How to Add a Little Personality to Your Sales Strategy

Does your sales strategy feel a little too robotic these days? Nothing turns a prospect off more than feeling like just another notch in a line of contacts. If you need to re-energize your sales strategy, it might be time to sprinkle in some personality. Infusing personality into a sales strategy brings your business to life. For many brands, it can be a little bit scary. What if your sales team’s personality marrs your business’s reputation? What if your sense of humor is seen more as offensive than light hearted? What if…? It’s these types of “what if” scenarios that cause brands to have a lifeless, dull voice and approach. To put pep back in your sales team’s step, here are a few ways you can add a little personality to your sales strategy.

Think of Your Buyers as Individuals

Perhaps the easiest way to dilute your personality and tarnish your shine is to start trying to speak to a group of people rather than one person. Creating sales materials and messaging that aims to appeal to the masses will come across as weak. What might sound funny to one person won’t to another, so you tame it down. What might sound compelling to one person won’t to another, so you banish it from your copy. Over time, you’ll have whittled away all of the interest from your sales materials. Soon, the only thing remaining is a watered down version of your brand’s voice. To change your tone, speak directly to your buyer persona. Whenever you write a sales email (even if it is intended to be a mass email), you’ll sound exciting and full of life.

Empower Your Sales Team’s Personalities to Shine

Often, sales teams feel hindered by compliancy. Your top salesman stands down from his typical jovial humor and lively interaction to “protect” your company. This doesn’t work. Empower your sales team’s personalities to shine by giving each person the right tools. With a CRM your sales team likes using, you will have more notes on hand about each lead, prospect and customer. With these notes, your sales team can make each touchpoint feel a little more mono-a-mono instead of robot-a-customer. Over time, it’s this relationship that’ll help you sell more.

Differentiate for Each Stage in the Buying Cycle

The Harvard Business Review cites seven types of sales managers. Each of these sales management styles becomes more effective given the stage of the buying cycle. For example, expressive sales managers (those with personalities shining) are best brought out when your team needs to warm up and pep up their communications. Sergeants, however, are better brought out when your sales team needs a kick to close more deals. Assign a unique sales team member to each stage in the buying cycle and then, assign the right manager to help get the job done. Don’t have multiple managers? Does your sales team handle everything from start to finish? Knowing about these various sales managerial types will still help you know how to lead and close more deals so that your prospects have exactly what’s needed at each stage of the buying process.

Getting Started

Ready to spice up your sales strategy? The first step is knowing what’s lacking and gathering the tools to improve. With a little bit of freedom and a lot of help from an effective CRM, your sales team will be better equipped to infuse their personality into their sales efforts.