Your Path to Boosting Revenue and Crushing Your Quota in 2024

You already know that life as a B2B salesperson is a busy one. From prospecting new business, to co-creating solutions for customers’ business problems, to signing the deal and beyond — there are countless steps throughout the entire process. 

In our world where time is literally money, how do you know whether your team is spending their time wisely or wastefully?

So, that got us thinking. Can we identify the most impactful sales best practices that top performers do to beat their numbers and, in turn, help all sellers succeed? 

Spoiler alert. We did and we’re excited to share them with you today in a new report, “Deep Sales: The B2B Sales Playbook to Boost Revenue in 2024.” 

We asked 2,187 sellers globally about 104 behaviors and correlated them to the top performers who exceeded quota. 

We worked with globally renowned research firm Ipsos to identify which of the 104 core behaviors that sellers do to find out which were the real needlemovers. 

Based on our analysis, we identified  10 behaviors — that we simplified into three habits, called the deep sales approach — which were highly correlated to sales impact, or top performers who exceeded quota. 

Sellers who did most, if not all, of the behaviors, were top performers, or what we call deep sellers. Sellers who didn’t do any of the behaviors, or very few, are low performers or what we call shallow sellers.

Here’s what made us sit up and take notice.

Deep sellers are nearly 2x more likely to exceed their quota versus shallow sellers. And, shallow sellers are more than 6x more likely to miss their quota.

If only everyone on your team were deep sellers, right? It turns out that only 18% of sellers are “deep sellers,” i.e. top-performers who consistently do these three habits and are far more likely to exceed quota. Conversely, 46% of salespeople are “shallow sellers.” 

Ok, so how can you and your team become deep sellers? Here’s how.

The three deep sales habits that help sellers crush their quotas.

1. Habit one: Prioritize high-potential accounts.

Top performers…. 

1. Research prospects. They do significantly more research on prospects before outreach than they did 12 months ago. 
2. Research customers. They use customer and industry research to inform cross-sell and upsell strategies in current customer accounts. 
3. Use sales intelligence software. Use tools like Sales Navigator to to help them prioritize accounts. 

Habit one matters because buyers expect sellers to do their homework. We asked 508 buyers globally what’ll most increase their likelihood of buying from a salesperson. Their first two responses were: 

1. If the seller demonstrates a clear understanding of their business needs.
2. If the seller demonstrates a clear understanding of their industry and their competitors.

This makes sense. If you want your sellers to be true consultative partners who can challenge and change their buyer’s way of thinking, then they also need to demonstrate that they are knowledgeable. 

How Sales Navigator can help you prioritize high-potential accounts: Here’s where Account IQ comes to the rescue. It’s an AI-generated, updated summary of an account that includes topics like the account’s strategic priorities, biggest challenges, competitive landscape, growth trends, and even what their key executives are saying on LinkedIn. 

Gone are the days of spending hours doing research. AccountIQ delivers all of the relevant information that you need to show up prepared in a matter of seconds. 

2. Habit two: Identify and build key buyer relationships.

Top performers…. 

1. Create warm paths in through connections. They research and identify people in their network — such as current teammates, former colleagues, connections working at the target company, etc. — who are connected to potential buyers at their target account for a warm first outreach. 
2. Multithread deeply into each account. They establish at least 7 relationships within an account, including decision-makers, members of the buying committee, and other purchase influencers. 
3. Utilize social networks to identify and research key people. They use professional social networks to identify key decision-makers and research on all social networks to better understand their buyers. 
4. Spend more time nurturing and building trusted relationships. They spend more time building relationships with key people at both prospective and current customers than they did 12 months ago — and ask their buyer’s for feedback after interactions.

Habit 2 matters because buyers purchase from the same sellers multiple times. Relationships really do matter! First, 54% of buyers said they bought from the same seller, even after the buyer changed companies.

More interestingly, 50% of buyers bought from the same salesperson, after the salesperson changed companies. Think about that. despite an entirely different offering, the salesperson was still able to sell to that same buyer, based on their relationship. 

That’s proof positive that investing in building strong buyer relationships can lead to lifetime  ROI.

Sales Navigator can help you identify and build key buyer relationships: With Relationship Explorer, you can find the eight warmest leads into any account and with Relationship Map, you can map out the buying committee and visualize your multithreading strategy. 

Those are just two reasons why Sales Navigator users make 4.3x more connections to director level leaders than the average LinkedIn member globally. 

3. Habit three: Find hidden allies and intel for timely, relevant outreach.

Top performers…. 

1. Gather intel from hidden allies. They connect with hidden allies outside of the buying committee to learn what is happening at the target account. 
2. Monitor social networks. Primarily to identify the best time to reach out to decision-makers with relevant communications by monitoring their social networks and setting up alerts. 
3. Stay up-to-date on industry news. They scan business news regarding the target account and their industry to inform timing and relevance of outreach.

Habit 3 matters because the right intel at the right time can open doors. Research shows only 5% of your target audience is in the market for new solutions at any given time.

That said, there are “trigger events” that make a leader far more likely to be shopping-mode. Those include when they start a new job, when their organization is growing rapidly, and when their company gets a new round of funding.

Sales Navigator alerts you to what you need to know, when you need to know it. Imagine if your reps were notified in real-time whenever one of those “trigger events” happened? Well, they can be, with Sales Navigator Alerts.

Additionally, Sales Navigator can help your team identify hidden allies at scale, through features like TeamLink and Advanced Search. 

Here’s how to create a culture of deep sales and a team of deep sellers.

None of these findings should come as a surprise. The deep sales behaviors are — for the most part — well established industry best practices. But, now you know that they are real difference makers when it comes to bottom line impact. 

Let this blog post serve as a deep sales appetizer — only a taste of what we found. There’s so much more. In the full report, we share: 

• The impact of deep sales
• How AI and Sales Intelligence tools are a game changer
• The inner workings of the buyer-seller relationship
• And a 10-step deep sales playbook with practical advice that you and your team can implement today.
• Regional and country-level key takeaways in North America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia

So, want to nearly double your chance of exceeding your quota? Download a spiffy infographic and the full report (available in English, French, German, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese) at “Deep Sales: The B2B Sales Playbook to Boost Revenue in 2024” today.