Solutions to Overcome the Challenges Faced by Sales Professionals

As a sales professional you tried to do all that you could, to achieve your sales target

• Extended working hours for closing a deal
• Worked on weekends to meet the prospects at their convenient time
• Gave up your sleep to follow up with prospects in different time zone

Despite the strenuous efforts and incessant sacrifices you only got unanswered calls, ignored emails and negative responses.

Well, you are not alone, most of the sales professionals are stuck in this vicious circle of disappointments.

Sales reps are plagued with various obstacles that show up on their way to success and hinders their growth. However, they tend to ignore the problems which add up to the ultimate disappointment.

“The only “Problem” we really have is we think we’re not supposed to have problems! Problems call us to higher level-face & solve them now!” — Tony Robbins

With an aim of finding a solution to the issues sales professionals face, our sales team convened and discussed the challenges they encounter while selling.

After comprehensive discussions and sharing of views by the seniors holding expertise in this field, we came up with a list of top challenges sales reps face and the solutions.

Challenge one — Competing with lower-priced competitors

The most common selling strategy used by competitors for excelling in the market is to drop the price. Beating the low ballers might seem difficult for the sales professionals but it isn’t impossible.

Solutions-

“Find areas where you compete favorably and put up a comparison chart on your website. Be explicit — assume that your customers know about your competitors.” ~ John Rood, Next Step Test Preparation

• Some customers don’t mind spending if they get value for the dollars spent. So, try to display the value of your product through case studies, white papers and customer testimonials.
• Educate your potential buyers about the quality and benefits of the product through seminar, demonstration and blogs.
• Identify and convey your USP (unique selling proposition) to the prospects.

Challenge two — Prospects stop responding

After first few interactions, most of the sales reps witness a drop in response rate. At this point, sales reps either ignore the deal or waste time worrying about the reason for the prospect being unresponsive.

Solutions-

• Build curiosity with a compelling subject line.
• Strike a conversation with someone else from the company.
• Explore various contact hours. Call or email your prospect at different timings of the day.

Challenge three — Long sales cycle

There are fewer chances of converting a deal into sales when they are stuck in the pipeline for a longer time. Therefore, it is one of the major concerns for the sales reps as it affects their conversion ratio.

Solutions-

• Prepare an impactful selling proposition.
• Increase your rate of contact.
• Scrutinize deals in the pipeline on a regular basis.
• Follow-up on time.
• Improve prospect engagement.
• Track your sales data.

Challenge four — Absence of interaction opportunity with decision makers

Sales reps are unable to dodge the gatekeepers for presenting their solution in front of a high-level decision makers who have the purchasing power. As per a research, 60% of a salesperson’s time is spent in front of people who will not, or cannot buy their product or service.

Solutions-

• Don’t give up and be confident to connect with the person who has the final say.
• Present the benefits of involving the decision maker in the discussion.
• Impress the initial contact with the knowledge about the decision maker, his company and its operational issues.

Challenge five — Lack of focus on sales due to extra administrative tasks

Sales reps are loaded with the burden of extra administrative activities that consumes their precious hours and affects their sales performance. Sales reps only spend 36.6% of time actually selling.

Solutions-

• Use a sales automation tool to set workflows and automate most of the repetitive tasks.
• Try finding meaning in each task and set a time limit.
• Request the management to hire a sales support personnel.
• Create documents like brochures, business cards, flyers and case studies in seconds using free sales templates and save valuable time.

Challenge six — Incapability to track prospect activities

Lack of visibility into prospect activities leads to loss of opportunity. Sales reps are even unable to notice low-quality deals that consume their precious time which they could have spent on high potential deals.

Solutions-

Implement a CRM software. It will-

• Provide insights about email engagement (clicked, opened and read rate)
• Keep you updated with each activity of the deal.
• Notify you when a deal is inactive for a long time.
• Help you in viewing all the interaction with the deal through activity timeline.

Challenge seven — Dealing with prospect trust issues

Prospects won’t invest in your product till you don’t win their trust. Moreover, gaining their trust is not an easy task, as they might have encountered companies that gave false expectations and failed to provide value.

Solutions-

• Listen to them and understand their business pain points.
• Try giving a solution to their issue rather than just selling your product/service.
• Respond to their queries in real-time.
• Present customer testimonial to show credibility.

Challenge eight — Meeting management’s expectation

Sales reps sometimes get anxious when it comes to fulfilling management’s sales expectation. They feel pressured and it sometimes affects their performance.

Solutions-

• Don’t panic, stay calm even when sales are down.
• Through reports of sales, pipeline and other outbound activities try to explain the reason for low sales.
• Track your performance to understand where are you going wrong.
• Identify the areas of improvements and work on it.

To conclude

Sales is a challenging job but has abundant opportunities. It is all about identifying and tackling the obstacles on your way to success. We tried identifying some and listed it with the solutions, hopefully it will help you in addressing some of your sales barriers.

If, as a sales professional you have been facing any of the eight challenges mentioned in the blog then I would suggest you go and explore a sales CRM software.

We welcome you to Salesmate! 🙂 A subtle yet systematic and intuitive sales intelligence-based CRM that provides high quality service without blowing a hole in your budget. Want to know more? Start a free 15-day trial, today!