashtags for your industry and target audience. You can even see how many people are following that hashtag just by searching for it (no magic required!).

Get connected

LinkedIn is all about connections; even the biggest influencers send regular InMails and invest time and attention to growing their network through quality, shareable content. They do it because they know it’s the key to staying relevant and part of the conversation.

Join the industry groups that are relevant to your business. This is not only great for refining your content strategy; it provides valuable insight into your customers’ challenges. If you see a conversation where you can solve a customer problem or offer relevant advice or insight, don’t be afraid to join in. The same principle applies to companies in your target market; hit follow, pay attention and engage with their posts.

Connect to people you’ve met at events and webinars. You have a golden opportunity to check in and take that conversation forward. When you’re connecting to people within your industry and target audience – always use a personalised message. The personal touch will be appreciated and give you the opportunity to have a meaningful on-going conversation that could lead somewhere mutually beneficial.

Don’t forget to review the ‘people also viewed’ section. The great thing about LinkedIn is even with a free account you can build a solid base of qualified contacts, and a little desk research can help you build out a decision-maker map that could be extremely valuable for future campaigns.

Beyond the basics

If you have a company page, utilise the 100 credits available per month to invite your connections to follow the page. 1 invite = 1 credit. When the invitation is accepted, the credit is returned for you to use again, and you’ll receive 100 new credits on the 1st of each calendar month. Don’t let them go to waste as this is a quick and effective way to grow your audience.

If you have the means, it’s worth upgrading to a Premium account or Sales Navigator to take advantage of additional features such as CRM integrations and custom lists. Consider sending regular InMails to engage with your audience – it’s a valuable campaign tool you can easily align with any other regular digital communications and email marketing campaigns.

Invest the time and you will see the benefit

Schedule time in your day to work on your personal brand. If you don’t have the time and headspace to give it the attention it deserves, we can help.

Air Marketing help individuals and businesses unlock the power of a thriving personal brand. We build intelligent marketing capabilities using a mixture of proven marketing tactics to reach your target audience and produce marketing qualified leads for your sales team.

If you’d like to talk more about how we can drive tangible results from your social channels and personal branding strategy, get in touch today on 0345 241 3038.

Five reasons you should consider outsourcing sales and lead generation during uncertain times

Posted on 10 July 20203 July 2023 by Doug Roots

If there’s one thing we’ve all become a lot more familiar with in 2020, it’s uncertainty. In unprecedented times, only the most creative, agile and willing to innovate will emerge thriving. When the world shifts on its axis you have to be open to change, embrace whatever your ‘new normal’ is shaping up to be and stay focused on your future goals.

Headspace to focus on core operations

Nobody can deny that operational challenges have been the show stealers in recent months; everybody has been rightly focused on ensuring their teams can access the resources they need to perform their day jobs and connect with their colleagues. Social distancing and homeschooling have had a massive impact on how and when people work. The upshot? A different way of working and a greater focus on making things work in the short-term. All of this is undeniably vital work but it does mean that sales and lead generation strategies will not be getting the time and attention required to ensure they’re successful. Outsourcing to a trusted expert, gives you the peace of mind that this is being taken care of while working life resumes to some sort of normality.

Greater flexibility on costs in unpredictable conditions

In what seems like constant change, it pays to be flexible. Maybe you had recently recruited a lead generation team who you planned to nurture and grow, and that’s now been understandably delayed. Maybe you’ve had to deliver serious cost savings to keep your head above water. Through outsourcing sales and lead generation you can scale up and down as you need to, pay for the days and services that are most vital to your strategy at that time. If that changes, you can work collaboratively with an expert to get the mix of services right for your current needs and budget.

Access to expertise

This neatly brings us on to one of the standout benefits of outsourcing: access to proven expertise. The burden of developing and retaining sales talent rests with your supplier, so even if you don’t have the means to invest, you can be sure they have and therefore achieve economies of scale. Experienced sales experts who are used to target driven, fast-paced environments will be able to deliver the quality leads you need to build a healthy pipeline and act as an extension of your in-house teams.

