Mastering the Art of Asking For The Order

asking for the order - Top Question from Google

How do you ask customers for the sale? (The short answer)

You should always remember, people do not like being sold to, but they love buying. With this in mind the best way to ask for the order, is not to ask for the order. If you use a consultative sales approach the customer will realise for themselves that there is a good fit between what you are selling and their needs. The best sales professionals never have to ask for the order. They simply create the right conditions for the buyer to buy.

If you are using a traditional sales approach in B2B sales, there are several ways to ask customers for sales, depending on the context and the relationship you have with them. Here are some examples:

If you are in a business setting and have already established a relationship with the customer, you can ask for a sale by stating the benefits of your product or service and explaining why it would be a good fit for their needs. For example, you could say, “Our product has been proven to improve efficiency and save time, which I think would be valuable for your business. Would you like to discuss a purchase?”
If you are cold-calling or contacting potential customers for the first time, it’s important to be polite and respectful. Start by introducing yourself and your company, and then explain how your product or service can help them. For example, you could say, “Hi, my name is [Name] and I’m with [Company]. We offer a [Product/Service] that can help [Benefit]. Can I schedule a call to discuss how it could benefit your business?”

Overall, the key to asking for the sale or indeed anything, is to be polite, respectful, and informative. Show the value of your product or service, and be prepared to answer any questions they may have.

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1. Why it's important for salespeople to ask for the sale?

Not everyone is familiar with, or uses a consultative sales approach. Therefore, it’s very important for those using traditional sales methodologies to ask for the sale. Asking for the sale is the final step in the sales process, and it’s what ultimately determines whether the salesperson is successful in making a sale.

By asking for the sale, the salesperson is taking the initiative and putting the decision in the hands of the customer. This can be a powerful way to persuade the customer to make a purchase, and it can also help the sales person to close the deal more efficiently.

In addition to winning more sales, asking for the sale is also a crucial part of building a successful sales career. Sales is a profession that requires persistence, confidence, and the ability to handle rejection.

Asking for the sale helps sales professionals to develop these skills, and it can also help them to build a track record of success. The ability to ask for the sale has a direct impact on the sales performance of your sales team.

2. Why asking for the sale can lose sales professionals the deal

Asking for the sale is an important step in the sales process, and it’s essential for making a successful sale. However, if it’s not done in the right way, it’s possible that asking for the sale could lose the deal. Here are a few reasons why this might happen:

The customer isn’t ready: If the customer isn’t ready to make a decision, asking for the sale can be premature and can push them away. It’s important to carefully gauge the customer’s level of interest and readiness before asking for the sale.
The customer has objections: If the customer has objections or concerns, asking for the sale without addressing those issues can be counterproductive. It’s important to listen to the customer’s objections and to address them before asking for the sale.
The sales person is pushy or aggressive: Asking for the sale in a pushy or aggressive manner can be off-putting to the customer. Salespeople should be direct and clear in their request, but they should also be respectful and professional.
The customer is dissatisfied: If the customer is unhappy with the product or service, or with the salesperson’s performance, asking for the sale can be futile. In these cases, it may be better to address the customer’s dissatisfaction and try to resolve the issues before asking for the sale.

Overall, asking for the sale is a crucial part of the sales process, but it’s important to do it in a way that is appropriate for the specific situation and customer.

3. How fear of rejection stops sales professionals asking for the sale

Fear of rejection can definitely stop salespeople from asking for the sale. Asking for the sale is an inherently vulnerable position, and it requires the salesperson to put themselves out there and potentially face rejection. This can be intimidating, and it’s natural for salespeople to be afraid of being rejected.

However, it’s important for salespeople to overcome this fear and to ask for the sale anyway. Rejection is a natural part of the sales process, and it’s something that every salesperson will experience at some point in their career. By accepting that rejection is a possibility and by developing the skills and strategies to handle it effectively, sales people can overcome their fear of rejection and become more successful in their careers.

