Critical Skills For Sales Leaders - Understanding and Meeting Your Customer's Needs
Engage All Parties
Today, more than ever, selling means more than just an excellent product and good problem-solving skills - it also means having the capability of being able to:
- Be flexible enough to be able to develop rapport and trust with all the individuals involved in the purchase.
- Listen to all the individuals involved in the purchase and understand their issues or problems.
- Effectively sell against your competitors - knowing their strengths and weaknesses, and selling against them effectively without denigrating them or their products.
- "Engage" well with all the decision makers, effectively educating them and clearly articulating how your products, capabilities and solutions will help them solve their own individual business and personal issues.
- Sell to senior executives by understanding financial fundamentals and being able to develop and conduct business strategy conversations.
- Quantify the cost impact of the problems to establish the value of the solutions, completing an investment return analysis/business case.
- Effectively plan and conduct group presentations that engage all the individuals involved in the purchase.
- Understand the individual needs and sell to multiple decision makers
Selling to Multiple Decision Makers - Understand individual needs In today's highly competitive business economy it is becoming increasingly common to sell to multiple rather than single decision makers. One of the common mistakes salespeople make when selling to multiple decision makers is trying to sell to the group rather than the individual members.
Despite their group membership, each individual makes their own buying decisions due to their own buying motive. Whether you are selling to a husband and wife team, a business owner or selling into large corporations, a critical skill is in being able to provide each decision maker of the "buying team" with individualised, compelling reasons to act, in support of their own business and personal objectives.
Every organisation and every person has a buying process and criteria by which they select one project, product or service over another. Everyone makes buying decisions in a precise psychological order based on their individual buying motives and needs. Your sales process must be applied to each individual in order for them to feel convinced that they should give you their support when it comes time for the group to make a decision. Regardless of the motive, each buyer buys emotionally, and then justifies the purchase logically, even in a group setting.
With today's almost limitless access to information, prospects have the option of learning everything they can about the product or service they're looking to buy. An ever-increasing global competitive market place also means that both existing customers and new prospects know that they have multiple options available to them, making bringing home the sale even more complex.
Whether you sell one on one or to a group there will come a time in the sales process where you will have to demonstrate your company's capability to meet the needs and specifications of the customer.
Demonstrating Capability Whether you sell one on one or to a group there will come a time in the sales process where you will have to demonstrate your company's capability to meet the needs and specifications of the customer. You need to demonstrate that you:
- Have done your homework/due diligence - you're able to make clear links between their company and yours
- Have a compelling solution - focus on the client's needs first, and then describe your firm's capabilities
- Can quantify the results that the customer can expect
- Can demonstrate process, tools and methods and ROI - Customers are buying results, show them how your product/service will deliver what they want.
- Have strong testimonials - referencing past achievements and the expertise of your company by referring to past successes with similar projects.
- Justify your value - failure to help customers recognise the value that you provide can result in deeper discounts, more concessions, poorly set customer expectations, and lower margins.
- Sell the potential value of your offerings - not just features or price
- Have developed a "trust" relationship- the commitment asked for can never be greater than the perceived value of the relationship between buyer and seller
- Can specify execution
Who:
- who will do the work,
- who will manage the work,
- who does the customer call if there is a problem,
- who is responsible for what
What:
- what needs to be done/delivered,
- what will be required to do/deliver it,
- what can the customer expect, what it will cost
Where:
- where will the work be done,
- where will it be delivered
How:
- how will the work be done,
- how will it be deployed,
- how will it be managed,
- how will you achieve quality assurance,
- how will you achieve customer satisfaction how will risks be mitigated,
- how long will it take,
- how will the work benefit the customer
When:
- when will you start,
- when will key milestones be scheduled,
- when will the project be complete,
- when is payment due
Why:
- why have you chosen the approaches and alternatives you have selected,
- why the customer should select you
Resources:
- what resources of time, people, material and money will it take to deliver the promised result
As one of Australia’s leading authorities and coaches in sales management, Ian Segail has been involved in the coaching, training and development of sales managers and salespeople for over two decades. Drawing on 25 years of experience in sales, sales management and leading an HR and training team, Ian brings a strong dose of fiscal reality and practicality to his works as a Sales Performance Coach. Engaging directly with business owners and both novice and experienced sales managers alike, across a wide variety of industries and selling disciplines, the focus of Ian’s work is to transform sales results for companies by improving sales management practices. Ian is the author of “Bulletproof Your Sales Team ‐ The 5 Keys To Turbo‐Boosting Your Sales Team’s Results” and a number of business articles, business reports and white papers including “The fish stinks from the head!” and “Why Sales Training Doesn't Work.” Ian has an insatiable hunger for studying selling and people management and has passionately pursued answers to the question “How come some people can sell and most can’t?” Check out some of Ian's great free resources to improve your sales results at
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