Dedicated resource focused on growing your brand and refining your audience

Refining your target market, finding the correct decision makers and generating high quality leads that convert to sales, require a consistent approach. To get the maximum value out of these activities, substantial time needs to be dedicated to getting them right. Even your top salespeople will struggle to balance converting what’s hot right now, with nurturing those slow burner leads that will pay dividends in the future. Engaging an expert to work with you, ensures this vital but time consuming work is removed from their desks, so they can better focus on converting the big deals that will deliver immediate cash flow.

Reduces risk in an already uncertain time

We touched on this a little earlier. Risk is a big deal for businesses at any time but in the current climate, reducing risk can feel seriously empowering. There’s not much we can control at the moment, so if you can look to someone with a proven track record in delivering successful sales and lead generation campaigns, you can be confident that your investment is protected. At Air Marketing we work with clients to create a tailored, blend of services that will deliver the best conversion rates in their desired market. If you’d like to hear more about how we can help your business grow or show you how we’ve helped businesses from all sectors achieve success. Get in touch today or call us on 0345 241 3038. Or hear more from our existing customers here.

Responding to market changes

Posted on 27 May 20207 July 2023 by dukadmin

Let’s not dwell on the obvious that Covid-19 has been tough for almost every business, in every country across the globe. But instead of this being a blog to discuss the challenges this pandemic has presented, the need for businesses to ‘pivot’ or indeed the ‘recipe’ to solve the problems we have been facing – this blog is going to focus on the thing that we can do something about – the future.

We don’t know what the state of the future looks like yet, but we know that collectively as businesses we must be responding to market changes, adapt and thrive to be successful. So, where do you start?

Time to review

Now is the time to review – look at what marketing activity and campaigns you have run previously. Take the time to really analyse the contributions they made to your business both from a brand, pipeline building and sales perspective. Use this review time to pick apart and really question what saw good return-on-investment (ROI), what learnings you can take and utilise in the future, and what you know you wouldn’t repeat.

This is true of all functions within your business, not just marketing. Investing the time in reviewing now will help you scope out the ‘plan of attack’ when the markets begin to turn.

Take this review and create a big picture

One of the recommendations we share with clients when we are working on strategies is to look at the bigger picture and then break that down into sub-sections or projects which fit within departments. The big picture should be holistic and joined up, driving the business in the chosen direction. Each departments’ goals and directions should then feed off of this overall picture.

For example – if your business is made up of direct customers and resellers, your overall big picture goal might be to move your business towards a model that sees 75% of your sales coming from resellers and 25% coming from direct customers. If your marketing team then went away and spent 60% of your marketing budget with a campaign focused purely on driving more direct customers into the business rather than resellers – it would be totally misaligned to the big picture direction of the business.

Each key department needs to understand the big picture, be bought into the journey and have departmental goals that are aligned.

Re-strategise

Many businesses will have had a strategy they were working towards before Covid-19 struck. A small number of businesses may be able to continue working on this strategy if it is still correct to their business and they were not as affected by the pandemic.

For everyone else, it’s time to re-strategise with your big picture in mind.

For many businesses, the pandemic will have lost you customers who cancelled, paused or simply didn’t begin working with you at the time. For some businesses it will have lost you staff, and you are now facing running the business without certain skills or the same amount of resource available to satisfy your strategy.

You need an up-to-date strategy that is going to work for your business of today, not your pre-Covid-19 business. Not only have you changed, but your market is likely to have changed also – buying confidence levels are unlikely to be where they were a few months ago, so how you engage with your market maybe different. Your conversations maybe different, your pipeline timings, content may need to change, and ultimately your sales process may actually be longer or shorter and you have to be prepared for that.

A step ahead

Being a step ahead, even if the prospect of the future is unsure is healthy for your business. Utilising the time to review, begin to re-strategise, take time to understand the current economy and start responding to market changes.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” – Charles Darwin

If you’d like our help with marketing strategy, get in touch today or call us on 01392 796702 to find out how we can help your business. Our sister company Air Marketing has more advice on responding to market changes in their blog: Whatever you do, don’t stop selling.