Sales people can overcome their fear of rejection in a number of ways, including the following:

Develop a positive attitude: A positive attitude can help salespeople to stay motivated and focused, even in the face of rejection. By believing in themselves and their abilities, salespeople can maintain a sense of confidence and resilience, which can help them to overcome their fear of rejection.
Practice effective rejection management: Sales people can learn how to manage rejection effectively by using techniques such as reframing, refocusing, and redirecting. These techniques can help sales people to view rejection in a more positive light, and to move on from rejection quickly and confidently.
Seek support: Sales people don’t have to face their fear of rejection alone. Seeking support from colleagues, mentors, and peers can provide valuable encouragement and advice, and can help sales people to feel more confident and capable.
Learn from rejection: Instead of viewing rejection as a failure, sales people can learn from it and use it as an opportunity to improve. By analyzing why a particular sale didn’t go through, salespeople can identify areas for improvement and develop strategies to overcome similar objections in the future.

By adopting these strategies, sales people can overcome their fear of rejection and become more successful in their careers.

4. How to build confidence in salespeople

Here are some tips for building confidence in a sales team:

Provide training and development: A sales team who are well-trained and well-equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed are more likely to be confident in their abilities. Invest in sales training and development programs that provide sales professionals with the tools and resources they need to be successful.
Encourage positive thinking: Positive thinking is a powerful tool that can help sales professionals to build confidence and overcome challenges. Encourage sales professionals to focus on their strengths and to believe in their ability to succeed.
Set achievable goals: Setting challenging but achievable goals can help sales professionals to feel a sense of accomplishment and to build their confidence. Create a goal-setting framework that provides clear benchmarks and rewards for success.
Provide support and encouragement: Sales can be a tough and demanding profession, and sales professionals often face rejection and disappointment. Provide support and encouragement to help salespeople stay motivated and focused, and to build their confidence over time.
Celebrate success: Recognizing and celebrating the successes of salespeople can help to boost their confidence and to reinforce the behaviours and strategies that lead to success. Make sure to celebrate both individual and team successes, and to provide public recognition for outstanding achievements.

By implementing these strategies, sales managers and leaders can help sales teams to build confidence, improve sales performance and to become more successful in their careers.

5. Why salespeople feel uncomfortable asking for the sale

Asking for the sale can be uncomfortable for a sales person because they may fear rejection or feel like they are being pushy or aggressive. Additionally, some people may be unsure of how to ask for the sale in a way that is polite and respectful, or they may not be confident in their product or service. Here are some reasons why a sales person may feel uncomfortable asking for the sale:

Fear of rejection: Asking for the sale means putting yourself out there and potentially facing rejection. This can be intimidating and uncomfortable, especially for people who are sensitive to criticism or who have low self-esteem.
Concern about being pushy or aggressive: Some people may worry that asking for the sale will make them appear pushy or aggressive, which can be off-putting to customers. This may be especially true for people who are naturally reserved or introverted.
Uncertainty about how to ask for the sale: Asking for the sale is a skill that requires practice and finesse. If a sales person does not know how to do it effectively, it can make them feel unsure and uncomfortable.
Lack of confidence in their product or service: If you don’t believe in your product or service, it can be difficult to persuade others to buy it. This lack of confidence can make it uncomfortable to ask for the sale.

Overall, asking for the sale can be uncomfortable for many people because it involves overcoming these fears and doubts. However, with practice and the right mindset, you can learn to ask for the sale in a way that is confident and persuasive.

6. What are sales closing techniques?

Sales closing techniques are strategies that salespeople use to persuade a potential customer to make a purchase. These techniques can take many forms, but they all aim to help the salesperson overcome any objections the customer may have and to move the conversation towards a successful sale. Some common sales closing techniques include using a trial close to gauge the customer’s level of interest, asking for the sale directly, offering a discount or special deal, and using scarcity or urgency to create a sense of need. Sales closing techniques can be effective, but it’s important for salespeople to use them in an ethical and transparent manner.

Examples of sales closing techniques:

The trial close: This involves asking the customer a question that helps the salesperson gauge their level of interest in the product or service. For example, the salesperson might say, “Based on what you’ve told me, it sounds like this product could be a good fit for your needs. Am I correct?”
Asking for the sale directly: This is a straightforward approach where the salesperson simply asks the customer if they would like to make a purchase. For example, the salesperson might say, “Do you want to go ahead and place your order today?”
Offering a discount or special deal: This involves offering the customer a financial incentive to make a purchase. For example, the salesperson might say, “If you decide to order today, I can offer you a 10% discount on your purchase.”
Using scarcity or urgency: This involves creating a sense of need or urgency to persuade the customer to make a decision quickly. For example, the salesperson might say, “This offer is only available for a limited time, so if you want to take advantage of it, you’ll need to act now.”
In certain circumstances such as selling home products like kitchens and windows, it can help to introduce an order pad or order form to help capture the customers order details. The visible introduction of the order pad can prompt the buyer into moving forward.

