Rethinking selling
Making a sale of a Software as a Service (SaaS) product to a large enterprise customer can be slow and difficult. There are a lot of potential roadblocks that need to be overcome.
I’m a “techie” however my role sometimes crosses paths with customers in a sales scenario.
On the long drive back from a recent meeting with a customer I was listening to the audio book for Sales Pitch by April Dunford. I had read her previous book on positioning called Obviously Awesome which was brilliant (or should that be “awesome”?).
There were a few takeaways from Sales Pitch that I think we can build on going forward to help with sales.
Help to buy
Most sales people focus on selling to a customer. She proposes that you should flip this around and look at helping the customer to buy. What can you do to help them make the decision to buy? What barriers can you help to remove?
Differentiated Value
Part of the sales pitch should focus on how the product is differentiated from others - don’t shy away from comparisons, even if you don’t name the competitor’s products. Highlight the ways it adds more value to the business. If you can’t find any way to differentiate your product then you will have a big problem convincing someone to buy it rather than a competitor.
Always ask the question “So what?” about each differentiated value/feature. This should help identify the underlying business value.
For example, if you have a feature that shows data in a unique way you should ask
So what?
It allows the customer to see their conversions rates better
So what?
It helps them identify the features that have the biggest impact on the conversion rate
So what?
They can focus on these features
So the differentiated value could now be described as “the unique visualisation provides allows the user to clearly identify which features to focus on to improve conversion rates” as opposed to “it has a unique visualisation”.
Overcome fear with trust and confidence
The biggest fear a customer has is that they will make the wrong decision and they will have to justify it to those above them and their peers. Building trust with them and confidence in your product is one way to help reduce this fear.
Do nothing is your biggest competitor
In B2B sales, the biggest competitor you have is not another company or product - it’s “doing nothing”. The easiest choice they can make is for the company to stick with what they already have and hope it will meet their needs. In their eyes they are not taking the risk of making a wrong decision - even though it might actually prove to be the wrong decision.
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