A good sales person uses every bit of information available to convert leads to happy clients. Therefore, one of the first steps in the sales process should be to listen and find areas where your service or product can help. When sales people want to be absolutely sure they can provide the best service for the prospect they rely on sales intelligence.
Sales intelligence refers to equipment and applications and that help analyze and present information that can be used by sales people when making decisions. This concept covers many aspects of decision-making, from how to approach a prospect, down to what a prospect’s revenue was the previous quarter. Most sales professional rely on sales intelligence daily, most without knowing it. A great example of this crucial part of the sales process was exemplified in NBC’s hit comedy, The Office.
Dunder Mifflin: Master of Sales
The Office is a mock-umentary style show depicting the everyday hustle and bustle of a branch for the fictional paper company, Dunder Mifflin. Throughout the life of the show, episodes depict the sales ineptitude of Michael Scott, regional manager of the branch. The audience has very little faith in the office’s sales ability, but in the episode entitled “Traveling Salesman” of Season 3, the team relies on Sales intelligence to lead a series of successful sales calls.
In the episode, each sales person in the branch pairs up for their onsite sales calls. As the teams travel to their respective prospects, the audience sees various forms of Sales intelligence at play.
Phyllis & Karen
The team of Phyllis and Karen practice a form of sales intelligence focused on their prospect’s personality and history. Phyllis is a sales veteran and has dealt with this client on previous occasions, while Karen is new to the relationship. Phyllis, aware of the client’s background and personality, takes Karen to a beauty shop for a rather gaudy makeover. Although Karen (and the audience) are confused, the ploy works. As the sales team leaves the office, a picture of the client’s wife reveals that she wears her hair and makeup in a similarly gaudy manner. By studying the client, Phyllis was able to assemble a sales pitch crafted specifically for the client; a crucial part of sales intelligence.
Jim & Dwight
Another sales team is made of two of the shows most beloved characters, Jim and Dwight. Relying on their sales intelligence, Jim and Dwight find a strategy of their own. The team is meeting with new prospects so it’s more difficult to craft a pitch tailored to each call. Rather, the pair discusses strategy and uses their personalities as their biggest asset. Sales intelligence includes using your own strengths to convey the most effective message. Jim’s straight-and-honest sales approach combined with Dwight’s aggressive, erratic tactics helps each client understand the value of Dunder Mifflin’s products. While different than the strategy of Phyllis and Karen, Jim and Dwight found sales success.
In both examples, the sales teams collected information before deciding on their approach for each call. It’s impossible to provide a script for each sales call a salesperson makes; each interaction with a prospect is different. That’s why it was important for each Dunder Mifflin team to collect information and make decisions and pro-actively present actionable, relevant information to each prospect.
The Importance of Sales Intelligence
The sales process is hard enough without a plan in place. Sales intelligence simplifies the sales process, identifying the best route to success. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) aids the sales intelligence data collection. By tracking the conversations held with clients throughout the pipeline, you are able to better address their needs and build a successful relationship.
High tech sales intelligence solutions are able to cross reference customer buying patterns and delivers opportunities to up-sell, cross-sell and switch-sell. Whatever sales process you are involved in, you should make sure sales intelligence is involved too.
You’re doing all the right things…you have a beautiful website, an SEO team and a well optimized Adwords campaign complemented by a social media presence…but you still aren’t getting the sales you want. So what’s the next step?
The Dreaded Cold Call:
could think about investing in a couple of capable computers for you and the family. There’s nothing like being able to actually see the look on your son’s face when he realizes you bought your grandson a drum set for Christmas.
Between your family, friends, work and a crippling addiction to ceramic Donald Duck figurines (or whatever) you have a lot on your plate. Make sure you don’t skip a beat by keeping it all organized with tech driven to do lists. Some of the best out there are 
The world likes to throw a million things at us everyday. It’s our task to sort them out by importance and deal with them accordingly but that’s not always as easy to do as it sounds. Take a minute and think about all of the activities we are involved in every week. Spending time with our family, household chores, errands that need to be ran, emails, phone calls, instant messages, Facebook statuses, TV, Internet, radio, iPods, YouTube, bosses, assistants, coworkers and friends all seem to be in an epic struggle for our attention.
Mom always said you are what you eat and that is especially true when it comes to workplace efficiency. If you eat poorly you’re going to have less concentration, energy and mental acuteness; in short you’re going to be a less productive worker.
The brain needs complex carbohydrates to perform well throughout the course of its hours spent awake. These long chains of sugar molecules break down slowly and as a consequence the brain will have a steady supply of energy. Fruit is a great source of these complex carbohydrates so a nice sized helping first thing in the morning will fuel you up properly. Later on in the morning a good dose of protein, like that found in a healthy cereal or multi-grain toast, will keep you fired up the right way.
Despite what we have been raised to think it’s actually better to eat a bigger lunch and smaller dinner. A well-balanced lunch of vegetables, fruits, healthy proteins and grains is the way to go. If you can squeeze in an egg or fish, you’ll be better off as well. They both have nutrients in them that are proven to increase your mental focus, a very helpful boost for the afternoon.
Like lunch, keep dinner nice and balanced but try to make it smaller than you think. Loading too much food into your stomach over the night hours will lead to your body turning a lot of that into fat. Don’t eat too close to bedtime and you’ll be doing very well when it comes to preparing your body for the coming day’s work.
In reality, delegation is a great way to empower employees, reduce stress and even save your company money. You can’t do everything yourself and if you try you will get stressed out and likely become an ineffective manager. By taking some of your tasks and spreading them around to your employees you will make the entire organization stronger and get a lot more done.
With so much stress in our day-to-day lives, it’s hard to find the time to exercise. Have you noticed a growing trend in workouts during work? Many people are taking up this new activity by burning calories while on the clock. They sit on an exercise ball so they constantly tone their abs while answering the phone, they use their breaks to exercise with resistance bands and probably run mini-marathons on their lunch breaks.