Need help in this hybrid sales environment?

Sales Expert Shari Levitin shares her wisdom with Owler

Shari Levitin: Sales Guru, Author, and Sales Training Expert sits down with us for an in-depth chat about driving sales performance, sales strategies, and she shares her sales tips

What are your top two tips for driving strong sales performance in a company?

Create a Culture of Learning and Development:

Stanford Business School professor Carol Dweck presents a powerful way of looking at success in her bestselling book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Dweck says that people have either one of two types of mindsets. The first group of people—people with a fixed mindset—believe that their qualities and abilities are static. People with growth mindsets, on the other hand, believe that their basic qualities "are things you can cultivate through toil and persistence." These people are energized by learning and invigorated by overcoming failure. While it's difficult today to attract and retain top talent, you can transform your business into one with top sales talent beating down your door! Employees today cite the ability to learn and grow as the key driver of where they work and how much effort they exert.

Start with the Customer:

 You can have the best product in the world, but how does it feel to buy from you? According to Gartner, eighty percent of customers will pay more for a better customer experience. In our live seminars, we conduct an exercise where I challenge salespeople with a question: "If you had to choose between competency (knowing your product), or empathy (knowing your customer), and you only get one, which one would you choose?" 

 The conversation is lively. Then I reveal it's a trick question. According to Harvard Business Review, they're both equally important. Empathy and competency make up 90 percent of persuasion. But, the order matters. Empathy gets you in the door. Competency, reliability, and integrity keep you there.  

 However, most people get it wrong. Too many companies lead by pitching their products rather than learning about the customer. Companies must map out the buyer's journey (not the seller's plan) and create memorable and value-driven interactions at each touchpoint. The true source of competitive differentiation in 2022 and beyond is customer experience. 

What strategies can you implement to drive higher sales during the hybrid sales environment that the pandemic has created?

Virtual selling is the new norm, but initiating sales conversations in a virtual environment is not simply doing what you're used to doing face to face in front of a webcam. To deliver skillful and efficient virtual sales conversations, sellers must embrace a new paradigm and let go of the old ways. The four major shifts include:

1. Adopt an Omnichannel Approach - It used to be we could simply call or email our customers. Today, we must meet customers where they are; this includes social media, texting, video, chat, and even snail mail if necessary. Leverage multiple communication channels in the sales process to ensure the highest probability of engaging a prospect, booking a meeting, gaining stakeholder consensus, and closing the deal. Here is an example that happened to me in my own buying process.

2. Establish Virtual Presence - When you figure out how to look good and sound good on video, everything changes. Customers are more receptive to you. They want to work with you. They trust you. Sales cycles speed up. Think about the very term virtual presence. How you look, sound, and come across is the cornerstone of trust in a virtual relationship. And this takes thoughtful preparation. Without a virtual presence, customers get distracted. It's challenging to hold their attention and build confidence. 

3. Create Engagement - Customer engagement is more difficult virtually. If your sales presentation lacks interactivity, prospects forget most of what you say. According to adult learning theory, people retain 10 percent of what they hear; 50 percent of what they see and hear; and 90 percent of what they say and do. What that means is that if you simply rattle off a sales pitch, your customer will forget 90 percent of it. When you turn on your camera and create inspiring visuals, you'll increase retention. However, you will increase your sales dramatically when customers also interact with you. This means using chat, polls, and screen sharing for virtual sellers. This means involving as many of the "five senses" as you can. 

4. Confirm Next Steps - The best advice I can offer for booking the next steps is to set the follow-up meeting during your initial meeting. My mentor used to call this Ham-Bam (Have a Meeting, Book a Meeting.) Save time at the end of each call to recap, take a temperature check and agree on the next steps. I can't tell you how many sales reps run out of time at the end and their virtual calls and then scramble their way through trying to book the next meeting only to be told: "we'll get back to you."

What is your greatest sales story?

 Within the first weeks of the pandemic, a year's worth of my live keynote speeches and seminars were suddenly canceled. I called our team together; we asked ourselves, "How will we replace this revenue?" With so much uncertainty, we were stymied. Then, we revisited our five core values: consumer centricity, empathy, creativity, positivity, and curiosity. We realized that we were asking the wrong question.

The last thing our clients were thinking about was "How can I spend more money?" This wasn't the time for an "ask"; after all, money follows the value, there are no shortcuts. So, we pivoted and asked, "How do we give our customers more value?" We contacted all of our customers over the next few days and offered our help. We facilitated free sessions and invited our customers to share new insights and best practices. We offered lunch-and­-learns with timely content.

Within a few short weeks, we learned that virtual workshops targeted at virtual selling skills were needed. We hired experts, took courses, and performed beta tests with our best clients. We created virtual shows complete with themes, contests, breakout rooms, collaboration, and real­ life case studies. The result? 2020 and 2021 resulted in a fifty percent increase in revenue and new product offerings that not only helped our clients through the pandemic but generated a new revenue stream for them that they will continue after the pandemic. Although the tools have changed, the customer's need for insights and connection remains the same. 

How did you get into sales, and what made you realize that you could help others reach new heights in their careers? 

Like most sellers, I didn't dream of becoming a salesperson when I grew up. In the summer after my senior year, I answered an ad in the paper for a sales position at Marriott. I was hooked! Then, I met the man who would become my mentor. Under his tutelage, I became the top salesperson in the company and was asked to train sellers in other locations. 

 A few years later, one of the sales leaders asked a group of sellers a hypothetical question: What would you do if you won the $35M lottery jackpot? One guy said he'd form an outdoor adventure company; another would buy a home in Paris. When it was my turn, I said, "I'd start a training company to help people transform to find their true passion in life." I looked around the circle at puzzled faces. 

 It was then that I realized my life purpose. I didn't need to win the lottery; I simply needed to formulate a plan. I started Levitin Group in 1997, and we became an international training company within three years. Today we work in over 40 countries on five continents, helping sales leaders "make the rest as good as the best." Through our proprietary tools and live and online workshops, I feel like I won the lottery!

Follow Shari on LinkedIn, where she delivers multiple short two-minute sales tip videos per week for free. 

Want more of Shari's tips: see her best-selling book here - or take self-paced online courses led by Shari on selling with empathy, virtual selling skills, and more of Shari's signature style: https://www.sharilevitin.com/universalsalesacademy/

Remember to replace the hard sell with the heart sell!

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