With buyers becoming smarter, thanks to the wide availability of information at their disposal and the newly compressed sales cycle, the need for a smarter sales team is being increasingly felt. Smart phones and tablets are playing a key role in today’s sales cycle. The new sales cycle is shorter and the seller has fewer opportunities to influence the buyer. All of these factors have influenced significantly the role of a typical salesperson.
In today’s blog we’ll look at 3 ways you can transform your average salesperson into a great sales advisor and the tools you will need to do that.
#1 Prospects are like snowflakes. Each one is different. Help your sales advisors differentiate.
Imagine selling a smart phone to a teenager and a senior citizen. While you might want to put the emphasis on the processor speed to the teenager, when selling to the senior citizen, you will want to talk about ease of use, battery life, screen size, etc. So, even though the phone is the same, you will talk about features that are most relevant to your prospect. That is what successful selling is all about–differentiation. Positioning your company and products or services differently from your competitors and treating every customer differently. In order to do that, your sales team must have relevant information about your prospects. They need to know what the prospect is actually looking for and what exactly their pain points are. Next, they need to understand your product or service really well so they can connect how your offering can resolve the prospect’s pain points. Once that happens, your sales team will be able to connect your product to the prospect’s story and suddenly you’re really driving revenues.
70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated. Bottom Line: Every prospect is different. Treat them differently.
#2 Not all prospects are ready to buy. Help your sales advisors identify them.
According to Gleanster Research, 50% of qualified leads are not ready to purchase immediately.These figures mean two things for your sales team. (1) They need to adopt a different sales strategy towards that 50% which is not ready for an immediate purchase. (2) They should be prioritizing their efforts on leads that are closer to making the purchase. However, your sales team will be able to do this only when they know who’s who. Which lead is ready to buy and needs to be contacted immediately, and which needs time warming up to the idea of connecting with your company. Only when they get a clear picture of the lead’s position in the sales cycle can they tweak their sales methodology to create the right impact.
#3 Today, sales is all about building a relationship. Help your sales advisors create lasting relationships with prospects.
Research says that, on average, loyal customers are worth up to 10 times as much as their first purchase. It is called “lifetime customer value.” But, how do you get a customer to be loyal to you? The answer lies in building a great relationship with them. Companies today are focusing on building a relationship with their prospects. It is no longer about just getting the prospects to buy a product or sign up for a service. If you want your salespeople to be successful, you need to help them forge value-adding, mutually beneficial relationships with their prospects. How to build these relationships? Through personalized marketing and sales communication. This means helping your salespeople tailor their communication so that it addresses the precise needs of each specific prospect.
It is not just about selling anymore. A successful salesperson is one who understands the buyer persona and truly focuses on adding value to each prospect and customer. A successful salesperson is not pushy or persistent. They are, alternatively, an ally to the buyer–a subject matter expert on the buyer’s pain points and a person who is genuinely concerned with resolving them. In fact, a sales team today is comprised not of salespeople, but sales advisors who focus on building a lasting relationship with the prospect that extends beyond a single sale.