What to do when the market begins to pick up again

Posted on 26 May 20203 July 2023 by Doug Roots

In recent months the world has undergone a transformation. Most of us spent the first weeks of lockdown readjusting to new ways of working and living. Equally, most businesses spent those tentative early days of the pandemic finding their feet, testing systems and remote working arrangements. For many this time was hectic but in terms of normal business operations, decidedly unproductive.

It remains an uncertain time, and even the easing of lockdown rules represents a far cry from the normalcy we enjoyed only a few weeks ago. At some point we will be able to return to work, meet with our colleagues and clients again and return to a more familiar landscape. So, what happens then?

Lessons from lockdown

It’s fair to say that everybody’s perspective will have shifted after living through a global pandemic. We simply don’t know what the world will look like, but we know we’ll have to adapt. When everyone can be in the same room again, it’s important that everyone’s experiences are shared and the lessons learned shape the future of the business. This can be a real opportunity to do things differently and better and help rebuild your culture.

Keep the conversation going

People and culture are such an important part of any business and it’s imperative that leaders are honest and authentic in the way they communicate with their people. Especially when decisions are being made quickly and with less consultation. The current circumstances can negatively impact and dilute even the strongest cultures. People will feel disconnected and isolated and it’s everyone’s responsibility to mitigate this through keeping the conversation going, so after lockdown we can bring a sense of normality back.

This disconnection can extend to current clients. Make it a priority to pick up the phone to have a real conversation. It’s not business as usual at the moment but simply acknowledge that and check in to see how it’s all going – it helps maintain relationships and will be appreciated.

Take advantage of headspace

For those businesses that are experiencing a slowdown in sales, now is the time to take that valuable commodity so often in short supply… headspace. When you’re running at 100mph and are consumed with the fast-paced day-to-day, there are strategic projects that never get the attention they deserve. This is a chance for leaders to be creative and interrogate their processes, be honest about what works and what needs to change.

Work on your pipeline

Nobody knows how the coming weeks and months will unfold. When business is fully operational again and markets open, there is likely to be an element of desperation with everyone clamouring to make sales. Those who’ve strategically prospected and nurtured their contacts and worked on developing relationships will be best placed to sell. There’s lots of groundwork that can be done now, and it’s a truly valuable time investment for your business’ future.

Check out our video where Owen Richards, MD of Air Marketing, and Richard Forrest, MD of Forrest Marketing Group, discuss what businesses can do to prepare for when the market begins to pick up.

Air Marketing are the leading outsourced sales agency in the UK. We design and deliver sales services to deliver the best conversion rates for our clients. To hear more about how we can help your business grow, get in touch today or call us on 0345 241 3038.

Whatever you do, don’t stop selling

Posted on 26 May 20203 July 2023 by Doug Roots

It might be something of an understatement to say that 2020 has been a challenging year for businesses across the globe. It’s hard to believe just a matter of weeks ago (although for many of us it feels like much longer), we could work from an office and most of us were largely unfamiliar with the term ‘social distancing’. The impact of Covid-19 has been overwhelming – we’ve seen major changes to the way we work and relate to each other, both personally and professionally.

In times of crisis, it can be tempting to pull back and you may even question whether new business is a priority. Shouldn’t we batten down the hatches, hunker down and focus on the surviving rather than thriving?

The short answer is no. Sales is the lifeblood of your business, so resist that temptation to slow down and hold back and instead change the way you sell, so you can ensure future success. Ultimately, without sales, no future opportunity exists.

If you can sell today, great! If you can’t, prepare!

If you have major barriers to selling right now, get ready for life after. Those who plan and prepare and pay close attention to building their pipeline will have a running start as life returns to ‘normal’. They will be best placed to succeed in the immediate months and years post-pandemic.

