I Learned How to Build a Successful Sales Model in One Month
Over the past month, I have been focused on learning the ins and outs of what makes a successful sales model. I took a look at my own sales experiences, built buyer personas, researched companies, built a leads list, and finally, created a 21-day outreach campaign. If you are interested in my process and what I learned along the way, here is an overview of the last four weeks. I hope you enjoy!
Video Overview
What is Sales?
To start out, I learned what sales really is. If you’re like me, when you hear sales, your mind immediately goes to an annoying cold caller or solicitor trying to make their monthly commission off of you. While this is an example of a salesperson, the term ‘sales’ is much more broad. So what is sales?
Sales is about two parties exchanging value for mutual benefit
Sales is helping other people get closer to what they want and in the end, helping them achieve a better life. To understand this concept on a deeper level, I relived some of my past sales experiences and answered questions about what went well and what really didn’t.
I learned a lot about the role of emotions when it comes to sales. It is important to meet expectations because if not, it could turn into negative feedback for your company.
To see the process I took and learn about my personal experiences, you can check out my assignment below!
Buyer Persona
After looking at what makes a good sale, I dove into different buyer personas. A buyer persona is a term used to describe different potential customers searching for the same product in an attempt to solve different problems.
This was best explained in one of my lessons: “Every customer has unique needs, wants, desires, fears, motives, unstated aspirations, anxieties, and demands for their time and resources. Often, those customers are working towards satisfying many different goals at once – and the best sales processes seek to understand customers' varied needs and desires in order to better prescribe the right solutions to problems.”
The reason why building a buyer persona is important is so that you can cater your solution specifically to the other person. This will inspire the customer to make their purchase and leave them feeling more satisfied.
In this assignment, I laid out different problems and provided several solutions in order to demonstrate how someone can have the same problem but a completely different approach to solving it. You can check it out for more details down below!
Once I learned about buyer personas, I was ready to build my own sales funnel and lead list. To do this, I chose a company that I am familiar with and started by researching what their ideal clients would look like. Paylocity sells HR and payroll software to other businesses. I used this app to track my labor hours at my serving job, so I am quite familiar with the software.
Building a Sales Funnel & Lead List
After researching who Paylocity caters to, I was able to start building my leads list. To do this I used LinkedIn Sales Navigator. I was able to refine my search by editing the filters to match the information I found in my research.
Once my search was refined, it was time to start collecting information for potential clients. I organized and stored this data in a spreadsheet where I included their full name, job title, and email address, along with the company name, website, size, and industry.
I learned a lot about the research required to find potential leads for a company and the information that needs to be collected.
If you are interested in seeing exactly how I built my prospect list, check out this video I made with each step of the process. You can also view my full assignment down below!
21-Day Outreach Campaign
For my final project in the sales module, I created a mock 21-day outreach campaign. This campaign was written for the company Jobber. Jobber helps home service businesses with efficient quoting, scheduling, invoices, and payments. In this mock email campaign, I targeted small home service businesses that most likely don’t have a system in place when it comes to these tasks.
I started by creating an outline for the sales sequence. I decided to include several different platforms such as LinkedIn, phone calls, and text messages in addition to emails. This would ensure that the potential client would see the messages and feel more inclined to interact or respond. I also made sure to include the value I wanted to bring with each message.
It is extremely important to mention the value you are bringing to the potential client when reaching out to them, otherwise, they will have no interest in your product. It also shows that as a seller, you want to HELP them, not just take their money and run. When a message is personalized to the potential client, they will feel predisposed to check out what you have to offer, which is a necessary first step when it comes to closing a deal.
After creating my outline, I started to write the scripts for each message. Here you can see an example of the first email I wrote. In my emails and messages I made a clear effort to personalize each one. I also included the value my solution will bring, a call to action, and a subject line that hooks the client.
I followed a similar structure with the following messages. If you would like to view the entire mock email campaign, I linked it down below!
In Conclusion…
Learning about sales over the last month has helped me grow my understanding of how the sales process works, along with learning the skills necessary to build a complete sales sequence. I believe this project showcases the knowledge, skills, experience, and value that I can bring to a sales team in the future.
Skills I Learned
How to identify customer pain points
How to build a buyer persona
How to build a sales funnel and potential lead list with LinkedIn Sales Navigator
How to personalize emails and reach out to potential leads on different platforms
What Would I Do Differently?
Choose one company to focus my entire project on. That way I would get a better idea of how each project connects.
Fewer emails in my campaign that are more informative
Collect phone numbers in addition to emails on the leads list
Key Takeaways
🤝 Sales Is a Mutual Benefit
🤕 Each Customer Has a Unique Problem
💁♀️ Personalization Is Key
🎉 Meet Your Client’s Expectations
💌 Keep Messages Short and Informative
👩💻 Research Your Leads
Tools That Helped Me
📲 LinkedIn Sales Navigator
✍️ Substack
📨 Hunter.io
📊 Google Sheets
📑 Google Docs
🎥 Loom