Hiring and training a great sales team is crucial to growing your business. I started out as a marketing consultant 15 years ago.
I had to go around and try to sell the internet, not just marketing. What could be more difficult than convincing people that they need something before it exists?
At this large organization, 150+ people were selling over a million dollars each. It was during this time that I quickly learned how Video Case Stories can help you get your message across in an engaging way.
Since then I've learned how to use them to hire, train, and empower salespeople. In this article, I’m going to talk about the problems I saw and the keys to hiring and training the best salespeople, and the tactics of the best salespeople I’ve ever seen.
Hiring Great Salespeople
Hiring good salespeople is always difficult because you never know how they'll turn out.
It's like a crapshoot with the future of your company on the line and most likely, your ads for these positions are generic in order to find those skilled employees who will be up-to-par as soon as possible.
A lot of companies base their hiring efforts on metrics alone, but is that the best way to go about it? Focusing only on these numbers and by using buzzwords like "fast-moving dynamic startup with a competitive edge," your company's going to attract sharks.
You don’t want sharks. You want people that are going to work hard, feel rewarded by helping others, and want to make money but also work with great people.
So you want them to see your Video Case Stories. See how you help people.
I can always tell I'm hiring good people because they refer to how we help people. They’ve watched our stories.
Train Your Digital Agency Sales Team
Sales 101: It's important to provide your new salespeople with the right training so that their performance doesn't suffer.
When you get new salespeople, it's important to find a balance between product or system training and providing enough time for them to make mistakes so they can learn from their experiences.
You can spend all day on product training for your salespeople. You can give them fancy credentials and brochures, but then what?
I’ve grown our company without most of that.
Here’s what your salespeople need to know:
Salespeople need to know your customers' situations. They need to know your prospects' daily life, their struggles, what they’ve tried before, what’s worked and what hasn’t.
They need to know how your prospects talk. They need to know their lingo.
Your salesperson needs to know the problems and the desires of your prospects.
Your salesperson needs to know how you’ve succeeded in overcoming the latter and gaining the former.
Your salesperson needs to know the objections, both internal and external. “It’s too expensive,” is an internal objection.
Your salesperson needs to be able to demonstrate REAL RESULTS for someone exactly like your prospects.
That's it.
Case Stories can help them to do all of that. If your prospect has a technical question, the sales team can always bring on a technical person.
Case stories help your salesperson get into your prospect’s mind, and have the tools to guide them to know why it's best to work with you.
Empower Your Digital Agency Sales Team
Door-to-door selling sucks.
I know, because it's something that happens a lot less these days than before, but still remains an effective way to build relationships between people and the brand they're representing. The only problem is if you don't have much recognition or relationship with your customer beforehand--you might end up feeling really dejected afterward!
Stories, not testimonials, are a great way to help someone. This is because they show them that someone like themselves, with the problems they have, can get results.
Putting those stories in your salesperson’s pockets is invaluable.
Turning them into videos makes them even more believable, and also does all of the magical things video can do to the brain.
Motivate Your Digital Agency Sales Team
Salespeople should be compassionate. This means they want to understand, stay centered, and know that if they can help then there's nothing more important than listening.
A confident sales team is critical to sales. In order for them to be confident, great salespeople need to see that you are delivering results. This confidence will lead to stronger salespeople working harder and happy to do so.
Salespeople can feel the pressure to close deals. But, what some of them forget is that their work has an impact on people's lives.
Great case stories are a great reminder—they show us the pain, but also show us the path to a solution, not just the outcome.
They help salespeople to have compassion. When a salesperson feels things aren’t working, he can watch these videos to remind him of the great things he’s done.
Yes, they should be hungry for sales, but the best salespeople are hungry to help.
Sales isn’t about “closing” it’s about, it’s about helping someone make a purchasing decision.
The Keys to a Great Digital Agency Sales Team
There's no doubt that video case stories have become the most powerful way to train and empower sales teams. If you're struggling with how to grow and scale your digital agency with video, then we can help.
Download the Free Guide to learn how video case stories can not only impact your sales team, but also your operations, your client retention, and more!
Want to know how to create these videos for your sales team? We’ve got the answer!