It’s important to note that these are just examples, and every sales person should use the closing techniques that are most appropriate for their specific situation and customers.

7. Handling objections in sales

Objections from prospects are common as they try to reach the best buying decision for themselves. However, in most cases they are not objections, they are simply the buyers way of saying that they require more detail. Nonetheless, the inability to handle objections will cost both the sales person and the company in lost sales. Here are some tips for handling objections in sales:

Listen carefully to the objection: It’s important to understand exactly what the customer is saying and why they are objecting. Ask clarifying questions and pay attention to their body language and tone of voice to get a better sense of their concerns.
Acknowledge the objection: Show the customer that you understand their concerns and that you are taking their objections seriously. This can help to build trust and rapport with the customer.
Address the objection: Once you understand the customer’s objection, provide a response that addresses their concerns. This might involve providing additional information, offering a solution, or addressing any misconceptions the customer may have.
Ask for the sale: After you have addressed the customer’s objections, it’s time to ask for the sale. Be direct and clear in your request, and be prepared to overcome any additional objections that the customer may have.
Follow up: If the customer still isn’t ready to make a purchase, follow up with them at a later date. This can help to keep the conversation going and can increase the chances of making a sale in the future.

It’s important to remember that handling objections is an ongoing process, and every sales person should be prepared to handle objections at every stage of the sales process.

8. What are sales transition statements and how do you use them?

Sales transition statements are phrases that help you smoothly move from one part of a sales conversation to another. They can be used to introduce a new topic, ask for a sale, or overcome objections. Here are some examples of how you can use sales transition statements:

Introducing a new topic: “In addition to [current topic], there is another aspect of our product that I think you might find interesting. It’s [new topic].”
Asking for a sale: “Based on what we’ve discussed, I think our product would be a great fit for your needs. Are you ready to move forward with a purchase?”
Overcoming objections: “I understand your concern about [objection]. Let me assure you that [reassurance/solution to objection].”

To use sales transition statements effectively, make sure they are smooth and natural-sounding. Avoid using language that sounds too salesy or pushy, and focus on addressing the customer’s needs and concerns. By using these phrases to move smoothly from one topic to another, you can help guide the conversation and ultimately persuade the customer to make a purchase.

9. What are the most popular sales closing phrases?

Sales closing phrases or sales closing questions are used to conclude a sales conversation and persuade the customer to make a purchase. Some of the most popular sales closing phrases include:

“Are you ready to move forward with a purchase?”
“Can I count on you to buy today?”
“If you’re happy with everything we’ve discussed, shall we go ahead and get started?”
“Based on what we’ve discussed, I think our product is a great fit for your needs. What do you think?”
“I’m confident that our product will help you [achieve goal/solve problem]. Are you ready to make a commitment?”

It’s important to remember that these phrases are just suggestions, and the best sales closing phrase will vary depending on the situation and the customer. The key is to find the right questions or phrase that feel natural and authentic, and that helps you conclude the conversation in a way that persuades the customer to make a purchase.

10. Why a consultative sales approach is important in modern selling

A consultative sales approach is important in modern selling for several reasons. First, it allows the salesperson to better understand the customer’s needs, goals, and challenges, and to tailor their solutions to meet those needs. This can help to create a more personalized and effective sales pitch, and it can also help to build trust and rapport with the customer.

Second, a consultative sales approach is more focused on the customer’s needs than on the salesperson’s goals. This can help to create a more mutually beneficial and long-term relationship with the customer, rather than a transactional one-time sale.

Third, a consultative sales approach is more adaptable and flexible than traditional sales approaches. In today’s fast-paced and constantly changing business environment, salespeople need to be able to adapt quickly and to provide solutions that meet the customer’s evolving needs. A consultative sales approach allows salespeople to do this more effectively.

