Selling stuff is difficult. Especially in our one-click-to-buy environment in which people have gotten used to shopping without sales people. And particularly in telephone and data communications, in which different sellers’ products are so very similar.
However, sales people can get customers’ attention, forge relationships, and break through the noise. And in last Tuesday’s ITEXPO tech sales seminar, Peter Radizeski of consulting firm RAD-INFO Inc. explained how.
Radizeski, author of the book SELLECOM2: Selling Cloud Services, explained three are three core buying stages. The first involves educating your buyer. The second is to present solutions. And the third is to showcase your expertise.
Smart sales people are in front of their customers all of the time. They share industry trend articles and other relevant information and commentary, Radizeski said. They review when customer solutions are due for a refresh, and then they offer to help. And they never leave a meeting without scheduling a follow up, added Radizeski.
“Here’s the thing about your customers,” Radizeski said. “They have the exact same problems you do.”
The problems are talent, sales, productivity, and competition, he noted. And, he added, the salesperson should be talking about those problems and helping customers solve them. Doing that may include offering content or other resources to customers. And, ultimately, it will involve serving up potential solutions.
Radizeski also emphasized that salespeople need to avoid replacement selling. Instead, he said, they should sell solutions that help customers be more productive and save time. That prevents selling based on price, he said, which is a losing proposition.
When salespeople are selling something new, like cloud-based offerings, they need to sell the change too. There’s a lot of truth to the saying that everybody buys AT&T and IBM, he said. The point is that customers do that because they don’t want to risk getting fired. So, if you’re selling something that’s new, lay out the benefits of this change to customers. And position yourself as a trusted advisor who knows what you’re talking about and is providing the right solutions to their problems.
Edited by
Mandi Nowitz
