Before you became a sales manager you were probably a successful seller who was used to selling to customers who wanted and needed you. But today’s Customer 2.0 is different. They’re just not that into your sales team. Actually, they don’t really need them — at least, not in the traditional sense. And that can be pretty unsettling to your team and to you.

When your team’s forecasted deals are slipping through the cracks and they’re complaining that appointments are being cancelled at the last minute, you need to show them how to read Customer 2.0 sales signals, to avoid what drives them away, and to understand what keeps them coming back.

The better you can decode what today’s customer wants and what they mean, and know what you need to do to guide your team towards success, the more successful you and your team will be. Test your Smart Sales Management IQ now:

1. Today’s customer only cooperates on calls with salespeople who do their homework before contacting them. How do you prepare your team?
   1. Explain to your team how an intelligent, well-informed, and relevant call will earn them more time. Encourage them to take the time to research their prospects before the, call and then integrate that information into their opening.
   2. Dedicate a certain time of day for salespeople to research their prospects before contacting them.
   3. Train your entire team on how to read and discuss customer’s annual reports and use this as call openers with all their prospects.
2. Today’s customers feel invaded, assaulted, and even “stalked” when your team is call blitzing. You should:
   1. Cheer your team on and tell them to keep up the great blitzing work. Remind them it’s a numbers game, so they should continue calling anyone and everyone.
   2. Understand that the days of meaningless cold calling are dead, but blitzing still works — when done correctly. Perhaps your team needs to gently back off. Today’s prospects don’t want to feel manipulated or pressured by desperate reps on call blitz days.
   3. Reduce and revise call blitzing goals from 3x per week for 4 hours each to 1x per week for 3 hours each.
3. Today’s customer doesn’t want to be harassed with meeting requests, and when they do agree they often cancel at the last minute. How do you help your team schedule meetings and prevent cancellations?
   1. Tell your team to include more people in the meeting and send at least six meeting confirmations before the meeting takes place.
   2. Help your team members understand the reasons why meetings are being cancelled today. Suggest that they design a stronger appointment strategy — asking for less time, including fewer people in the meeting, and confirming the meeting beforehand through social networks.
   3. Suggest to your team members that they start charging cancellation fees to their prospects. Deduct $100 from their paychecks for cancelled appointments.
4. Today’s customers are not letting any outsiders in: they will only trust sales team members who know how to dip in their social circle. How do you prepare your team?
   1. Explain how today’s customer wants a virtual relationship, and start helping your teams swim in the social river where their prospects are swimming. Encourage your team to develop a strong and relevant digital footprint.
   2. Encourage all your team members to “friend” customers or “like” them on Facebook. Use this as a way to get “up close and personal” with all their prospects.
   3. Discourage all team members to socially surf during business hours and lock access to all social networks.
5. Today’s customers love to devour content, especially when they are entertained by visual bling. That’s why they prefer watching a YouTube video instead of reading a whitepaper. How do you give your team what they need?
   1. Ask all your team members to record a video of themselves in action and send it to their prospects as a way to get to know each other.
   2. Ask your marketing organization to provide you with video tutorials of products that you can send to your prospects.
   3. Provide the tools for your team to include more videos that they can share with their customers and make sure they take the time to review the content for relevance, quality, and timeliness.
6. Today’s customers are too busy to read long papers or listen to long speeches, and they don’t want to hear generic, and empty marketing value propositions. What should your team use instead?
   1. Ask your marketing department to trade jobs with your inside sales team to understand their unique challenges.
   2. Encourage your team to sound more like salespeople and less like marketers when they contact their prospects.
   3. Remind your team that it is essential to condense information into mini-bites. Encourage them to send one-page documents and one-paragraph emails only, and to make sure to spell out the essential information right at the top.
7. Today’s customer is complaining about endless meetings and refuses to sit through any “death by PowerPoint” presentations. What do tell your team to do?
   1. Tell them to learn to sound more convincing and not read every single slide.
   2. Require all team members to learn to whiteboard their presentation for strong affect.
   3. Discourage your team from presenting anything that sounds like a sales pitch. Make sure they toss that 179-slide PowerPoint demo for one that has fewer slides, less text, and more engaging visuals.
8. Today’s customer often needs to convince up to nine people in their committee in order to make a final decision. How do you prepare your team?
   1. Encourage your team members go straight to the top. Once they reach the highest level, the customer will sign off on anything.
   2. Tell your team members to respect their main contact and be patient through throughout the purchase cycle.  
   3. Make sure your team is talking with enough people, and encourage them to call deeper and wider within the organization.
9. Today’s customer doesn’t want to take much risk. They keep asking for more time. How can you help your team?
   1. Approve an additional 15% discount if the deal can come in before the end of the month.
   2. Remind your team that very few customers will go out on a limb for a new solution. They want to know that they are guaranteed a return on their investment.
   3. Encourage your team spend more time creating value for the product/service instead of chasing price.
10. Today’s customer has suddenly decided — after nine months — that they are ready to buy NOW. How do you prepare your team to respond?
    1. Remind your teams that when customers are ready to buy, they must be ready to sell! Stress the importance of reacting to these messages immediately and wrapping up the deal quickly to prevent a change of heart.
    2. Have your team members explain that the lead was closed out in the system and they must start all over again to qualify their prospects.
    3. Be the voice of reason. Remind your teams that sales is filled with false starts. Explain the “hurry up and wait” syndrome. Keep your teams focused and don’t let them get frazzled by their customer’s fickleness.

Josiane Feigon is President of TeleSmart Communications and author of the business bestseller, Smart Selling on the Phone and Online. To read an excerpt from her latest book, Smart Sales Manager, click here.