Keep reaching out but change the message

People are understandably less contactable as they continue to work from home. But businesses are still operating and they still have a requirement for your products and services; it may just be less of an immediate priority. You need to change the messaging to resonate with the current climate and let people know you understand the challenges around Covid-19. Conduct your conversations with a positive but sensitive tone and don’t be afraid to be the expert and demonstrate the value you can bring to help, even in these anxiety-inducing times.

Keep going to market

Check out our recent blog, turning virtual – how to change your sales process from face to face to virtual meetings, in which we explore how you can ensure the virtual meetings you do have are as professional, prepared and focused as possible.

If you’re au fait with prospecting on the phone then integrate other methods into your approach, leveraging video and social to tell your brand’s stories. Use LinkedIn to connect with people on a more personal level, joining relevant forums where you can actively engage in solving customer challenges, and keep up-to-date with emerging conversations and themes that could help you tailor your approach.

Tell positive stories

Celebrate success where you can. Shine a light on the good things that are happening in your business and for your clients. People are seeking connection and positivity right now. If you can create content or stories that raise a smile, it will improve your sales relationships and spark conversations that could lead somewhere good.

For more insights on this subject, watch our recent webinar where our MD, Owen Richards, explores how businesses can respond to the crisis while continuing to set the stage for sales success.

The importance of health and wellbeing in a sales team

Posted on 27 April 20203 July 2023 by Doug Roots

A car cannot be expected to run on the wrong fuel, drive endless miles without rest, never have an MOT and expect it to keep performing to the best of its ability – our bodies and minds are exactly the same. The unhealthy feelings of pressure, anxiety and stress wear us down and can cause us to become demotivated. Simply put – when we’re not feeling our best, we don’t perform at our best, and this is heightened during times of difficulty and uncertainty.

For sales professionals, while they may be known on the front line for their big personalities, confidence and ambition, more often than not there are underlying challenges that they face on a daily basis that are impacting their health and wellbeing.

What makes the challenges of sales professionals unique?

There are many of challenging jobs in the world – doctors, healthcare professionals, teachers, lawyers, the forces, the list goes on… but there’s something unique about the role of a sales professional. Outside of the careers of those saving lives, the sheer quantity of challenges that sales professionals are up against everyday is second to none.

High expectations: Sales professionals are no stranger to targets. Not only does this impact their performance and therefore financial reward (commission), but also their company’s bottom line. There’s no doubt in that they’re expected to be consistent in bringing in X amount of revenue every quarter. As the saying goes, you’re only ever as good as your last month or quarter.
Lack of routine: For a lot of sales professionals, in order to meet expectations, the 9-5, Monday to Friday routine is non-existent. Acting as a brand ambassador, being available for events and networking opportunities and being flexible to prospects doesn’t always allow for ‘office hours’.
Managing potential rejection: It’s inevitable. Even the greatest sales leaders experience knockdowns and knockbacks from prospects who may not be ready to purchase just yet, or the product/service simply isn’t right for them.
Finding qualified leads: To avoid the possibility of rejection and potentially wasted time, it’s important to ensure that leads are qualified within the sales team (sales qualified leads – SQLs) or marketing team (marketing qualified leads – MQLs). But finding these takes time and effort so it’s a careful balancing act of spending time on this vs acting speaking to prospects.
Long sales cycle: It’s unusual for things to ‘just happen’ overnight. Building relationships and trust as well as the case for why the client should be interested takes time, consistency and commitment. Remaining empathic and patient when under pressure is a tricky skill to master.
Unpredictable markets: It’s difficult to predict when a market is going to be impacted, whether that’s from an economic downturn or a global pandemic like COVID-19 (Coronavirus). While this drives uncertainty through the supply chain, it’s important for sales professionals to remain calm and support prospects through what is likely to be an even longer than usual sales cycle.
Competitors: Standing apart from competition is a challenge for many sales professionals, especially when they’re competing against low cost providers. Having a strong relationship to make a ‘needs’ based sale rather than a ‘costs’ based sale is important here.
Maintaining a relationship with marketing: Ultimately working towards the same goal, it’s vital to set aside time to work with the marketing department to maximise opportunities and make sure that you’re singing from the same hymn book.
Building a personal brand: We’ve reached 2020 and there’s now more pressure than ever to be active and building your personal brand and network on professional networking sites such as LinkedIn. This is key to becoming a trusted advisor.

