Sales tips and tricks that worked in the ‘90s just don’t work anymore. So why are we still making the same mistakes over and over again? If you want to succeed, you need sales methodologies built for the sales world we live in today. Methods created decades ago aren’t helpful in a totally different environment. Here are three mistakes your sales team may be making that you might not even realize.
Mistake 1: Being Product-Centric Won’t Get You Anywhere
Being product-centric is the classic pitfall for even experienced salespeople. They’re more focused on selling a product than solving a problem. Think about it: Good car salespeople don’t try to sell you a car with four-wheel drive and a lot of cargo space—they sell you the ability to go camping deep in the forest.
Thankfully, once a salesperson changes their mindset, problem-centric selling comes almost naturally. An effective in-person or virtual sales training program might be all your team needs to start bridging the gap between a potential customer and where they want to be. At the end of the day, it isn’t the bells and whistles but the real problem you’re solving that matters most.
Mistake 2: Doing the Demo without Discovery
The initial product demo is one of the most crucial moments in any sales cycle. It’s the moment where you demonstrate how your product works to a prospect. But you can’t be successful if you go into a demo session blind. Even if you’re excited to show off the bells and whistles of your product, you won’t close the deal if you don’t know your prospect, their problems, or why they need to change. You’re essentially prescribing something before you even diagnose the problem.
Instead of rushing into the demo, you need to go through the discovery process to uncover and identify the prospect’s problem, the root cause of the problem, and the impact your product or services will have. So, take the time to do your research ahead of time and really get to know the prospect. You’ll build a solid foundation for the relationship, and you’ll know exactly what to show them during the demo.
Mistake 3: Caving to Price Objections Won’t Get You Anywhere
It may seem counterintuitive to building sales, but you shouldn’t let a hesitant customer object to the price of your product. If you’re caving to price objections, a couple of things are happening. First, you are likely too product-centric, meaning you don’t understand the real value you’re selling the client. For example, you’re not selling them a payroll software package—you’re selling them an automated payroll department that can save them thousands of dollars, stop them from making $50,000 accidental payroll mistakes each month and get payroll done in 2 hours instead of 8.
The second thing that could be at play is you haven’t accurately defined the prospect’s ideal outcome. If you don’t know what they get out of the deal, of course you’ll find yourself having to defend the price of your product. When you know the prospect’s ideal outcome, you can shift focus away from the price tag of your product and help them understand the cost of keeping the status quo. They need to change, and you can help them fill the gap. It’s easy to discount a product but almost impossible to discount an outcome.
At the end of the day, objection handling in sales means standing your ground when a customer objects to the price. It isn’t your job to make sure every client has allocated the budget to your product. Confidence in the outcome you’ll deliver is more convincing than caving to a price objection. If you can convince the prospect of your product’s problem-solving capabilities, they’ll understand why the investment is worth it.
About A Sales Growth Company
Conventional sales training is struggling to come into the 21st century. That’s why A Sales Growth Company doesn’t offer conventional sales training. For over 10 years, they’ve helped redefine the relationship between customer and salesperson, putting the customer’s problem front and center. A Sales Growth Company will help your organization get to the root of its sales problems and introduce innovative sales methodologies that will help your team accelerate sales growth. A Sales Growth Company uses the ideas of Gap Selling to attack new and old sales challenges with unprecedented efficiency and success. Transform the way your team thinks about selling and build a culture where winning is a daily occurrence with A Sales Growth Company.
Learn how A Sales Growth Company can help you solve your sales problems at https://salesgrowth.com/
Original Source: https://bit.ly/3q82ZbA
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