Relying on Sales Experience Alone? You Don’t Have To

Experience is often the difference between finalizing a sale and losing a prospect. Salespeople have the skills to read body language, emotionally connect with leads, and entice businesses to purchase their products. Using quick-thinking sales techniques can feel rewarding, but it’s also possible your salespeople are missing out on amazing opportunities for your business by relying on experience alone. Sales technology and data helps businesses improve their numbers by uncovering the best places to focus their selling efforts and make their sales experience and skills that much more effective.

Is Data Really That Helpful To Sales Experience?

Sales experience is crucial to a sales team and data will never replace the human element of making a sale to a prospect. But it’s also important to understand the role that data can play in your business and sales department. Data provides businesses with more opportunities to build relationships, finalize purchases, and decrease the number of missed sales.

Really, data just heightens the effectiveness of sales skills and experience. It gives businesses and salespeople an advantage over their competitors. It also helps them get to know their customers and understand what they’re looking for. So, yes, sales data really is that helpful to your business, and when paired with sales experience it can ensure you stay competitive in the marketplace.

Types of Sales Data

Here are some common types of data that companies use to improve their sales department:

  • Consumer Information: Businesses can use sales technology to uncover information on specific potential customers. That includes things like what brands they prefer to buy, how to contact them, and if they’ve visited your website.
  • Buying Habits: Sales data can also reveal the buying habits of your leads. That includes brand loyalty, as well as their purchasing patterns, so you can know when they’re likely to buy again.
  • Emerging Markets: Using technology and software companies can see current trends in the market and hotspots in their local areas. This helps predict buying patterns and uncover untapped markets, so they can get ahead of the competition.

How To Use Sales Experience and Sales Data Together

Here is a list of steps to help you combine your sales experience with expert data:

1. Learn What’s Out There

It’s important to understand what types of software and tools are out there for your sales team. From customer relationship management (CRM) tools to data research and analysis, take a little time to learn what’s available and what might pair best with your business’s goals.

Want a breakdown of sales technology your competitors are using? Take a look at this article we wrote on the different types of sales technology and how they can benefit your business.

2. See Where Your Sales are Failing

Are you constantly selling to people who don’t want the brands you offer? Are you approaching prospects at the wrong time? It wasn’t lack of skill or experience that made you miss out on those sales – it was your lack of information. Knowing which data you could’ve used in the moment can help you fill those gaps and close sales you might’ve lost otherwise.

For example, if you’re constantly approaching buyers at the wrong time, you can use sales technology, like our data product, EDA, to see what times during the year people tend to make new purchases. This helps you know when the best time to approach them is and what might interest them the most.

3. Start Small

Transitioning from sales experience alone to sales experience with technology and data might feel overwhelming. The software or tools you decide to use are going to have a lot of different features to help your sales department flourish. It doesn’t mean you have to use them all at once. Start by picking one major goal for your department that uses one or two features of the tool. 

For example, let’s say you want to find more prospects for your business. So, you use a geotargeting feature that finds new leads in your AOR and teaches you about their buying patterns. It’s okay to master certain functions of your sales technology before moving on to others. 

But when working with a company, like Randall Reilly, you don’t have to do it alone. We have a client success team that helps onboard our clients and get them integrated with our data products. We work with you to understand your goals and recommend the best tools and product features you can use to reach them.

mobile app and desktop displaying a data product