100 of Our Best Quick Sales Tips of the Day

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Have you seen our “Quick Sales Tips of the Day” on our social media feeds? They are by far some our most popular social media posts, especially on the B2B Sales Connections Linkedin Page.

In fact, we post so many sales tips of the day that we are often asked two things:

If I had to pick one sales tip that would have the most impact on results, what would it be?
- Here’s my answer to what is your best quick sales tip of the day.
Can you share more than one Quick Sales Tip of the Day at a time?
- By popular demand, now you can find more than 100 of our best Quick Sales Tips of the Day listed below.

The History of the B2B Sales Connections Quick Sales Tips of the Day

We first started publishing our sales tips back in 2008 in our monthly Aim Higher newsletter, and it quickly became one of the most popular sections of the newsletter. Then one of our subscribers wrote us and said, “… if sales folks would follow your “sales tip of the month” every day…their life would change”. So we then published our first 100 quick sales tips in an eBook.

Best Quick Sales Tips of the Day - Sales Coaching from B2B Sales Connections — Photo by Razvan Chisu on Unsplash

Shortly after our eBook was published, we started to receive requests about sharing our tips on social media. “Love your sales and sales management tips! Can you make them tweetable?” typs of requests.

It was then that we knew that one of the best ways we could help sales professionals sell more was to make our practical, bite-sized sales advice more accessible and publish them more frequently with the use of social media. And so the B2B Sales Connections Quick Sales Tips of the Day was born!

100 of the Best Sales Tips of the Day

So without further ado, in no particular order, here are more than 100 of the Best Sales Tips of the Day from B2B Sales Connections:

