Considered one of the most challenging professions, the sales profession is known for sales reps striving to meet their targets. The key to success in the sales profession is recognising the various challenges and innovative ways to tackle them.
We have identified the common problems facing sales reps and ways to tackle them;

1. Getting a response from the prospect:
After interacting with interested prospects, most are unresponsive. Despite all the communication systems available thanks to technology, they do not get back to sales reps which unmotivated most of them. The mistake the sales rep makes here is abandoning them and looking for new prospects after a short period.

Solution

• –  Use different channels to connect with your prospect apart from the regular mails in a professional manner.
• –  Use videos to reach out to your leads; this is commonly known as video prospecting. This would help distinguish you from other sales reps.
• –  Follow up consistently without giving up and use interesting email subject lines to draw their attention.
• –  Automated tools like HubSpot, Conversica, and Salesforce can be used to make reps concentrate on prospects who are ready while strengthening the relationship they have with those in the background.

2. Standing apart from other competitors

How can a sales rep be distinguished from other competitors? The sales market has become a rowdy place as everyone is trying to get leads at ski costs including giving large discounts, giving freebies, and more, all of which can sabotage your chance with businesses who find their service cheaper or favorable.

Solution

• –  The best way to stand out is to show that you have the prospects’ interest at heart and evidence that you give your prospects a remarkable sales experience.
• –  Carry out detailed research on your competitors and note their strengths and weaknesses. During negotiations, if it is brought up, mention what makes you stand out.

3. Finding qualified leads
Trying to sell leads that are not qualified is a waste of time. It is important to focus on the right leads as they come through and answer questions such as; How do we define a qualified lead? What are our best lead sources? What new lead sources can we tap into?.

Solution
– Explore online lead sources, such as Inside View, ZoomInfo, Hoovers, Jigsaw,

LeadDogs.

• –  Explore outsourcing lead qualification. Check out, InsideSales, and ConnectAndSell.
• –  Understand what your ideal lead looks like by building buyer profiles. Compare your leads to the profiles you’ve built to see if they match. If not, move on.

4. Sales reps Training
This is one of the reasons why sales reps get low sales. Most organisations fail to train their sales reps and expect them to meet huge targets at the end of the month or year.

Solution

• –  Survey the areas where training is required and train them.
• –  Invite them for webinars to learn from industry experts.

5. Fewer staff members to help hit sales targets
In many companies, only a few sales reps help hit sales targets while others barely meet the target set. Here, questions such as how can we improve our sales support? What are the underserved needs of our sales team? needs to be answered.

Solution

• –  Invest more time in training sales support.
• –  Streamline the sales process. Create better metrics to understand what drives productivity. –

6. No set time for prospecting
Prospecting is one of the most important things to do to get a huge amount of sales. Most sales reps think that they are too busy to dedicate time to prospecting. Prospecting opens doors to beneficial opportunities and long-lasting relationships with customers.

Solution

• –  Set a time frame to make calls every day.
• –  Do ignore calls or emails from people who make enquiries.

7. Moving on after getting negative feedback or criticism:
Hearing NO from prospects can be discouraging but that does not mean one should give up. Giving up every time would do more harm to your sales target at the end of the day.

Solution

• –  Prepare with a professional or senior on how to handle rejections ahead of your sales call.
• –  Prepare a good response when you have been criticized or rejected.

8. Incapability to follow up and track deals
Because of the way the sales market is built, in many cases, sales reps make deals without following up on it. Many customers make contact only to find that the sales team never returns their call. Tracking and following up on deals and prospects is the key to getting the quality of all other efforts invested.

Solution

• –  Most companies double follow-up rates and quicken the time it all takes by implementing a modern customer relationship management (CRM) system.
• –  The CRM allows you to divide and prioritize high-value deals and gives you a clear picture of each stage the deal is at.

9. Prospects are asking unexpected questions;

Prospects now have access to information and are updated on market trends. Most sales reps become tongue-tied which discourages prospects most times.

Solution

–  Go through each of the prospect personas with the marketing team to have a better understanding of where they are coming from.

–  Develop an internal knowledge base and prepare a list of possible questions and answers.

10. Post sale relationship with prospects
Apart from making sales and meeting targets, sales reps must build trust and rapport with their prospects. It is not nice to leave customers feeling abandoned after a sale. Solution

– Stay in touch after business and send regular professional mails.

Sales problems come in different forms but they can be tackled using the right sales technique. Develop sales reports to know where you made mistakes and how to improve on those mistakes.
The mantra is to identify your mistakes, improve and keep going!!!!