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Aligning Sales & Success

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Customer Success, a department that technically did not exist 10 years back. Then why do we need it now and why does this particular department matter in today's businesses? Especially SaaS, also, why is Sales and Customer Success a power couple? Let's further dive into these aspects of Customer Success! What is Customer Success? - Promise to Reality Customer Success is an aim, which is further departmentalized. We can further define, Customer Success as a set of processes created by highly empathetic people to make sure, a customer gets the best out of your product. In order to dive deeper into Customer Success, we will need to define "Success", which does differ from organization to organization. But, in general, there are two bifurcations to Success which can be a metric to the usability of the product. 1> Proactive Success 2> Reactive Success (Support) We will mainly talk about proactive success in this article. If the proactiveness towards customer success ...

The Chemistry of Sales

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  Is Sales an Art or Science? That's the first question that comes up in all of our minds. Selling is definitely an Art. But Art is an applied Science. If you ask me, then dressing up well and looking sharp on that product demo web session is an art, after and before that, everything that happens is pure science. Why is Sales considered to be scientific? In Chemistry, we all are aware of chemicals being mixed which further results in a chemical reaction resulting in a third chemical altogether or, of course, a big bang! The same idea is applied in Sales wherein:- Opportunity is Chem A that enters a flask of Sales and the result is Chem B or a closed-won/ lost opportunity. But, when we talk about the flask of Sales then that's a mystery and varies from org to org. Let's break down the flask of Sales here. As per this image, we can see that an opportunity was poured in the flask of Sales after which meeting 1 took place followed by meeting 2 which then resulted in calls/ emai...

Solution Selling helped me achieve 163% of our sales quota!

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  My experience with Solution Selling and how it helped us sail through the COVID-19 times! Smart buying is taking over in the 21st Century. We all have an amazing tool called the “Internet” that enlightens and guides us with unlimited knowledge at our fingertips, leading to better decision-making regarding problems' solutions. So, how does a Salesperson go ahead with Solution Sales in the first place?  — The answer to this is by probing! The more a Salesperson probes, the better chances he has to know the pain point (problem) that his prospect is facing. What’s Solution Selling? When it comes to Solution Sales as a Selling method, let’s read how Wikipedia explains it. As per  Wikipedia , “Solution selling is a  sales  methodology. Rather than just  promoting  an existing product, the  salesperson  focuses on the customer’s problems and addresses the issue with appropriate offerings (products and services). The problem resolution is what...

The four-letter code - BANT

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What's BANT? BANT is a sales qualification method. BANT stands for B = Budget, A = Authority, N = Need, T = Timeline. It was introduced by IBM to help it's Sales team identify if leads were Sales Qualified or not. Here's what the  IBM website  has to say. A brief about BANT Budget - Does your solution fit the budget of your prospect? On a Sales call, a metric to qualify a prospect by the means of knowing the budget of the prospect is crucial and helps a salesperson determine whether or not the prospect has the budget to buy your solution or product. 2. Authority - Is your prospect a decision maker/ stakeholder? A qualification metric that comes into purview under BANT, is to understand if the prospect is the decision-maker or not. 3. Need - Are you catering to the pain point of your prospect? This metric helps in understanding a prospect's pain points better, which then leads to  solution selling . 4. Time - How soon will the prospect actually give you a green flag? Kno...

Decoding Sales Management with Bhagavad Gita ๐Ÿ™

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  In today's time, looking at ambitious Sales targets, the Sales Managers tend to forget the basics of Sales Management which then leads to frustration and burnout among the team, which then promotes a negative environment at the workplace. So, let's start with the first question. What is Sales Management? Here's what Wikipedia has to say about  Sales Management Sales management is a business discipline that is focused on the practical application of sales techniques and the management of a firm's sales operations. It is an important business function as net sales through the sale of products and services and resulting profit drive most commercial business. These are also typically the goals and performance indicators of sales management. What is Bhagavad Gita? Now, let's decode that with Bhagavad Gita. But for folks who are new to Hindu Religion, the meaning of the  Bhagavad Gita  is as under as per Wikipedia. The  Bhagavad Gita  ( /หŒbสŒษกษ™vษ™d หˆษกiหtษ‘ห,...