Answer new sales leads the same day they are received. You expect timely follow up. So do your prospects!
Never assume you know the solution. Your customer has to realize there is a problem first.
What is a customer worth to you? You need to know to ensure you have enough of them to reach your goals.
Improve your pre-qualification process to avoid wasting time preparing proposals for prospects who really won’t buy right now.
Take notes. First of all, no one can remember everything a prospect says. Secondly, you never know when you are going to need to refer to a past conversation with a prospect to help move the sale forward.
When making a presentation, the prospect doesn’t need to hear every benefit of your product, only the benefits that are important to their buying decision.
Stay in touch with your customers, even when everything is running smoothly. Remember, if you don’t take care of your customers, someone else will! Besides it’s a great time to ask for referrals when you do!
How much commission do you make per call? If you don’t know, then how do you know you are making enough to earn your income goals? Divide your sales results or earned commissions by the number of prospecting calls you complete. Instant motivation! (This is one of my favourite Quick Sales Tips of the Day.
People are used to poor follow up and lack of customer service. When you exceed their expectations, you set the bar higher than your competitors.
Using complicated technical terms and specifications is not only unnecessary, it actually does more to hurt the sale than to help it.
Carefully plan out what you are going to say before your next sales call. After all, even an Academy Award winning actor takes the time to rehearse his script before he can make it look natural when the cameras start to roll.
“How can I help you today?” is a great conversation starter for a new inbound lead.
Should you answer your cell phone in a sales call? Most people consider it rude if you let your phone ring, let alone answer it while you are in a meeting. To paraphrase an old saying, one face to face prospect is worth two on the smart phone!
Need to keep a mileage log? Most of us do. Simply enter your starting and ending odometer reading in your day timer or smart phone calendar each day. At the end of each week, month, or year, simply subtract the opening and closing mileage readings.
Not calling back when you said you would not only loses you trust, it could lose you the sale!
What is the next step to the sale and when exactly will it happen. If you don’t know, you are not yet finished your sales call!
Even if you have been selling for a long time, you can always upgrade your skills. If things didn’t change, we would all still be selling typewriters!
Studies show that 2 out of 3 sales are made to customers who have said no not once, but 5 times! Yet 75% of sales people give up after just the 1st or 2nd rejection. Don’t give up too early. Persistence pays off. (If you only take away one thing from all these Quick Sales Tips of the Day, let it be that consistent follow up is probably the biggest key to sales success.)
If you didn’t know the meaning of an abbreviation or acronym before joining your company chances are your prospect won’t either. When in doubt, don’t use the abbreviation!
Before you drop your price, ask the customer what they would like to remove from the package. Psychology proves that people would rather pay more than lose something they see as valuable to them.
Are you doing the same things over and over again? Automate routine tasks to free up more time for selling!
A prospect is not interested in your product pitch; they just want to solve their problem. So be sure to talk about solutions.
When you are introduced to someone, do you shorten their name? Do you say Tom when introduced to Thomas? Dave when introduced to David? Sue to Susan? Stop! Many people don’t like their names shortened without their permission. It is much safer to ask, “Do you prefer Tom or Thomas?” than to just assume.
Just like meetings with customers, schedule at least an hour of prospecting time in your calendar each day. Take out next week’s calendar and book it now. Then stick to it, no matter what!
Having trouble keeping all of your receipts you need for tax purposes organized? Create a file folder for each of expense category. Put your receipts in the appropriate file at the end of each day. When it comes time to submit your taxes at the end of the year, all the sorting is done!
If you sell a simple or transactional product where customers make buying decisions very quickly, don’t write the price on a brochure when the prospect asks for a quotation. Write it on an order form instead. Not only will this give the prospect the information he requested, but the sale will close much more quickly.
Don’t ever be afraid to make a mistake, just don’t make the same mistake twice.
Be excited. It’s contagious. If you don’t love your product, neither will your prospect.
Administering a follow up file or CRM system takes a daily commitment. Just make the choice not to leave the office until you have updated all your records.
Do what you say you are going to do, when you say you are going to do it. Breaking a commitment to a customer is worse than never having made the commitment in the first place.
According to the Kellogg School of Management, the best time to cold call is 8 and 9 am.
Tired of voicemail tag? Leave a detailed message on your first call. That way, if you are not available when your contact calls back, at least they can leave you the answer to your question on your voicemail.
Often the sale to be made today is agreeing to the next step in the process. Before you leave one appointment, schedule the next one.
You only get paid for the time you spend selling. Studies show that most sales people only spend 25% of their time on selling. Focus yourself on selling activities during peak selling times of the day, and non selling and administrative activities during the off hours.
Experience has shown that the other sales reps in the office will not buy from you! So don’t spend more time talking to them than you do potential customers!
Mistakes on sales orders waste time, money and can be embarrasing. Double checkyour paperwork before you visit the customer.
What are your distinct competitive advantages? You will drastically increase your chances of winning the sale when together you and your prospect identify problems that you can fix better than the competition can! What makes you different from your competition? If you have the only solution, then you are the cheapest price!
Name one thing you do better than your competition and you have the makings of a great prospecting headline!
Don’t jump to conclusions about the customer’s situation until you have listened to everything they have had to say. Listen carefully to the customer. Paraphrase their responses and asked them if you have understood. Take notes!
Are you doing the same things over and over again? Automating proposal templates, automatic price calculators, and email templates can free up more selling hours in your day. How much more could you sell if you freed up just an hour more per week to spend on selling?