Overall, a consultative sales approach is important in modern selling because it allows salespeople to provide more effective solutions, to build stronger relationships with customers, and to be more adaptable to changing business conditions.

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Amanda – Account Manager

How to Build an Outbound Sales Team

by Iain Swanston

How to Build an Outbound Sales Team – Top question from Google

What is outbound sales?

Outbound sales is the process of a sales team or salespeople initiating engagement with potential and existing customers. This could encapsulate trying to secure new customers, up selling to existing customers, or general account management. In contrast, inbound sales relies on a company’s marketing strategy to drive customer interest, and customers will contact the company to enquire about their services. This blog post will tell you how to build an outbound sales team.

Preparing to go Outbound

In the rush to go outbound many companies either overlook or pay little attention to the core foundation of every successful outbound sales campaign – their value proposition. Without this most campaigns will fail at best, at worst, they will fail you will lose market traction. you will lose your best sales people and you will also lose a lot of money.

A Proven Value Proposition

Many companies make the mistake of trying to scale their sales operations without a proven value proposition with disastrous effects. Whether you chose to build your own outbound team or to subcontract to a specialist you need a proven value proposition. The more time and money you invest on proving your value proposition will be returned ten fold in your results. This does not just apply to Startups. Those that believe they have already proven their value proposition can equally benefit by refining and fine tuning what they have.

Words Sell

Whilst most of us would accept the importance of words in the world of Business to consumer few people in B2B dedicate sufficient time and energy to finding the right words to describe our products and services. Ask and Pay per click specialist who is restricted to 30 characters for the headline and 90 for the description of the importance of word choice. That’s characters not words.

Technology

We are blessed in the modern sales world with lots of great outbound technologies which makes the outbound process both easier and more productive. From intent data, to auto diallers, to call recording and artificial intelligence there are a plethora of great tools to choose from that will help your outbound team be successful. Be sure to invest the time and budget to arm your sales team with the technology they need.

Sales Leadership

An often overlooked area of business is sales management. Many sales managers have come from a sales background and were at some stage a top sales rep. Unfortunately the skills required for modern sales management are very different to just selling and the position of sales manager is a key hire for any business. Without a great sales manager your best sales reps will leave and the worst reps will stay which is the exact opposite of what you want to happen. Company culture is hugely important in any business and no more so than in an inbound and outbound sales team.

In short, without a proven value proposition and good sales management, you will spend more money and take much longer to get where you want to go. These three areas are an essential component for a scalable outbound process.

Building an Inhouse Team or Outsourcing

When developing an outbound sales team, sales managers and company owners have two choices. They can build an in-house sales team or they can outsource the process to an external agency or group of salespeople.

Each option has its own positives and negatives, and sales managers and company owners should consider these carefully before making any changes.

Through outsourcing their outbound sales operations, companies can hire people with a proven track record of success that they might not otherwise be able to afford.

Outsourcing can be more economic for some companies, as they do not have to resource staff training or office space for them. It can also provide more cost flexibility, as the salespeople will not be tied down to long-scale contracts.

In-house sales teams are much more likely to develop excellent product knowledge over time, which they can convey to prospective clients. Outsourcing can also result in a lack of control of the sales process, and the company cannot guarantee that the leads generated are of a sufficient quality until much later.

There are also concerns that an outbound sales team may not be as “bought into” your product, company or company ethos, and this could be purveyed to prospective clients.

Remember, a poor outbound experience is the fastest way to destroy your brand. Badly executed outbound calls will have a negative impact on your brand and could lose you valuable market traction.

Outbound prospecting particularly cold calling, is very different to responding to inbound sales leads. Your sales team and lead generation strategy should be built with this in mind.

What are outbound sales activities?

Outbound sales requires salespeople to go to the potential clients. In contrast, inbound sales where potential clients come to the company, either for more information or to buy their product/service.

Therefore, traditionally outbound sales does not include any marketing or product development tasks.

Outbound selling can be very labour intensive, and in the case of cold calling it needs a high volume of calls to have a meaningful impact on sales. This is because:

80% of cold calls go straight to voice mail – Sales Intel

It takes an average of 18 attempts to reach a technology buyer – Gartner

In addition to being labour intensive, outbound sales has a high churn rate in terms of staff. Many companies struggle to retain the people they have, let alone build a high performing team of SDR’s.

