Create fans, not just customers
Consider the growing competition for your product or service. Not just other companies offering similar goods, but alternatives that include something completely different or doing nothing at all.
Combine that with the fact that product loyalty is at an all-time low driven by easier online access to information and different products, and the result is a much more difficult selling environment.
Regardless if you are a B2B or B2C company, good enough price, quality, and service aren’t good enough any more. You must create relationships with your prospective and existing customers that provide them an experience they can’t find anywhere else.
How skilled are your front-line salespeople at empathizing with your audience in order to truly understand their needs? If they are underperforming, it could be that you have the wrong people in the seats, but it could mean that they haven’t been properly trained in critical skills of their job.
Far too many salespeople think that their job is to simply blow their prospects over with features and benefits they are trained to regurgitate. If they are hit with an objection or a stall, their ingrained reaction is to throw more features and benefits back at the prospect expecting ‘yes’ to magically emerge.
The decline in product loyalty by generation
The role in your relationships is more important than ever as younger consumers increase in buying power.
- When I find a product I like, I tend to buy it repeatedly.
- I like to try out different products, even when I know there's one I already like.
How I can help
Drawing upon my 25+ years of hiring, training, and managing salespeople, I can help you evaluate your current staff, and for those who are motivated to learn and improve, I can coach them to develop an empathetic style of selling. Spoiler alert: it starts with asking good questions.
Armed with this crucial business social skill, your salespeople will be more persuasive with their audience which will lesson the pressure of price and replace it with the appeal of relationship and trust.