Is the Way We Sell Still Relevant?

Is the way we sold before, still relevant in this “New Normal” business terrain? With the effects of the “Great Recession” persisting for many years, how do we evolve our sales process to be more credible and productive? Should we engage with our customers in a different way? …with different information? …and a new perspective on the customer’s business challenges?

In the last 2-3 years, have you noticed how impatient customers have become with the same old product pitch? How do you align what they see as their “hurts” with your ideas of how to fix those hurts? How do you balance the “fixes” between:

1. Attaining their mission
2. Optimizing their operating efficiencies
3. Realizing their financial goals

Many people are questioning how a sales rep should engage a customer these days. With the challenges that we all are dealing with in this new normal economy, we, as professional sales reps,  must become more sensitive to the customer’s point-of-view on acquisition of goods and services. We all need to evolve to a more credible, relevant engagement and relationship with the customer.

IS MORE PRESSURE THE ANSWER?
We all want to sell MORE, and frankly, we all are becoming more desperate in this profession of sales due to the declining or flat  sales numbers over the recent 4-5 years. As sales managers, most of us are being directed by senior management to continue the growth in a down to flat market, with ever higher targets that ultimately increase desperation and ultimately become de-motivating to a sales team that performs much better when positively motivated.

How many times do you need to train a sales rep to say “You need to use my Sooper-Dooper X13. Here’s how it works…” The customer decision-maker must endure (or chooses not to endure) 2-4 pitches per day. Do the pitches begin to sound similar? Does the effectiveness of an ineffective “pitch” improve with higher frequency and more desperation?

EVOLVE YOUR SALES PROCESS
The sales process you utilize today must be evolved to the new realities of this new environment, the new challenges facing your same customers.

• Customers want to engage representatives of organizations that can demonstrate a credible knowledge of their business and the terrain they are operating in.
• Are your customers being engaged by an individual that understands the specific challenges of the customer’s business?
• Your sales process should flex with the customer as their hurts evolve in this new normal environment that will continue to change over next several years.
• Would the customer be more open to engaging if your representative has planned the calls and is prepared to actively discuss the specifics of what’s happening in the customer’s business?
• What if the sales person was confident enough to talk about the customer’s “hurts” related to their mission, operationas, and financial performance, and provide several potential approaches to fixing those hurts?

The customer today, and for the next decade of this “New Normal”, is done…fried…burnt with “pitches”. With increasing frequency, you will find the customer engaged and buying from the representatives that are well informed, demonstrates business acumen, and becomes the more credible and trusted “customer advocate”. Those 99 slide “product pitches” will increasingly become rejected by the customer. The reality of the customer’s business challenges must be recognized and evolved into your sales and marketing processes.

WHAT DOES MY TEAM NEED?
What does my sales team need to become more effective in the “New Normal” terrain?

1. Your sales process must be flexible, engaging…a process that builds confidence in the customer that the sales rep is genuinely concerned for their success.
2. The sales team must understand the customer’s business, how it runs, how it fails, how it succeeds…the account’s mission, the operations, the financial measures.
3. The sales team is supported by a customer-centric marketing-product development team, that understands the customer’s business and operations as well as sales team.
4. The sales team has access to practical business intelligence that can be utilized in the customer-centric account management process. The account-management process is designed and executed to build the customer relationship and the “book of business”, by earning the right for the customer’s business every day.

Total Innovation Group, Inc. is committed to the innovative development of processes, tools, and talent of our client’s teams.

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