Lead generation is the starting point of an outbound sales process. Some company’s will have a dedicated in-house lead generation team, whilst others leave it for their general salespeople to handle.

In most cases when outbound sales is left to general salespeople it simply doesn’t happen. Sales people have a skill of always finding something “more important” to do than lead generation.

Outbound sales is a contact sport, pure and simple and requires salespeople to contact prospective customers. This could be by telephone, email, LinkedIn or face to face, however predominantly this is done via phone and email.

From our own experience SDR’s who use a multichannel approach are much more successful than those who are only using the telephone or email.

Often as part of the outbound sales role SDR’s will undertake what is known as sales qualification process. This involves a salesperson determining whether or not the lead is likely to become a customer or not.

Once the leads have been qualified, leads are typically then passed to a Business Development Rep whose responsible for any form of product demo and closing the deal.

In more traditional sales organisations this may include setting appointments for the companies field sales reps. The length of the sales process will depend on the target market, the industry and the customer.

As an outbound sales person you will be expected to do the following:

Research leads
Generate new sales leads
Qualifying inbound sales leads and build a sales pipeline
Setting appointments with potential or existing customers and follow the sales process
Follow up proposals
Cold and warm calling
Cold and warm emails
Social Selling
Customer service calls, with a view to upselling
Product demos
Account Management

Outbound prospecting is especially vital for companies with little or no marketing budget. This is this because in these circumstances, prospective customers are unlikely to come to the company in great numbers, and as such the company will have to go to the potential clients.

Outbound sales strategy

Having a great team of outbound sales reps important, but if they don’t have a good sales strategy to follow, they are unlikely to be successful. Creating a sales strategy should be one of your first tasks when establishing an outbound sales team.

A good outbound sales strategy requires the right sales playbook (script, methods etc.) and the right methods to measure success. Opinions on sales scripts vary, but if you develop a good sales script, it ensures a consistent approach and can help new sales reps get up to speed faster.

Our research here at Klozers, find that sales teams with playbooks are 33% more likely to be high performers. If a sales script is used, preparation should be used so the salesperson will appear to be talking as naturally as possible.

Different sales methods should be explored to see if they will result in more successful sales. For example, consultative selling could result in an increase in sales.

Preparation is key for a successful outbound sales strategy. Salespeople should have all of the data, scripts and tools they need before they start calling. They should also have an excellent knowledge of the products or services.

Whatever sales strategy is used, it is important that there are processes in place to monitor its success. If certain aspects of the strategy haven’t been successful, then either the sales strategy can be amended, or extra training and coaching should be organised.

Data can be used to monitor the most successful times to make outbound sales calls. For example, if the data shows that outbound calls are more successful on a Wednesday afternoon, then greater focus should be placed on this time, and team meetings should be avoided at that time.

Outbound and Inbound Sales Support

At Klozers the inbound and outbound sales process that we teach in our sales training is based on the success we have had in our own business. We will show you exactly the sales strategies and outbound methods that we use every day to target customers, qualifying leads, make a sales call, cold calling, cold emailing and drive customer engagement.

Furthermore, if you would like to optimise your inbound and outbound channels we can teach you how we use content marketing combined with search engine optimisation, to turn our website in to a lead generation machine.

We have a number of ways we support SaaS companies. From advice on recruitment and value proposition development, through to telesales, social selling training and strategy training, we can help you win more business, grow your business. and have more fun along the way.

Klozers has been selected among the Top Lead Generation Companies by Designrush

Consultative Sales Training | How Customers Want to Buy

by Iain Swanston

Consultative Sales Training – Top question from Google

What is a Consultative Sales Approach?

Consultative selling is very different to more traditional forms of selling, as it doesn’t actually focus on selling. Instead, it focuses on building relationships with customers, listening to their problems and only then, offering them solutions to their problems.

Asking open-ended questions and active listening are key components of any consultative sales approach. This approach works because potential buyers are more motivated to buy products or services that meet their own needs, rather than the needs of the sales professional.

A consultative sales approach truly puts the buyer first. Instead of just selling any old product, or what happens to be on promotion that month, sales professionals using the consultative sales approach will look to sell products and services that match the exact needs of their buyers, which makes for more productive business development results and satisfied customers.

