Adapting Your Sales Technique to New Buying Behaviours

The world of sales is constantly changing. Where we are seeing the most change right now though is the nature of the engagement between the salesperson and customer.

The reasoning for this change comes down to two fundamentals:

1. We’re coming off a deep recession. Buying processes have become more complex because people don’t have extra money to spend, and in some extreme cases, no money at all. Customers have much higher expectation of what they want on presale, creating a more complex process overall with a lot more people involved.
2. The explosion of social media and its change on the way people consume and receive information. When individuals are looking to buy something they do research, they read reviews, they search different social media channels and they come to decisions on their own. Rather than a salesperson providing the information on a product or service, people are going elsewhere to get information about you.

Salespeople now have to look at how they are conducting sales in this new landscape of buying. They need to ask themselves what value they bring to the process and how to get involved in the process. If buyers are going elsewhere to get information and engage in conversation about your product or service, how are salespeople going to insert themselves?

To reflect this new order, salespeople have to rethink how the engage with clients. Hanging out where your customers hangout is step one. Visit the sites they frequent, join the LinkedIn industry groups they’re a part of. Find out where they are getting and discussing information and insert yourself there. Once that connection is made and you’ve joined the conversation, be open to providing value without an expectation of initial return. Making the shift from a relationship-focused salesperson to a knowledge worker is also important in this new business landscape. Salespeople have to also be really good researchers, they must understand their customer’s business segment, what’s happening with them on both a macro and micro level, and bring all this information together before making contact. Once that contact is made, it’s important to make sure it is relevant. Before initial communication, you have to understand them, what they care about and their strategy.

Tip: It’s important to be good at filtering this information. You have to be able to pick out relevant bits because there is so much. Being able to this and then focus your conversations will help ensure the few moments you have with a customer are conducted in a value creating way.

Pause For Positivity

At Growth Strategy Dynamics we believe that the first step to changing your life is to change your thoughts! What we think about does affect our behaviours, with those behaviours then dictating the circumstances of our lives.

Take a moment now to consider the quality of your life if your thoughts remained focused on what is going right, who you can positively impact, all of the good things said about you, what new opportunities are presenting themselves, or what is going in your favour for the future.

Today, GSD is challenging you to focus your thoughts in the forward direction! To help, we have come up with some prompts. Take some time to fill them in. Afterward, put the answers somewhere you can see them easily, read them out loud daily for the next 30 days & see how different you begin to feel.

What is something new in your life?

What is something exciting that is happening (or has happened)?

What has just opened up that was previously closed?

What is something positive you can tell others about?

What is something you are proud of?

What have you anticipated that is now here?

What is an opportunity that is now presenting itself?

What is something that you have moved past that once held you back?

Who is someone that inspires you?

What you attempt if you knew you could not fail?

The Right Way To Deal With A Disagreeable Client

Disagreeable clients and/or customers: as business-people we’ve all experienced this, or at least we will have to at some point!

So what should a salesperson do when a client becomes disagreeable? It first depends on the situation – who the client is, how long they’ve been a client of yours, and what the nature of the disagreement is. Typically clients’ complaints can actually provide salespeople with valuable feedback on communication strategies and which kinds of products/services could be a better fit.

The right way to deal with a disagreeable client is to try and look past their tone/attitude, and instead see if there is anything valuable you can take away from the situation to use to your advantage in future situations. Regardless of what happens (even if you do decide the client isn’t worth the trouble), always do your best to maintain a professional attitude & body language when responding the the disgruntled client.

Three Sins of Sales Funnel Management

Funnel management is key to sales success, but how does it apply to your business? What role does it play in your business?

In the case of sales funnel management (similar to other business areas/initiatives), it’s important to take the time to re-think older strategies & re-work them accordingly. Now more than ever companies are looking at the sales funnel as a business process for selling. However, what we’ve been seeing over the last couple years is companies committing the three sins of sales funnel management:

1. Changing the stages: companies are treating their sales funnels as a bi-cycle-funnel and thinking that’s enough to change selling behaviour.
2. They are throwing a technology solution at a process problem: companies think by putting clients into their CRM that they are going to see changes.
3. They aren’t providing coaching around the funnel: companies aren’t training their managers to coach, they just assume the managers fully understand the funnel & leave them to do it their way. This directly ties to the lack of funnel inspection going on as well – no funnel audits combined with no coaching produces undesired results.

In order to manage the funnel more effectively, sales managers have to take a step back and realize that changing stages and putting clients into a CRM isn’t enough; they have to provide proper coaching and training for the funnel and its processes.

To avoid sinning, companies have to produce a funnel blueprint that brings all the components (people, technology & process) together. This blueprint should not only go into detail about the stages, but also how to execute the strategies properly.

Social Media & Newsletters as Growth Strategies

The power of social media & content sharing (via mailing lists/newsletters) seems endless in 2018! With both, we’re able to deliver important messaging to current customers, position our brands in order to target prospecting customers, and optimize ourselves to reach valuable audiences we may otherwise be missing.

For example, if properly planned and implemented, your brand’s social media reach (paid & organic) can be used as a growth strategy by serving your followers with messaging about services they have with you, perhaps encouraging more in-depth package levels or add-ons that can improve their experience with your products. On the paid side, you can create custom audiences made up of people who don’t follow your brand and then serve them information on a specific product or service that you are trying to sell, while at the same time making yourself present on their timeline.

Similarly with newsletters, you can create sub-groups within your mailing list overtime based on the products & services your clients have with you. For example, you can serve migrant clients information on additional services you offer and serve recurring clients with potential product upgrades and/or improvements. General newsletters are a great growth strategy as well – by sending your audience valuable content related to your products/services, you can use the newsletter as a semi-regular reminder of your brand and its offerings.

However, there is a problem with all of this: it takes time; time that most business owners don’t have… This is where Adroit Technologies comes in! Acting as subcontractor for Growth Strategy Dynamics, they offer a wide variety of technology solutions – social media & newsletters included.

Want more information on these strategies & how to get started? Contact us today or contact Adroit Technologies directly!

(250) 828-1198

info@atws.ca