Selling is an activity that many entrepreneurs hate to do. People hate rejection and feeling as if they are forcing people to purchase their products or services. Sale’s is a mandatory process for building a successful business. If you ignore sales, you will not be in business for very long.
It is important that you understand what it takes to be successful at selling. Many times people give up on selling just because they are not closing with having one conversation. And this leads to the bad results most businesses produce when selling. If you understood that sale as a numbers game, and it takes time for people to make a purchase, you would create a system that enabled your business to experience consistent sales.
Before this can happen, you must understand the numbers behind sales. The following sales statistics will help you become a better seller, and substantially increase the money coming into your business.
1. 44% of sales people give up after one follow-up.
This number is far too high, which is why many businesses struggle to grow. Your salespeople need to be instructed that follow-up is the key to closing a sale. Let them know at least seven points of contact need to be made before giving up on a prospect. This number is far too high, which is why many businesses struggle to grow. Your salespeople need to be instructed that follow-up is the key to closing a sale. Let them know at least seven points of contact need to be made before giving up on a prospect.
2. The average sale person only makes 2 attempts to reach a prospect.
Your sales reps will try to contact the prospect with a phone call and email and move on if no responses happen for either. This cannot happen because you do not know a person’s schedule or preferred method of communication. Have your salespeople call in the morning and the afternoon, leaving a voicemail message each time. Also, send an email at least twice during the week, so that you give the prospect numerous times to respond to your attempts before finally giving up.
3. 80% of sales require 5 follow-up phone calls after the meeting.
Do not believe just because you had a good meeting that the sale is guaranteed, especially if the prospect has not signed an official contract and made a payment. Follow up with the prospect to see if they have any other questions that have not been answered. Pick their brain and provide them with information until they feel comfortable with closing the deal.
4. Research shows that 35-50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first.
When people are contacting a company about a product or service, they are a hot lead that wants to be sold to immediately. If you do not respond to their email or phone call immediately, but your competition does, they will steal that opportunity away from you. Communicate to your sales team that it is important they remain alert and respond to missed calls and emails within 30 minutes or less.
5. If you follow up with web leads within 5 minutes, you’re 9 times more likely to convert them.
Since the internet is instant, customers using the internet to make purchases want instant interaction. An inquiry about your product or service is usually an opportunity to make a sale immediately if you are able to communicate the value of your offer. This is why it is very important for your phone to be set to receive all online inquiries. You do not want to miss an opportunity because you were not on your computer to respond to the prospect.
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6. 63% of people requesting information on your company today will not purchase for at least three months – and 20% will take more than 12 months to buy.
This is especially true if you are dealing with B2B sales. Businesses tend to make purchases in a particular quarter when they have extra cash on hand or after a year when they have built up their cash reserves. This will be true for consumers if you are selling high priced items, such as a car or home improvement services.
7. Only 25% of leads are legitimate and should advance to sales.
You cannot expect to sell to everyone who you contact or who contacts your business. Some people are just fishing for information in-between considering other businesses. You should have qualifying questions that enable you to quickly gauge if a lead has serious potential to become a customer.
8. 50% of leads are qualified but not yet ready to buy.
Half of the leads require you to nurture them into a customer. This is done by sending them educational information about your products or service. Have them sign up to your newsletter, attend your webinars, and download your ebooks and case studies. Give them information overload so that they will feel educated enough to make the decision of becoming your customer.
9. Nurtured leads produce, on average, a 20% increase in sales opportunities versus non-nurtured leads.
Individuals who are educated about your products and services are more inclined to become a customer than those who are receiving a cold call or cold email. When trust has been built up through nurturing, a prospect feels as if they have weighed the pros and cons of making a purchase, and the benefits of the pros far outweigh the cons.
10. Companies that excel at lead nurturing have 9% more sales reps making quota.
When you train your sales team to educate during the selling process, they are more focused on gaining the prospect’s trust, rather than trying to push an immediate sale. This makes your salespeople less pushy and more consumer focused, which puts the prospect at ease when having conversations about making a purchase.
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11. Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads.
You cannot expect an individual to make an expensive purchase just because you communicate how great your product or service will be for them. When the prospect has been provided with extensive education about your products or services and they have seen actual results, they will want to make a larger purchase to receive far greater results.