Instead of a scripted sales pitch, sales teams can use conversational skills and listen to their buyers personal and business needs. Only then do they provide advice and guidance, which includes being adaptable to the different challenges buyers may face.

The consultative sales approach is highly effective and can lead to far greater results for your business and better long term customer relations. Using other sales techniques typically results in salespeople chasing leads that are not a good match for the buyer. Whilst they may well win a first order, if the product isn’t right for the buyer and their customers, it is unlikely that they will build long term relationships.

However, using the consultative approach, the sales rep needs to listen to the customer needs and provide meaningful solutions, meaning your new customer can come back time and time again for your product or services.

It has become increasingly popular in recent years as sales reps and sales managers managers have realised that traditional sales techniques have become less effective, because buyers have become wary of sales pitches. Instead of being sold a product, people prefer their salespeople to take a genuine interest in them as a person and their business.

The key components of a consultative sales approach is as follows:

Direct route to market
Low volume of sales but high profit margins – less popular but still relevant with transactional sales
Requires high level of industry knowledge with experienced sales people
Higher cost to employers, with lots of training required
Medium to long length sales cycles

Consultative selling requires a change in mindset. Instead of going out to sell, salespeople will need to go and have a conversation with potential buyers, in a structured and reputable manner. Building trust first with any potential buyer is a big aspect of consultative selling.

Initially a lot of sales people struggle to adapt to the consultative sales method, as they are almost hard wired to sell products and services via the traditional features and benefits method. However, if you choose to adapt a consultative sales approach, it is important to stick with it, as modern buyers have become more resistant to being sold products.

Steps involved in Consultative Selling

1. Research potential buyers thoroughly before contacting them

Before engaging with potential buyers, it is important that the salesperson researches the potential customer, thoroughly and effectively. If the salesperson is used to a more traditional fast-paced sales environment, taking the time at the onset of the sales process to research may seem like an alien process.

However, first impressions matter, and considering the consultative selling method prides itself on expert knowledge, you need to make sure that you have done enough research. Similarly, consultative selling involves asking probing questions, and without enough research it can be difficult or almost impossible for salespeople to ask probing questions.

2. Define the Symptoms – What are the symptoms of the problem the potential customer is facing?

During this first step the salesperson will try to get an understanding of the issue at hand. Here the salesperson will play a role of expert consultant, where their expertise of the industry can be used to discuss the issues.

It is likely that the buyer may only have a surface-level knowledge of the symptoms, therefore the expertise of a consultative salesperson is vital.

At this stage, it is vitally important that the salesperson doesn’t revert to a more traditional techniques and try to sell products or services. This is because, it is very early in the process, and it is unlikely that the salesperson will have formed a fully rounded understanding of the issues at hand, and could recommend the wrong solution.

3. Root cause analysis – ask the buyer questions to understand and diagnose the underlying causes.

During this stage, the salesperson will need to dig deeper into the problem, and find out what is causing it.

By digging deeper into the problem, the salesperson can use their knowledge to generate powerful questions that will reassure the buyer that they are dealing with an expert in the field, and that they can use their expertise to offer solutions to their problem.

This step can be a really powerful tool to build the buyers confidence in the salesperson.

4. Business impact – Ask how the issue is impacting on the business. Does it impact on morale, performance, profitability or all three?

At this stage, the salesperson and the buyer have agreed on a diagnosis of the issue, and they will now begin to understand how this impacts on the business.

If the issue has very little impact on the business, in terms of profitability or revenue, then it is very unlikely that the buyer will look to make a significant contribution (either financially or with their time) to finding a solution.

If this is the case, or if the salesperson knows that their product or service isn’t the solution to the buyers problems, then the salesperson should cut their losses here.

5. Financial Impact – Find out how much the problem will cost the business if they do not fix it.

Identifying the financial impact of the issue is another major milestone in the consultative sales method. This can be easier to measure in objective measurements, such as monetary values, rather than subjective measurements such as staff morale or culture, which are far more difficult to monitor.

If the financial impact runs into the hundreds of thousands of pounds each year, and the solution only costs £10,000 then this could be a very attractive proposal for the buyer. Alternatively, if the solution costs £100,000, and it would only save the company £10,000 each year, it will be a much less attractive proposition to the buyer.

