Sales - Artificial Intelligence Reveals: That makes you better salespeople
What is the difference between an average salesperson and a cannon that manages to meet all the targets and bring amazing results? An automated system for sales call analysis using artificial intelligence has assembled 3 very distinct characteristics that are shared by each successful salesperson.
Salespeople invest a great deal of effort in trying to create open communication, security, and reliability in conversations with potential customers, in order to understand them and thus increase the chances of selling, while creating a successful shopping experience for them. However, not all salespeople are able to consistently meet sales targets.
Experienced sales managers can point to general characteristics that separate excellent salesmen from lesser-known representatives, but it has been difficult to quantify these differences. Using the artificial intelligence platform developed by "Chorus", it is possible to first test thousands of sales calls automatically and understand what successful sales representatives do differently from less successful representatives.
While it is easy to distinguish between good sales representatives and less successful representatives based on their sales results, it is very difficult to understand exactly what they are doing otherwise. The company used the engine to analyze over 950,000 business-to-business (B2B) calls to expose some of these distinctive patterns. The technology transcribes, analyzes and summarizes calls automatically, and compares the data to the information collected on the transaction results (through Salesforce) to generate insights. This process of sales call analysis can help sales managers better understand how to educate their sales representatives, increase success rates, and overwhelm risky transactions.
Three main characteristics emerged from the study, which consistently distinguishes between successful salespeople and all
others:
1. Successful salespeople do not say beyond what is required
Successful salespeople are characterized by much shorter "speeches" to their potential customers. On average they speak 45 seconds at a time and rarely talk more than a minute in a row. In comparison, other sales representatives often talk for two minutes or more.
A concise answer or explanation attests to familiarity and expertise. Maintaining a summary of the explanations and answers allows potential customers to raise the issues that are important to them and to discuss the next steps.
For salespeople who start long monologues, it is recommended to write in advance the message and the answers to the questions that repeat themselves. Another possibility is to learn directly from successful salespeople by listening to recordings or reading transcripts to learn how they coped with those challenging questions. To facilitate the process, the "Chorus" platform identifies questions and enables a targeted search that saves attention to the whole conversation.
2. Great salespeople ask specific and precise questions
Asking great questions is an art, and this is one of the most important skills to develop as a sales representative. From the analysis, the company identified sales representatives asking about 10 to 15 questions on average before the demo. In other words, you may only have 10-15 questions before a potential customer will see a demonstration that is supposed to build your credibility, meet customer expectations, and flood information that will link the demo to the important issues for your customer.
The information also revealed something very important about the pace at which sales representatives asked the questions. Successful sales representatives seldom ask more than a question or two per minute, while lower-performing representatives may ask questions at a rate of 3 to 5 times that, which may be counterproductive. Displaying two or three questions in a row before the potential buyer has an opportunity to answer may confuse him or prevent him from answering an important question. Other times this may be a series of short questions with a predefined response, which may give the customer a similar feeling to the investigation.
Comprehensive analysis reveals what you may already have guessed - the salespeople are the ones who know how to listen well. Outstanding sellers carefully select their questions, listen actively, and allow answers to guide their decision whether to ask further. Chorus.ai's Artificial Intelligence also identified the types of questions that lead to greater customer involvement in the sales process. Not surprisingly, open-ended questions (eg, "Can you tell me more about your decision-making process?") Work well with potential customers when compared to closed, schematic questions ("Is it you who makes the decisions?").
So the next time you succeed in getting the customer to open up, try to remember exactly what you asked, and write down the words. Within a few weeks, you will have a list of 10 winning questions of your own.
The study found that the best sellers "pass" the call back to the customer more frequently than other sellers: 100-150 times on average during a demo conversation, compared to 50-75 times for less successful sellers. Successful sellers find ways to activate the customer through all stages of the conversation, including personal contact, preliminary questions, demonstration, and mutual agreement on the next steps.
Look for opportunities to check with the prospect about his condition, and see if the subject resonates with him. Try to avoid shallow questions that allow the potential customer to respond with a casual "yes" without delving into the conversation (for example, "Does this sound reasonable to you?").
True, technology cannot turn a sales representative into an outstanding salesman, but it can help us learn from the best and share their experience. There is no doubt that teams that create a culture of continuous learning and analyze insights through artificial intelligence will win the competition.
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