12. At any given time, only 3% of your market is actively buying. 56% are not ready, 40% are poised to begin.
Sales is a numbers and patience game. Acquire as many leads as you can and nurture them through your sales funnel. Some prospects will be quicker to purchase than others. The key is to keep your pipeline full so that you can possess the opportunity to close sales frequently.
13. Companies that automate lead management see a 10% or greater increase in revenue in 6-9 months.
Your lead conversions are helped tremendously when you implement automated systems that nurture your leads every step of the way. This helps because you will not be available all the time to communicate with your leads. But they can follow directions that have been planned out to answer their questions and give them the option to make a purchase when ready.
14. Lead nurturing emails generate an 8% CTR compared to general email sends, which generate just a 3% CTR.
Your leads are more willing to click on your links when they have been provided with an email that communicates a specific problem and explains how a solution can be produced. This is far more effective than an email that just ask the prospect to make a purchase right away.
15. Lead nurturing emails get 4-10 times the response rate compared to standalone email blasts.
Your emails need to be focused on explaining the value that your product or service provides by demonstrating the results you have produced for your existing customers. These types of emails provide far better validation than emails that just tell people about your latest product or a special that you are offering.
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16. Businesses that use marketing automation to nurture prospects experience a 451% increase in qualified leads
You are given better-qualified leads when they have taken the time to go through the information you have provided to educate them. This will be your ebooks, webinars, and guides. After prospects have finished these materials, they are far more educated on what your business will provide for them. There is no need to educate them extensively over the phone or through email. Your automated marketing system has already done that job for you.
17. Companies that nurture leads make 50% more sales at a cost 33% less than non-nurtured leads.
It is far less expensive to nurture your leads with the systems you already have in place, than trying to do so through cold measures. A non-nurtured lead requires too much time on your part which takes away from you closing out leads who are ready to make a purchase.
18. 22% of B2B organizations touch leads with lead nurturing on a weekly basis.
The companies that produce the best sales results are those that consistently provide their leads with new nurturing information. The key is to remain in constant contact with your leads until they are converted into a customer. You never know when this conversion will take place so you want to keep the nurturing process occurring on a weekly basis.
19. 65% of B2B marketers have not established lead nurturing.
The reason many businesses have poor sale results is because they are not investing in nurturing systems. Therefore, their leads are not being given the proper information that provides them with the necessary education to make a purchase.
20. In a typical firm with 100-500 employees, an average of 7 people are involved in the most of the buying decision.
You have to find out who are the decision makers within an organization in order to make sales happen at a faster pace. When you have to go through people who can only relay your messages to management, who then has to relay the messages to decision makers, it slows the sales process down to a snail’s pace.
21. Nearly 2/3 of B2B marketers identified engaging key decision makers as their top challenge.
It can be very difficult to communicate with key decision makers because they are too heavily involved in the day-to-day of their business to engage in conversations that they deem as a waste of time. It is best to send a compelling email that warrants a response or try to find out the locations where these individuals frequent so that you can introduce yourself in person.
22. After a presentation, 63% of attendees remember stories. Only 5% remember statistics.
Statistics is boring information people want to see just to verify your sales and earnings, stories are what actually engage people and pull them into your business. Explain how your products or services have helped people by telling detailed stories from the beginning of the journey to the production of the solutions, your business provided. This emotional connection is far better for selling than depending on statistics that people will soon forget.
23. Visuals are processed 60,000x faster in the brain than text.
When making any sort of presentation, you will want to include as many images as possible and reduce the amount of text that people have to read. This is the art of storytelling. Explain the meaning of the images and how they connect wit your products or services in order to properly explain their value.
24. 70% of people make purchasing decisions to solve problems. 30% make decisions to gain something.
Solutions to problems are the main reason your prospects are focused on finding a business to service their needs. Therefore, you want to communicate how your products or services help people accomplish their goals, rather than focusing on features and pricing.
25. Customers believe that sales reps are 88% knowledgeable on product and only 24% are on business expertise.
Just because your sales reps know your product like the back of their hand, it does not impress customers. Customers want your sales reps to explain how your product will fit into their specific business and provide an immediate impact.
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26. 78% of decision makers polled have taken an appointment or attended an event that came from an email or cold call.