6. Personal Impact – Find out how the problem affects the buyer personally – how does it affect their day to day job?

Potential buyers are far more likely to be convinced by a solution, if the issue directly impacts upon them. This is why when using the consultative selling skills, it is vitally important to make sure that you are speaking to the right person.

If the salesperson and buyer are involved in a complex sales solution, it is likely that the 6 step process above may need to be repeated. It may also need to be repeated with different departments and stakeholders. Whilst this inevitably adds to the time taken to sell a product or service, patience is an important aspect of consultative sales.

What do you need to be a good consultative salesperson?

Consultative selling requires some key selling skills which aren’t necessarily associated with more traditional selling methods. This includes:

Active Listening – traditionally salespeople aren’t renowned for their listening skills, but under the consultative selling method, using active listening is a key requirement. Not only does it help understand the buyers issues, it also helps you stand out from the crowd. As buyers are being turned off by hard sales pitches, if a buyer needs to choose between two similar products, they may choose for the one with the sales person that genuinely listened to their issues.

Emotional intelligence – This covers peoples ability to evaluate, perceive and control emotions. Buying and selling remains an emotional process, and it is important for salespeople to respond to the buyers emotions.

Expertise – Because consultative selling requires the salesperson to really delve deep into issues, it is important that sellers are experts in their field. However, no one wants to be overawed with information, so the salesperson will need to communicate their expertise efficiently.

Domain knowledge – Similar to expertise, salespeople will need to have a specialised knowledge of the whole domain. Not only do salespeople need to know what their customers want, they need to know what their customers’ customer want.

Self-awareness – Consultative salespeople will need to understand and manage our thoughts and the impact that can have on people.

What questions to ask?

Asking the right questions is probably the most important part of consultative selling. Asking aimless questions or having an unstructured conversation with a potential buyer, is unlikely to either build rapport or project confidence. Whilst consultative selling doesn’t involve hard selling, salespeople can still funnel a conversation one way by using structured and well designed questions. Using specialised questioning techniques when combined with active listening and the required expertise can be a winning combination.

There are several types of consultative selling questions. They are:

Open ended questions – These are used to gather further information

Closed questions – Should be used for confirmation

Summary questions – Sales professionals should will summarise or paraphrase the prospective buyers statement and turn it into a question. These are used to confirm the correct understanding of issues.

Funnelling questions – These channel the conversation through a particular area.

Redirect questions – Sales Professionals should use these questions to control the conversation and move the sales process forward.

Opposing redirect – These questions is answering a question with a question back to the buyer.

Presumptive questions – Presumptive questions are questions when the salesperson knows or presume the prospective buyer does not know the answer.

Which Products and Services are best suited to Consultative Sales Techniques?

The great thing about Consultative sales techniques are that they can be used in almost any industry, or with any product or service. Our own clients sell a wide range of services from Waste Management through to Aircraft Manufacturing each using a consultative sales approach.

Furthermore, once you have mastered the system it can be as flexible as possible. We have clients using a consultative sales approach and closing deals on one inbound sales call, and we also have clients using the exact same consultative approach to close large enterprise deals through a six month sales cycle.

What is Consultative Sales Training?

Consultative selling requires a change in mindset and as such effective training is vitally important. As a specialist sales provider we offer training in consultative sales, and a range of courses from giving people a solid baseline understanding of the method through to those seeking to master the sales techniques.

As an international training provider we believe that sales teams learn better if they are doing the task, rather than reading text books or watching a presentation, and as such part of our training includes role place sessions. Consultative sales training also cover all aspects of the sales process, including social selling techniques.

It is also important to remember that consultative selling requires ongoing reinforcement training, so you should consider booking in several sessions, to ensure that your sales team do not revert to their natural selling habits.

Outside of training, under any sales technique it is important that sales professionals have enough support and encouragement. This is even more important under the consultative selling technique. Sales coaching from a sales manager between training sessions, can be a vitally important resource.

You can check out our course on consultative sales and book online here.

Amalan Terbaik Demo SaaS | Cara Memberi Demo SaaS yang Hebat

by Iain Swanston

Selling Information Technology Services | Everything you need to Know

by Iain Swanston

How to sell IT services?