Why is this important for businesses?

In the workplace, health and wellbeing allows for sustainability of top-level performance. It’s important for sales professionals to keep motivated and believe in themselves. At the end of the day, your sales team generate revenue, and without revenue, there is no business. Should businesses be effectively making a positive impact on the health and wellbeing of their sales team, they’re likely to see a decrease in absenteeism and costs, as well as an increase in motivation, performance and employee retention.

As an increasing number of sales professionals are beginning to prioritise their health and wellbeing, there’s no better time for businesses to take a step back and review wellbeing policies. When looking for their next employer, will sales professionals be on the look-out for organisational cultures that champion employee health and wellbeing? We think so!

How can you help?

Conversation: In an office environment you would usually see visual cues or hear audio cues of people seeming unhappy or a bit low, and that might come across in the work that they’re doing and the sales conversations they’re having. Outside of the usual office environment, if sales professionals are working from home, you still have a number of cues and it’s just as important to still be looking for them. If you think someone’s not looking too good, just ask. If your team communicates together socially, then they will start to pick up on this as well. If you don’t have that conversation, then it’s more difficult to tell if people are struggling.

Normalisation: Good health and wellbeing is proactive. Leaders should be starting the conversation and driving it through the organisation to create a culture where talking about physical and mental wellbeing, how you feel and what’s going on in your mind is normal.

Trust: Management should lead by example and build trust by opening up about how they’re feeling and what they’re doing to keep their body and mind healthy. A lot of people will be having good days, but there will also be a lot of people who are having down days too. Be honest about how and why this is impacting your motivation. Showing vulnerability as a leader and being honest with your sales team will allow them to open up.

Initiatives: Support conversation, normalisation and trust by implementing initiatives to keep sales teams engaged and motivated. Help sales professionals build a routine whereby they’re able to get away and switch off. Do a team Joe Wicks workout or yoga class. Bring out the natural competitiveness of your sales team with a step or running challenge. Organise access to a 24/7 mental health support line. You would even go so far as to remove sales targets which are seen as unrealistic for the greater good of your sales team.

Tools to succeed: Drill back down to the basics and review whether your sales team have all of the tools that they truly need to succeed and hit their targets – regular training and skill sharing activities, a strong sales process, effective scripts, clear KPI’s and a way of repeatedly filling their pipeline with qualified leads. If lead generation is something that your team don’t have time for, we recommend outsourcing. Find out more about outsourcing lead generation with Air Marketing here. For marketing qualified leads (MQLs) we recommend our sister company, demand generation experts – Roots to Market.

Sales leaders and management – if you’re not investing in your sales team’s health and wellbeing, you’re missing an opportunity. With so many knockdowns and knock backs in the sales environment, being supported emotionally, physically and being resilient is incredibly important. It’s down to you to nurture this. Don’t just drive your team on numbers and targets but support them to be in the best shape possible so they can perform at their best for you.

If you’d like to hear more about how we at Air Marketing prioritise a culture of health and wellbeing for our sales team, get in touch today or call us on 0345 241 3038.

What to consider when looking to outsource your marketing for the first time

Posted on 20 April 202030 June 2023 by dukadmin

This is an interesting question that came up recently whilst we were speaking with a prospect. Having never worked with a marketing agency before, it’s understandable that you don’t know, what you don’t know. If you’ve only ever had internal marketing resource before it can be difficult to know how that translates into an agency relationship, and how to outsource your marketing effectively? If you are not a marketeer yourself but you are responsible for marketing (we’re thinking of some roles such as MD’s, Commercial Directors, Sales Directors, Revenue Directors) being able to truly test and measure any marketing resource can become more challenging. Questions that have come up in these conversations before having been the likes of:

What makes you the right agency?

How will it work having an agency working with our internal marketing team?

What should my internal team work on, and what should I outsource?

