Any sales professional today will agree customers are smarter than ever. They’re doing their homework aided in full by the internet and the social media. The big question now is: How has your “sales pitch” changed to keep up with your customers and the changing sales environment?
The term “sales pitch” invokes the image of a hard sell. But in this context, a sales pitch is short for the story you tell. A good sales pitch is one you tailored to your customer’s needs and helped to differentiate your offering from the competition. But today, because customers are educating themselves on your products and those of your competitors through the internet and conversations with other customers, the product knowledge gap you filled in the past is getting smaller.
Sure, you have to talk about your capabilities, but the how and when of such a dialogue has changed. Nothing will ever reduce the need for you to understand your products and your customers’ needs. As a matter of fact, you need an even a deeper understanding of both. Beyond that though, you must bring more to your customers than the ability to differentiate your capabilities. Customers expect you to be more proactive and more creative in solving their business issues.
What you bring as you – the value you add to helping customers meet their business objectives, your ability to help them see a broader perspective – is as important, often more important, than what your products will do for them.
Lately, there has been a focus on the need for salespeople to increase their business acumen — and rightly so. Customers expect you to engage them in broader business dialogues, and that demands business acumen. The internet and training resources can help you build business acumen. But one of the best seminars on earth is your customer’s office. Take advantage of your customer’s knowledge. Don’t shy away from asking broader, more strategic questions. If you are prepared and it is a value-based give and take, customers will share knowledge with you. Ask questions to understand how your customers see their business and what they want to achieve. Not only will you be better positioned to customize a winning solution, but you’ll learn from the exchange and be smarter for this customer and the ones after. The successful call is one in which both you and the customer learn something.
Customers value industry knowledge. They value competitive data. They value research and metrics. They value being helped to broaden their perspective. Customers’ product knowledge gaps are getting smaller and smaller, but the areas where you can provide value have changed and expanded. When your product capabilities are framed with what customers’ value, they will reward you for it.
After your next call, ask yourself what you learned that broadened your knowledge and built your business acumen. Make this as important as what your customers learned from you. Together you will build winning solutions.
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This article was originally posted to the Richardson Sales Training Blog on September 28, 2011
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