Face-to-face interaction is the preferred method for decision makers to make a decision.They must be able to look you in the eyes, see how you interact and test how deep your knowledge is about their particular business and industry. An eye test is a much better verification than just communicating through email and on the phone.
27. 95% of buyers chose a solution provider that “Provided them with ample content to help navigate through each stage of the buying process”
Remember that sales is an education process.You will have to provide prospects with a lot of content that demonstrates how you identify problems and create solutions to those problems. This helps prospects become familiar with your expertise and increasingly grow confident that you can provide them with quality results.
28. The best times to email prospects are 8am and 3pm.
You want to send an email during the time people tend to check their emails. These times are early in the morning before their day gets going, and later in the afternoon when their day starts to wind down. You are more likely to get an immediate response during these times before your email gets buried with the many other emails they have received during the day.
29. Tuesday emails have the highest open rate compared to other weekdays.
Mondays are when people are just starting their week, after Tuesday they are in the process of their week. Tuesday is the time of the week where people have a little room to breath before they become too busy to check emails that do not have immediate importance.
30. Personalized emails improve click-through rates by 14%, and conversion rates by 10%.
The best marketers include prospect’s names in their emails and speak about a specific problem the prospect is dealing with. They are able to key in on these problems by telling the prospect to subscribe to their email list if they would like solutions for a specific problem.
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31. Personalized emails including the recipient’s first name in the subject line have higher open rates.
When a person sees their name in the subject line, they believe that it is something of high importance that is being sent to them. Therefore, they are more likely to open your email and read through to learn why you are contacting them.
32. Relevant emails drive 18 times more revenue than broadcast emails.
You need to send emails that speak specifically to an issue your prospects are dealing with, rather than just making an announcement that does not really hold value for your prospects. Communicate how You need to send emails that speak specifically to an issue your prospects are dealing with, rather than just making an announcement that does not really hold value for your prospects. Communicate how the product can help make them more money, grow their business, or increase their productivity. Let it be known what is in it for them.
34. An average buyer gets 100+ emails a day, opens just 23%, and clicks on just 2% of them.
Your email is competing with so many other emails, making it important that yours stands out from the rest in order to be opened. Once opened, your email needs to provide key information that entices the buyer to click on your call-to-action so that they can be pushed through your sales funnel.
35. 40% of emails are opened on mobile first – where the average mobile screen can only fit 4-7 words max.
Immediately start with the most important information first within your email. Due to the limited spacing provided on mobile screens and the short attention spans of people, you want to be able to catch their attention immediately before they choose to close your email.
36. 33% of email recipients open emails based on subject line alone.
Provide a compelling subject line that entices an individual to open your email. This needs to be a subject that speaks directly to them, communicating that you are providing them with the information they cannot ignore.
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37. Subject lines that create a sense of urgency and exclusivity can give a 22% higher open rate.
State that the receiver needs to open the email immediately in order to not miss out on a great offer. When people are put under deadlines, they feel more compelled to see if your email is actually worth the urgency being implied.
38. For B2B companies, subject lines that contained the words “alert” and “breaking” perform well.
Businesses always want to be on the receiving end of news that can put them ahead of their competition. If you are letting it be known that you can create an advantage for the recipient, they will want to look into the information you are presenting them with.
39.Subject lines with more than 3 words experience a drop in open rate by over 60%.
You must catch the reader’s attention immediately with as few words as possible. You do not want to distract from the message by over complicating it with too many words. Get to the point and let the body of the email explain the subject further.
40.Emails with “Free” in the subject line were opened 10% more than those without.
Stating that your email is offering something free for the recipient entices them to open your email. People do not usually pass up anything that is being offered to them for free.
41.Only 2% of cold calls result in an appointment.
Cold calls are difficult to convert into appointments because no prior communication has been established to form a connection. It is best to create a warm lead by sending an email or social media message asking for an appointment to make a call.
42. On the phone, done is 86% of our communication. Words we actually use are only 14% of our communication.
Prospects need to hear confidence in your voice when speaking to you. It has to be made clear that you believe in your product or service, and that you know you can lead the prospect to a solution that is needed.
After reading these statistics do you believe that you need to work on your sales process? Yes, is most likely your response. Take this information provided and compare it to your own sales. Find where you fall short and work to improve your performance.
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