How To Improve Sales Team Close Rates

by Syrup | Jul 21, 2020

Ask them.

Yep. That’s it.

Some backstory:

There are several types of projects we get to work on within the walls of small companies – top of the funnel lead generation, CRM installation, drip/cultivate campaigns, etc – but one of my all-time favorites is found in the “Win” stage of our 7-step funnel.

“Win” is all about turning prospects into customers & on-boarding them well.

Inside that stage of the funnel, we have a project called “Sales Support Questionnaire.” This is the project/process we use to help identify opportunities for improving the close rate of prospects.

Well, to be honest, we aren’t the ones who “identify” them. It’s really those same folks on the front lines talking to prospects & customers most – your sales team.

It’s just that they aren’t often asked what’s working, what’s not, and where there are hangups. When you ask, listen, & record, you can spot trends. With those trends identified, you can then leverage the creative brainpower of Marketing & Sales combined to create tools to fix the issues.

Here are 5 questions to ask your sales team from that project that we’ve found useful in identifying & fixing close rates, and my hope is they will be helpful for you to use in your company as well.

1. List out your sales stages. Now, to the best of your ability, answer: What % of prospects make it out of that stage & into the next?

** It is often surprising how varied responses are here across team members. This can uncover process failure or lack of process.

2. What stage has the lowest %?

** Again, varied answers here are very common and enlightening. If answers are different, it can mean you have a team who isn’t communicating, sharing learnings, and helping the overall team win.

3. What are two common objections in that stage?

** The marketing team should love these answers as it should set them off on creating assets that address real-world issues!

4. What current tool is your “go-to” when meeting those objections?

** These are insights that can be shared across the whole sales team and can be scaled with processes and tools.

5. If you could create a sales tool or resource wishlist, what would be on it?

** Again, these folks are on the front lines. If we aren’t listening to what they think would be effective, we are letting marketing make up what they think people need, and that oftentimes leads to tools created that sales never uses.

So if you haven’t surveyed your sales team recently, or ever, no more excuses.

I’d love to hear what you find out!

Send me a message on LinkedIn here.