Having discussed this in detail with prospects on many different occasions, we thought it would be really helpful to share this with you all. Now for us, sales and marketing are hand-in-hand functions. Ultimately, they are the revenue engine for your business and therefore they have to work together, not separately, for optimal effectiveness. For this reason, we find it is important to begin with your business aspirations and direction.

Do you know your direction?

The level of detail in answer to this question varies hugely amongst different businesses. The automatic response for many is, growth. A direction, but for us not a very clear one. What we’re looking to understand from your direction is:

What is your overall business looking to achieve? An increase in 20% revenue on last year? An increase in 30% profits on last year? Sustained 10% year–on–year growth? These are all examples, but by providing us something much more tangible to understand your level of business growth, gives us important insight into the mindset of your business.
Next up is sales. What are your sales team looking to achieve? What are their targets and how is this split up? What percentage is from retaining revenue, new business and customer upsell/cross sell strategies? This is more important information for a marketer. The sales targets will link back to that overall business target, and in the same way your marketing targets and activity should support your sales targets. If we know that more than half of your targets are focused on client upsell/cross sell strategies, then we need to work with your sales team to target this market. In that example, we may focus in on CRM focused email marketing, providing Account Managers with the sales collateral required to help upsell/cross sell conversations, and look at web traffic behaviour utilising practices such as re-marketing to your current customer base.

This all then comes down to understanding your direction with your marketing. As mentioned above, your marketing targets and activity should clearly align to sales, thus the overall business. But you need to clearly set out what marketing should be working towards. How many new business leads do your sales team need? So, what are the channels to be utilised to obtain these leads? Can you clearly see a conversion rate from previous activity of MQLs (marketing qualified leads) to SQLs (sales qualified leads) to then proposal and purchase? If so, what is that typical conversion rate? This will inform us of how many MQLs are needed to feed your sales team. If past data tells you that traffic to your website converts at x% depending on the channel, how much more traffic do you need to attract to the website to meet the targets your sales team have? If you have personas for your target audience and you know that one is lower value but required continually to help run rate and one is high value but longer term pipeline – you need to create unique strategies to be reaching both of these concurrently to maximise effect.

We’d recommend being prepared with understanding your direction before detailed conversations with an agency, as this will help the agency to really understand what you need from them. You can then move on to understanding ways of working with agencies.

Ways of working with agencies

Every agency will be slightly different when it comes to this, but we’re going to give you the example from us at Roots to Market.

We have clients who utilise us typically in 3 different capacities:

They look to us to create their marketing strategy and then to deliver it for them. This maybe the case if they have no marketers in-house and don’t wish to hire in-house, or if they have junior marketers who would really benefit from the support of an agency to work alongside.
They already have a marketing strategy defined by their Marketing Director or Commercial Director and they are looking for an outsourced team to deliver against it as they don’t have any other marketers in-house and don’t wish to hire in-house.
They have an internal marketing team who have defined and are delivering against the marketing strategy, but they have an element of the activity that they don’t have resource for or don’t have the specific skills in-house to execute themselves. In these cases, we slot into their marketing team to deliver an aspect of their marketing alongside the rest of the team.

Each of these examples will pull on different members of our team and their skill sets and will require different approaches. But from our experience we’ve found it vital to be as flexible as possible and cater for different client needs.

We’d recommend exploring what an agency can offer you in terms of ways of working from the outset to ensure that it will work with your current business set up and what you had in mind.

A final thing to then consider is…

Understanding how to measure the success of the relationship

Marketing is an investment after all, so although you may not get to the numbers within this conversation being able to understand the ‘how’ of the measurement is required.

We often find that within this part of the conversation we discuss KPI’s/targets that can be set before activity begins between us and the client, reporting methods and frequency, examples of other successes, ‘what good looks like’, how detailed and integrated the reporting can be, etc.

It may take time to agree and sign off on all this detail to your relationship but starting the conversation so that both parties understand where each other are coming from allows you to go away and further build on this.