Think sales reports or tracking daily activity doesn’t work? Try wearing a Fitbit!
Delegate non sales related activities like service calls and customer care inquires to those who specialize in them. For example, don’t place a service call for the customer, show them how to do it themselves. Remember, as a sales person, you are the quarterback of the team, you are not the whole team. The more time you spend selling, the more successful you will be.
Don’t automatically offer a discount when a customer asks for one. Justify your value first. Before you drop your price, ask the customer what they would like to remove from the package. Psychology proves that people would rather pay more than lose something they see as valuable to them.
Think back to the last sale you made. What industry does that company operate in? Perhaps other companies in that industry share the same problems. More importantly, perhaps they would share the same benefits from your solution. Why not pick up the phone and find out?
If you are not 10 minutes early for an appointment, you are 5 minutes late.
Do you know how many proposals you must present in order to make a sale? Then how do you know you made enough?
Top of mind awareness requires 7 touches per year. When was the last time you contacted your best customer?
Watch your prospect’s body language. When you see a questioning look or a look of surprise, stop and find out why.
Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want. Lose a sale? Ask yourself what did you learn from it.
Ask your best customer why they bought from you. It’s a great story to share with future prospects.
A customer complaint is just an opportunity for improvement in disguise. Fix the problem quickly and efficiently and the customer will be more loyal than if the problem never happened in the first place.
You should not add everyone you meet or every email address you find to your email newsletter list unless you receive permision first.
How often you contact a prospect depends where they are in their buying cycle. How often do your prospects buy your products? Not how often they use them, but how often they renegotiate for them. You use your car every day, but you only buy a new one every few years. Knowing where your targets are in their buying cycle means you are working with prospects when they are most likely to buy.
Need to create a sense of urgency when presenting your proposals? Be sure to put an expiry date on all of your written quotations. Remind the prospect of what he is losing if he waits to act until after the expiry date. Loss of a discount or added benefit can be very motivating to act now versus later.
If you are emailing back and forth with a customer or business associate and the subject matter of the email changes from the original topic, change the subject line to reflect it’s a new discussion.
If you read just 10 minutes a day on personal development, that equals more than 60 hours per year!
Do you regularly receive updates to important computer files like price lists? Add the date to the file name when you save it. That way, by checking the date before you save it, you will ensure that you are always using the most up to date version.
Can you describe what you do in 30 seconds? Not the product you sell, but what your product actually does for your customers. What is the main benefit your customers realize from your product? Now you have your best elevator pitch!
How do you tell your prospect your price? If you add adjectives like “our usual price”, “the suggested list price”, or “our regular price”, you are actually inviting the prospect to negotiate and ask for a lower price. Instead, try “the price is” and simply state the fact.
Did you receive any referrals last week? Did you ask for any?
Add related products to all of your proposals. The reason fast food employees always ask you if you want some fries with that is because many people say yes. Suggestion selling works. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain, so why not ask? The worst that can happen is you prospect says no.
You can fudge the truth in the sales process or you can leave it for the customer to find out after the sale. Either way, you will never do business with them again.
Use your voicemail as a sales tool. Leave a brief marketing message on your outgoing recording to generate interest when you return your customer’s call.
What do your customers have in common? How many employees do they have? What industries do they operate in? How often do they use your product? What related products do they also use in addition to your product? Now look for the same characteristics in your prospects.
Don’t arrive on Monday morning and ask yourself “what am I going to do this week?” You will waste a lot of time spinning your wheels. Work this week to book next week. You will be able to arrange appointments geographically better, minimizing unproductive travel time.
Prospects buy for their own reasons, not yours. If you don’t know why they will buy, you won’t make the sale.
Customer testimonials are like social media for sales. You can never “share” too many of them. (Want to see a list of ours? Check out the B2B Sales Connections Testimonials page.
When a prospect says “I am not interested”, what they really mean is you were not interesting enough!
If your product is on a 30 day selling cycle, you have to start a sale today to close one next month.
When you visit a company, why not drop in to their neighbours and see if you can help them too? Not only might you get a new prospect, you will save gas too!
Not having time to prospect is an excuse. The top producers always make the time for what’s important. Unless you schedule the time to do what’s important for you to success, you won’t make the time.
If you sell on price, you will lose on price. If you sell on value, the price becomes secondary.
Your thoughts control your outcomes and you control your thoughts. Choose wisely!
Don’t always leave the same voicemail messages for prospects. Script a series, each with a different benefit statement. With persistence, sooner or later one benefit message will induce the prospect to return your call.
What is the purpose of your sales call? What do you specifically want to accomplish? How will you know if it was a successful sales call? If you can’t answer these questions because you do not have a pre-planned agenda, you are only wasting yours and the prospect’s time!
Why do your customers buy from you? Start and end your day by calling a current customer and ask them.
No one returning your voicemails? Maybe you are speaking too fast. When you leave your phone number, write it down at the same time. That will ensure you speak slowly enough so that your voicemail recipient will be able to write it down too!
The sale of the fact find is the presentation. Eliminate voicemail and book the next appointment before you leave the current one.
Ever hear “I’ll get back to you” from a prospect? Then ask when you can expect their call!
Why did your last prospect buy from you? Why did they choose you over your competition? Ask them because it’s a great story to share with your next prospect.
If a problem can be quantified, it will be more motivating for the prospect to fix it.
