Every business has to sell to survive, but unless your client is a significant size, then they may never have really taken the time to understand how to improve how they sell their products and services. Even those with established sales teams often don’t understand how to build a compelling sales story that will make potential customers want to talk, or to get the best results from their sales team.
We’ve put together a few topics that you can discuss with your clients to help identify possible areas for improvement.
1. Objectives
If your client doesn’t have a clear understanding of what they want to achieve, by when and how they’re going to get there, then it’s highly unlikely that they’ll achieve real success in a manageable way. Breaking long term objectives down into manageable, time bound activities makes it easier to achieve the big picture, monitor progress along the way and make adjustments if they’re required.
2. How Does Your Client Help Customers?
Many sales people try to sell on the basis of features and benefits (“our widget will save you time” or “a new website will improve the image of your business”). The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t give the potential customer any real understanding of the value that the product or service delivers. Translating features and benefits into business value isn’t easy but it’s critical in convincing a potential customer that investing in your client’s product makes commercial sense.
3. Messaging
Most businesses have a web site, send emails to potential customers or talk to them on the phone, but unless these different communication methods are used effectively, then they’re simply wasting time and effort. Your client will
only grab a potential customer’s attention if the sales messages actually communicate the real business value of the product or service.
4. Ideal Customers
Not all customers are equal; your client’s products may be best suited to customers who have particular characteristics….. there’d be no point in trying to sell car servicing to someone who doesn’t own a car. Understanding what an ideal potential customer looks like will help your client focus their sales efforts on prospects with a higher likelihood of buying.
5. Qualification
Knowing what questions to ask a potential customer enables your client to quickly ascertain if there’s a real prospect of actually selling them something. Quickly understanding how well the product meets a potential customer’s needs means the client can focus their efforts on the best opportunities, and walk away from prospects where there’s no real opportunity.
6. Relationship Building
There’s an old adage… “people buy from people”. It’s a bit of a cliché but it’s true. Your client may have the best product in the world, but unless a potential customer trusts the supplier, they’ll never buy. Building effective relationships with customers is a skill… it takes time, it takes effort….. and it can be learnt.
7. Doing The Right Thing Often Enough
You’ve probably heard the expression “selling is a numbers game”…. And to some extent it’s true, but making hundreds of cold sales calls almost certainly won’t generate the results your client needs, and it will definitely waste huge amounts of time! Understanding in detail the volume, frequency and type of sales activity required to meet the revenue targets is absolutely critical.
Sound familiar?
If you can see that some of your clients have these issues, then maybe Proten Sales Development can help.