We’d recommend being honest and transparent from the beginning on this measurement of success. It can really damage a relationship, if goal posts are drastically moved during activity because they were simply incorrect from the outset. There will be aspects of marketing which are still more difficult to measure such as offline advertising, but this should be discussed before the activity begins to ensure everyone is on the same page.

Get in touch

We hope that if you’re wondering what to consider when looking to outsource your marketing for the first time, then this has been helpful.

At Roots to Market, we offer tailored, blended services of inbound and direct marketing, automation and complete tactical campaigns, dependent on clients’ needs. If you’d like to talk more about how we can help you with your outsourced marketing activity, get in touch today on 01392 796702. You can also read more about our results here.

Turning Virtual – How to change your sales process from face to face to virtual meetings?

Posted on 20 April 20203 July 2023 by Doug Roots

Let’s face it, most businesses are now operating in a national, if not global, arena. This often means that part, or in some cases all, of the sales process is already carried out via virtual meetings rather than face to face. There are so many reasons why businesses do this including practicality and cost. For some business models, such as those selling SaaS products, keeping all communication virtual works effectively and seamlessly. There is no product to physically see, all benefits can be communicated virtually and typically your investment is likely to be a monthly subscription, so far less risky than other models.

But what if your business is providing a service, like us. We find it very effective to utilise virtual meetings at the beginning of the sales process, but as our conversations deepen, we find that prospects often look for a face to face meeting and a visit to our offices to put their mind at ease around our setup. Usually this works very well for us, as we are always happy to show people around our office, introduce them to members of our team, have lunch with them and discuss everything face to face.

Until now.

Having transferred our sales process to only utilise virtual meetings, because face to face meetings are not an option at present, we wanted to share this experience with you alongside some of our tips, to help you along the way.

Manage and prepare

Just because the call is virtual not face to face, doesn’t mean you should skip the preparation. If anything, preparation becomes even more important.

Ensure the meeting is in the diary with the correct virtual meeting information. Test this if you are at all unsure or if you’re using a new piece of software. There’s nothing worse than falling at the first hurdle and not being able to connect together.

Then think about background noise and background appearance. Important both in the office and when working at home. You need to be able to have a clear conversation without being distracted by extremely loud noise or something peculiar lurking in the background. This can’t always be avoided – if you’re currently isolated at home with your family people understand a little background noise, but if you can prepare to be furthest possible away from this or pre-warn at the beginning of the call, then this is likely to be easier to manage if any background noise is heard.

Avoid distractions

We’ve all done it in virtual meetings – you’re completely focused on what your prospect or client is saying but then an email flashes up or you receive an instant message from a member of your team, and suddenly you’re distracted. You didn’t mean to be, but it was that easy. You’ve then missed what your prospect or client has said, you need to stay composed as you’re on camera, but you need to ensure that you are up to date with the conversation. It’s easily done but can cost you a lot, in some cases even the sale if you’ve missed something vital.

Help yourself to avoid distractions in the first place. Turn off your email notifications, shut down your team instant messenger and only leave open what is required for the call so that you minimise the chances of this happening to you.

Accept the differences to your sales process

If you need to make changes to your sales process to shift to only virtual meetings instead of a mixture of virtual and face to face, accept it. This will change the sales process. For some it may change it for the better – you may see people making decisions quicker, as you can get multiple stakeholders on to virtual calls quicker, travel doesn’t have to be arranged and therefore your process becomes shorter. For others being unable to accommodate face to face meetings right now may extend your pipeline if your prospect simply isn’t happy to commit until they’ve physically met you or viewed your operations.

Either way it is about adapting to make the most of your sales opportunities. Is there the option for the prospect to virtually meet your team rather than physically? Does that get over a barrier? Do you have a video of your office or a virtual walk through that you could provide in the meantime to give them the taster of the operations that they request? It’s about adapting to how you can make the most out of virtual meetings, email communication and telephone calls so the prospect is fully informed, comfortable with the options available to them and heading towards the next steps.

If you’d like to hear more about virtual sales success get in touch today or call us on 0345 241 3038. Or hear more from our existing customers h ere.

Category: Blog