Prospecting. If you work in sales, you have to do it. And you have to be good at it in order to meet quotas. In this course, we'll talk about how to effectively gather prospect information. The purpose of prospecting is to create a pipeline of qualified customers and potential customers. We'll discuss how to choose quality prospects. We'll also go over sourcing prospects and sorting their information. More prospects equals more sales, but this course is designed to ensure you're spending quality time on quality prospects.

Asking prospects questions is like mining for gold. You ask detailed questions and then dig and sift through the information to find what you're looking for: those gold nuggets of data that you can use to make a sale. You're burrowing down to find the true needs of the customer. Sure, it might be tedious, but with the right plan, can be smooth and painless. That's what this course is designed to help you with. We'll take you through some advanced questioning techniques to help you gain insight on the true needs of your prospects.

Obviously knowing your product is a must. However, the rules have changed in recent years, due to the availability of information online. Now your customers are researching YOU, so you have to be on your game and know your stuff. In this course, we'll go over what you need to know and how you should present that knowledge. We'll also cover available resources you should use to get fully up-to-speed on your product knowledge.

You want your presentations to dazzle. You want them to wow. You want them to be impactful. There is so much technology at your fingertips to help you with this, but it's not always the most reliable. Let's talk through some different media options available to you, and consider what back-up plans might be necessary to implement, should your technology fail. We'll also discuss some tips on what to present and how to present it.

In essence, the sales pipeline is the sum of all your client opportunities and a way of tracking where each of them is in the sales process. All of your sales opportunities lie somewhere along the pipeline, so in this course, we'll talk about how to create a pipeline and the best ways to manage it. We'll discuss tracking tools, making timely updates, maximizing productivity, checking the health of your pipeline, and monitoring metrics.

The sales funnel represents the steps your prospects go through, starting with their first awareness of your company and ending with a purchase. You start with a wide base of people, and the funnel narrows down your prospects with each step in the process. It's your job to set up your sales process to guide your prospects toward a closed deal, and maximize the number of prospects that make it to the bottom and become customers. In this course, we'll discuss the four steps of the sales funnel, going through some examples of what this looks like and how it applies to you.

Now that we've covered the sales funnel, we're going to flip it around and look at approaching it in the opposite way. Wait, what? How can that work? Well, rather than casting a wide net and narrowing down prospects until you get into sales, this method has you connecting with your current customers. You use them and their word of mouth to expand your sales opportunities. In this course, we'll talk about the rationale behind turning the funnel upside-down. We'll go over why this method may work for you, and the steps you should follow to flip the funnel successfully.

Metrics. Analytics. Numbers. Math. Blah. Yes, this is not the most fascinating stuff to most people. However, these numbers are how quotas are set. These numbers help companies determine whether or not employees receive raises. The use of analytics in sales allows you to provide better products and make offers customers are more likely to accept. Boring content? Perhaps. Directly impactful to your bank account? You bet. In this course, we'll discuss some of the many important analytics and key measurements that you can use to improve your sales process.

Marketing and sales must work together in order to be successful. Marketing must source prospects and lead them into the sales funnel, ultimately resulting in a sale for you. As a salesperson, you need to understand what marketing does, and how your two departments can work in tandem for the overall good. In this program, we'll talk about several common marketing tactics and how these apply to you and your role. We'll also go over the many ways that marketing and sales should be partnering to stay in alignment with their goals.

Social media networking is an inexpensive but super-effective way to interact with potential clients, and you don't even have to leave the office. In this course, we'll discuss using Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to connect with customers. We'll talk about how to create your business profiles, how often to update them, and what important information you should be sharing with your followers. We'll also go over things to avoid when it comes to social media networking.

"YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" Isn't that how it feels every time you try to make a sales call? It's the gatekeeper's job to keep salespeople like you out. It's your job to persuade them to let you through and give you access to the decision-makers, so you can sell. This program is all about how to get past the gatekeepers. We'll talk about the importance of getting to know these people. We'll go over the proper ways to communicate and how to gain important information from them. We'll also cover some tips on how to get around gatekeepers and reach decision-makers directly.

Leaving voicemails can be daunting at times, can't it? We stumble, we lose our train of thought, and sometimes we come off sounding like a goober. As a salesperson, you are often put through to voicemail, which makes your job that much more difficult. How do you leave a professional, polished voicemail that also generates interest and gets the client to call you back? That's what we'll explain in this course. We'll take you through a step-by-step process for how to leave sales voicemails. We'll talk about the proper format to use and go over some common pitfalls to avoid.