This is the first of a short series of posts.
I have a confession to make – I have probably made every mistake in the sales playbook that is to make and more. In 2017, the nature of my work changed from being a seller to a software consultant and more recently has involved buying of multiple software & services. Now that I am being sold to by past versions of me, I’d like to share what I’d do differently.
It starts with the intent
It really does. All accepted sales advice is about how the modern buyer is more informed than ever and that the role of sales has changed accordingly. The modern buyer not only knows more about the products and their capabilities but also the sales tactics. The subtext that gets ignored is how buyers can see through all the games and sales tactics because they’ve been through many purchases where the seller names change – but not much else.
That special discount that’s expiring this week? Yeah, everyone knows they will get the same discount (if not more) next week!
I’ve had at least two sellers try the “discount only for this week” tactic with me in the past 3 weeks. Guess what, no buyer will pull the trigger on a decision if he/she doesn’t have all the required information and no amount of “special discount” is going to change that. Artificial scarcity helps in selling only when its artificial nature isn’t so self-evident.
Focus on answering the buyer questions and concerns to speed up deals – mitigate their risks. Not every deal stalls because of price or budget.
The right way to approach sales is simple in principle and has varied difficulty in actual execution. Your role as a salesperson is to help the buyer in their journey so that they make the right decision for themselves & their company. If your intent of reaching out to someone is truly to help them, here’s what you’d do as a bare minimum. And if you do this for all your outreaches regularly enough, you’ll create a brand of being trustworthy and knowledgeable that’ll help you tremendously in your sales career.
- Research – understand their company & challenges
- Research some more – understand the buyer’s role, related KPIs and challenges
- Brainstorm – know how you can possibly help based on demonstrable capabilities (references help)
- Verify – spend the conversational time to validate your hypothesis by truly listening – listen to understand and not to respond/sell. Always think in terms of outcomes.
- Share – then and only then, share how you can help solve their problems. Show rather than talk about it. Use stories to communicate your message.
e.g., as part of a partnership discussion one of our potential partners has gone above and beyond in understanding our business, brainstorming how he can help and has made the right introductions for us that have already helped us in our journey. He did all this without any written or verbal commitment that we’d go ahead with his company. Guess what, we regard him as a trusted advisor now and yes – he’s our chosen partner not just for that deal but for some of our other business ventures as well.
Can this approach be used for lower-priced products or services?
What about when your outreach has to be on a mass scale? The answer is yes. The same principle of having the intention to help applies whether you are selling a big-ticket item or creating marketing collateral for a mass-scale outreach to sell a low ACV product.
The age-old sales games & plays are dead.
The sooner salespeople and more importantly sales leaders realize that – the better off we’ll all be.
It starts with the intent.