Sales are the center of every business. No matter how great the product/service, the sales department plays a vital role in the success.
The first round of customer interaction happens with the sales development rep. Sales development representatives need to be those high energetic, optimistic people with excellent communication, negotiations, and results-driven sales skills.
10 Must-have Skills Every Sales Development Rep Needs in 2021
1 . Prospecting through video clips
3. Listening skills and adaptability
The ever-changing business world is challenging enough for a sales development rep; add to it the recent pandemic scenario selling could require quite a bit of learning and unlearning to achieve the desired success.
Role of a sales development representative
Lead generation as a first step of the sales funnel, researching potential clients, educating potential customers, and qualifying the leads for final closure are a few roles handled by the sales development representative.
Conducting extensive research, understanding the potential leads’ demography, and utilizing their knowledge on the product/ service to clear any queries of potential leads are some of the responsibilities handled by the sales development representatives.
Pandemic or not, the role of a sales development rep can be pretty challenging. With growing digitalization at every step of the business, a sales development rep must stay miles ahead of his/ her potential leads to ensure they get converted into existing customers.
A few skills that every sales development rep is required to ace in 2021 to ensure success:
1 . Prospecting through video clips
Sending a short and crisp video to a potential lead is the most popular sales hack in recent times.
While it does not consume a lot of time like a zoom call or a video conference, the short video clip ensures a potential lead’s undivided attention. There are tons of tools available in the market that enables sales teams to create informational and stunning prospecting videos.
The best part about these video-creating tools is that they do not need the sales development rep to be tech wizards. A series of short videos for various sales conversion steps will help convert sales leads and enable efficient workflow.
2. Importance of outreach
Numbers are significant in sales. The more the numbers, the merrier it is. However, sales development reps worldwide are slowly realizing the importance of spending more time with prospects and the outreach techniques. Allocating time-based on the lead quality enables a sales development rep to practice and better utilize their time and skills.
Spending more time with prospective leads also offers more information and understanding of their challenges and other bottlenecks, making it easy to convert them.
3. Listening skills and adaptability
One of the most crucial characteristics of a sales development rep is excellent listening skills. The better they are at listening to their prospective leads, the easier it is for them to convert them.
Genuine interaction, active listening, and adapting to the prospective lead’s thinking are crucial to succeeding.
4. Follow-up
Not all calls are successful when connecting to a prospect. Leaving a voicemail or a message is the next best option. The lack of revert from the prospects means the voicemail/ message was not the best one.
A crisp, easily understandable, and the clear message plays a vital role in converting prospects, or they may end up with a diminishing number of conversions.
5. Overcoming Objections
Resistance is common when a sales development rep approaches the prospect. Whether it is to the whole idea of buying or due to the high price of the product/ service, sales development reps should brace themselves for resistance.
Up to 35% of sales development reps mention that price is one of them’s top challenges.
It is best to learn from one failed attempt to another, not to lose confidence, and try to find ways to address the issues that are the best solution.
6. Coaching and resilience
Every sales development rep needs to be aware of their strengths and weaknesses. Drawing strategies based on rejections and building leads based on the strengths is the best way of managing those initial calls.
Self-awareness enables sales development reps to prepare for any setbacks, reflect, and accept any constructive feedback.
7. Result-driven
Storytelling is an excellent way of selling. Stating figures and facts works in favor of the sales development rep too. However, irrespective of which techniques are used, focusing on the result is vital.
Driving the calls/discussions towards the funnel’s next step ensures an efficient flow and increased numbers.
8. Persistence
Prospects are busy and disinterested. It is the art of pitching and persistence that leads to a successful conversion. It can be pretty tricky to persuade without sounding pushy.
However, it is vital to stay focused and ensure the sales numbers do not slump.
Statistics suggest that 40% of the sales development rep’s time is spent searching for data to find prospects to call.
9. Relationship building
The first and foremost thing that a sales development rep has to do is build a solid relationship with the prospect. Whether through virtual meetings, emails, phone calls, or messages, offering helpful information, resolving any issues/ doubts, suggesting options, or simply staying in touch with the prospect.
Building a solid relationship enables conversion, but it also helps retain the existing customers.
10. Empathy
A successful sales development rep will always get in the prospect’s skin, better understand their issues, and offer suitable solutions without making it sound like a sales pitch.
Sometimes putting themselves in the shoes of their prospect enables them to understand the challenges better.
Conclusion
Selling can be tricky. It requires a sales development rep to wear many hats to ensure prospective leads are successfully converted. Inside Sales conducted a recent study as per which it requires up to twelve call attempts to ensure a conversion.
It means a sales development rep making twelve attempts is at least 16% more successful than their peers. Good communication, storytelling, persistence, empathy, attentiveness, and utilizing technology are some of the top skills that set a successful sales development rep apart from the others.
Using short video clips, constant learning, pre-styled templates, tools, data, and objections handling skills can go a long way in converting. Thanks to technology, sales development rep teams can create pipelines, build relationships, create demo videos, streamlining sales processes and sales reporting in a few clicks.
The exact process would previously take unproductive hours. Technology coupled with a savvy sales development rep is a sure-shot way of improving sales conversions.