Pre-call research, either on the internet or from other sources, can be useful, but don’t over do it. The extra information found given the time taken away from selling may not be worth it. Sooner or later you are going to just have to pick the phone and call the prospect!
When you exceed expectations, you set the bar higher than your competitors.
Stop taking phone calls from prospects when you can’t devote your entire attention to the caller. They know if you are really listening or not.
Use an automated signature for your emails that includes your return email address, your phone number and any other contact information that is important. Don’t make your prospect hunt for your contact information when they find something in your email that makes them think, “tell me more!” Remember, “Ask me about our new widget that will save you…” on your email signature can generate a new prospect.
Don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know, but I will find out the answer and get back to you.” Better to admit this than to make a promise that you won’t be able to keep. (One very important Quick Sales Tips of the Day is to know when not to sell at all!)
Buyers won’t believe the message until they believe the messenger. Take steps to prove you are credible and trustworthy, and you will close more sales faster. (This one of our Quick Sales Tips of the Day was defintely one of our most popular on social media.)
When leaving a voicemail, always say your phone number twice, once close to the start of the message and again at the end. Mobile phones can often cut out. When listening to your message, sometimes all your recipient can hear is “613-???-?295”. They have no way of calling you back if they wanted to!
You don’t always have to answer a customer question in person to be effective. Sometimes an after hours voicemail message with the requested answer not only satisfies your customer, it saves you valuable selling time as well.
Tired of voicemail tag? Try leaving a detailed message on your first call. That way, if you are not available when your contact calls back, at least they can leave the answer to your question on your voicemail.
A written proposal should be a maximum of 6 pages. Too much information can slow or even halt the sale. Your prospect only needs enough of the right information to make a logical buying decision. Did you need detailed blueprints of framing, plumbing and wiring before you bought your house? Neither does your prospect!
When is it acceptable to use abbreviations with a customer? If it is a generally understood abbreviation, then it is acceptable. For example, GST is a common term, but only in Canada. However, if the abbreviation is a company or specific term that you only learned when you started selling your product, then don’t.
Ever wonder if your email was received? With today’s spam filters, it’s a valid concern! To keep your sales process moving forward, phone the recipient the day after your send the email and ask if they received it. Regardless of the outcome, your follow up call builds credibility and you’ll move your sales process forward.
The ultimate goal of any business is to make a profit. Absolutely everything a company buys affects its bottom line. A pencil that lasts longer or is less expensive than the previous one purchased earns a company more profit. Help your customers by showing them how your product earns them more profit!
When making a sales presentation, you are better to have three to four main points that relate directly to your prospect’s problem rather than having 10 standard product benefits. Not only will your prospect identify more with your solution, but people don’t usually remember more than that anyway.
When you start to track your past successes, you can identify commonalities in your customers that help you define who is most likely to buy from you in the future. In doing so, you clearly define your target market, ensuring you will spend most of your time talking to prospects that are most likely to buy.
It is wrong to believe that every company can and will buy from you. For example, it is unlikely sell restaurant equipment to retail clothing stores. You could try, but chances are you would just be wasting your time. Target your prospecting effeorts and you will be more successful.
Studies show that over 70% of the time when the prospect says “your price is too high”, they really mean they don’t trust you, they don’t see the value in your solution, and just want an easy excuse to get rid of you. Dig deeper and find out what is really holding your customer back.
Do you carry a portfolio binder with you when you are on sales calls? Make sure you add copies of reference letters, customer lists, and other testimonials. That way you are always prepared to show and build your credibility whenever the need or opportunity arises.
Did you know that business people who read at least 7 business books a year earn over 2.3 times more than people who read only one book per year? Think you don’t have time to spend on your own ongoing personal development? If you spend just 10 minutes a day reading, that adds up to over 60 hours a year!
Have you ever received a great compliment from a customer that you wished you could share with others? Just ask the customer, “can I quote you?” When he says yes, add it to a list of all the other great compliments you have received, and hand it out to prospects. Such a testimonial list is a very powerful sales tool! (This technique of gathering testimonials is a very effective tool that many have learned from our Quick Sales Tips of the Day.)
Take the time to plan your prospecting sequence and manage the timing of it in your CRM system. The first step could be an introductory social media message, step two a phone call a week later, and step three could be a follow up email that same day. Once defined, it becomes just a matter of implementing your system.
On track for to qualify for this year’s sales contest? Don’t just look at how much you have sold so far, but also how much more needs to be sold. If you need to sell $21,000 in 3 months, focus on the $7,000 per month that you need to qualify. Remember, you can’t change the past, so focus on the future!

The Bottom Line

We hope you found our top 100 Quick Sales Tips of the Day useful to help you sell more faster. IF yuo have a sales tip to add to our list, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Sometimes practical advice in bite-sized pieces can really go a long way. After all, as Alan Weiss once said, “Improve by 1 percent a day, and in just seventy days, you’re twice as good.” More motivational quotes.

Looking for more free sales training resources in addition to our best quick sales tips of the day? Then check out the rest of the B2B Sales Connections Free Download Centre.

Susan A. Enns, B2B Sales Coach and Author
Schedule a free sales coaching strategy session with Susan here.

“… what I can tell anyone, is simply this – If you want to learn and understand sales, talk to Susan.”

Want to generate more leads, reduce the length of your selling cycle and close more sales? Then check out our “How to Sell Virtually” Video-on-Demand Training Series for Sales and Sales Management!