Being a salesperson necessitates considerable talent. Bringing even the most hesitant potential customers to accept your winning sales pitch is something that many businesses would fail without.
While some of it undoubtedly stems from natural ability, sales abilities can be taught and improved upon.
Throughout this post, we'll look at seven selling techniques - a lot less intimidating than saying - that sales reps may utilize to improve their closure rate.
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1. Solution Selling Technique
The first approach we'll look at today is solution selling.
The typical sales process is more likely to be focused on products or services. Solution selling, on the other hand, shifts the focus away from what you have to offer and toward what the client wants.
Here, we're not selling a physical product but rather an unresolved problem. It's less about describing the features of an item and more about identifying a customer's pain point.
This won't be for everyone since solution selling usually necessitates some out-of-the-box thinking.
For example, if they've moved away from in-person marketing to digital marketing automation, how can your software help?
Do they still work with conventional landlines, and is IP telephony technology available to them? It's less focused on what it does in general and more on what it may do for them.
2. Social Media Selling Technique
Both new ideas (such as being able to have a video conference with potential clients) and fresh difficulties (high rates of online shopping cart abandonment!) have arisen from technological advancements.
But there's nothing that has had quite the same level of impact as social media.
Social media has attracted a lot of attention for its drawbacks, but in the selling business, it's a chance-only development.
It can be used to assist purchasers in making purchases at a rapid pace, therefore it's important to include it as part of your arsenal of selling techniques.
Social selling focuses on fostering strong relationships with clients using solution selling as its guiding principle.
Using the notion of problem-solving sales to promote something on social media is an excellent approach to boost your deal count.
For example, if you're marketing an interactive voice response (IVR) system, you might start by posting humorous material about the difficulties of a traditional phone system.
This may aid in the creation of engagement, sharing, and preparing you for when you do make the pitch to your solution.
3. Collaborative Selling Technique
Now, this is an interesting one.
While the preceding two points have focused on a classic buyer-seller relationship, collaborative selling techniques take a different tack. This is a more passive sales approach.
It follows the idea that the buyer has more of an influence on how the sales process goes forward.
Instead of being pitched to and then determining whether it works for them, collaborative selling encourages you to form a connection with the customer and respond to their demands.
This, as you may imagine, necessitates a substantial amount of data at the sales rep's disposal. It also benefits if the company's other customer-facing functions are data-driven in nature.
Customer experience KPIs can be useful here since they can assist you in determining what your strengths are and which areas might require more improvement.
In the end, collaborative selling is about getting a long game in mind. It establishes the groundwork for partnerships or continued alignment, rather than one-off transactions.
4. Consultative Selling Technique
Consultative selling is similar to collaborative selling in many ways.
Where it differs from its more comprehensive twin is that it necessitates the salesperson to continue the discussion. Rather than collaborating on a problem, you're taking charge because you're positioning yourself as an authority.
This approach has some parallels to solution selling – you'll see that many of these styles are interconnected as we proceed.
However, it distinguishes it from solution selling due to the amount of care taken in consultative selling.
We're depending on clients to identify their own pain spots and incorporating data - for example, market trends and user statistics - as sales points here.
A sales rep uses this approach to craft a story around the pitch. The majority of salespeople are wonderful storytellers, and this form allows them to shine.
However, in order to truly excel in this method, they need easy access to a lot of data. That way, when a lead brings up an issue, they can explain how it aids with numbers rath
er than stories.
5. Unconsidered Needs Technique
At this point, we've concentrated on how these sales styles vary from one relationship to the next.
Is it the customer or the rep who's driving the conversation? Now that you've established which is which, let's have a look at how your sales pitch compares with those of your competitors.
You're failing to capitalize on an opportunity to set yourself apart if you're delivering the same sales pitch as those firms that compete with you.
For instance, if you offer eateries with POS software, you might say: "Say, for example, you're a company that provides restaurants with POS software. You're in the mid-range and better than a basic model but lack some features.
Attracting consumers who already have the best model may be tough." However, addressing them in terms of the benefits of a lesser system - less money required, more streamlined - may be effective.
This is where unthought-of demands come in. It takes a rep to think outside the box and develop needs that the customer may not have considered previously.
You raise the value of your client's problem by comparing it to a percentage of the solution your product provides, then suggesting additional solutions.
They may not have had this specific problem before. However, if they encounter it, they will know that your product or service can assist them.
6. Insight Selling Technique
In recent years, insight selling techniques have grown in popularity.
The goal is to achieve unshakable trust and total knowledge as a result of a deeper understanding of what your consumer needs.
It necessitates some background study, such as creating a consumer profile, conducting trend research, and doing marketing research.
This allows you to combine benefit and value for the customer while also distinguishing yourself from rivals' offers.
You don't ask open-ended questions in your approach towards prospective buyers; instead, you offer the data.
There will be no more of "do you have difficulty with..." Instead, it'll become "Over 50% of firms struggle with... ", or whatever variation makes sense.
It takes time to learn. It's not something that you can just master overnight. It takes time to cultivate. However, once you've mastered it, few techniques compare in producing long-term, lucrative sales.
7. High-Pressure Selling Technique
Finally, High-Pressure Selling (high-pressure selling). We all know that pressure of some sort is involved in almost every sale, but we're talking about a form of selling known as hard selling here.
This is the granddaddy of them all when it comes to "techniques that aren't for everyone."
The hard sell, as a salesperson or a customer, maybe either be difficult to achieve or difficult to bear. It's not one among one-size-fits-all selling techniques, but it does have its place.
This approach taps into a buyer's most basic instincts.
The hard sell can be a wonderful choice for plumping for if you believe that you're talking to someone susceptible to greed, fear, or even pride.
These are typically individuals working in industries or places of business built on competition.
With this method, it's critical for your sales staff to understand when and how to use it.
If you pick the wrong person, they could be scared away. Pick the correct one, on the other hand? You might just make the year's most significant transaction.
In Conclusion
Throughout this post, we've looked at a number of selling techniques.
No matter what you sell, you'll be able to apply these methods to close more sales and exceed your goal. Experiment with different options and see which one works best for your team.
Rather than providing every salesperson the same script, give them the flexibility to choose the one that works best for them.