Selling it support services is very similar to selling other intangible services.

Build your brand and make it as attractive as possible
Develop a detailed ideal client profile and create a niche for yourself
Link your intangible services to tangible deliverables that are important to your customer
Lear as much about your products and services as possible and how they impact your customers
Develop your relationship building skills and your emotional intelligence

As a business owner selling technology, managed services or custom development client satisfaction plays a key role in your long term success. Clients expect Rolls Royce service at competitive prices as competition in the technology industry is fierce.

1. Building your brand

As you would expect building a Brand in a competitive market like IT is not an overnight job. There are however, many companies who have successfully entered the market and gained rapid market share by being more agile than existing brands.

For example, the introduction of Microsoft Office 365 allowed new players to enter the Microsoft Channel while the existing partners continued to focus on Small Business Server sales.

New companies specialising in Cloud services and SaaS have disrupted the market by starting off with very niche services and expanding out as they grew.

In our experience the best way to build a brand is to first focus on your Inbound Sales Channel which inevitably will raise your awareness in the market and start to generate inbound sales leads.

For more information on developing your Inbound Sales Channel or any of our other consulting services please get in touch with one of our coaches via the contact us page.

2. Ideal Client Profile – who are you selling to?

Success in selling technology will require in depth research and creating your ideal client profile. This is something that most companies either forget or fail to see the importance of. The result is – if you’re trying to sell to everybody, you will end up selling to nobody”.

Taking time to thoroughly research your target market and identify the business pains they have that you intent to help them solve is one of the most important parts when selling information technology services.

At Klozers we use both an Ideal Client Profile which is focussed on the types of companies we sell to and a Perfect Prospect Profile which is targeted at the individuals within the ideal client profile that we sell to.

You can access the template below and many more via the SaaS Sales Playbook contained within our Resources section.

3. Your Value Proposition – what makes you different?

The reality is that many IT service companies appear the same – one Microsoft Partner can look the same as many others. Yes, it’s possible to differentiate with the area within the Microsoft stack that you focus on, such as SharePoint or Teams, however, what makes you different to all the other Partners focussing on those same technologies.

How you differentiate your value proposition is key because, unless you get this right, you will be seen as a “me too” player which means that you will end up competing on price. The best way to discover how you differentiate your business is to research both your target audience and your competition and find the gaps.

Initially these gaps may seem too small to build an empire, however, they are there as starting points as your brand will evolve over the years.

In addition to your differentiation you should also ensure that you have a strategy to make your entire team Subject Matter Experts.

Your company and your people should be seen as Thought Leaders and be the first to market talking about new products, services and trends. You don’t even have to deliver these new services, just talking about them puts your personal and company brand out there.

4. The Complex Sale

It’s important when selling technology services to remember, in nearly every case there will be multiple people in your customers decision making unit.

Studies show that most technology sales fall into the category of the Complex Sale meaning they will have anything between 14 and 23 potential people involved with 80% of them having senior roles.

The addition of extra decision makers elongate the sales cycle and further complicates the sales process. Many of the decision makers will be in different departments and often have competing priorities.

For example, when looking for Marketing Automation software the marketing department will typically want what they perceive to be the best marketing solution.

The decision makers from sales may want an automation platform that integrates with their existing CRM system.

5. Stages of the Sales Process

As with any complex sale it’s important to have a strong sales process that both your team can follow and works for your customers.

Nearly every organisation has their own unique sales process, however, it’s worth noting, any process is only as good as those implementing it and detail and consistency are king.

If you are selling to large enterprise organisations it’s important to understand these companies will not change their buying process to match your sales process. The vendor needs to first understand what the Enterprise Buying process is and then align their internal process with this.

Whilst having a sales process is important, what’s equally important in our experience is understanding:

What “qualifies” a prospect to move from one stage to the next?
What soft skills do I need to move a prospect from one stage to the next?

My first experience of this was with the 10 stage Microsoft Solution Selling Process (MSSP). This was not necessarily a bad sales process but little thought had been given at the time as to how you could move prospects through the process.

Microsoft have since invested heavily in their whole sales process and sales enablement and have some of the best training and support available.

6. Selling a product vs selling a service

Before the advent of the cloud and SaaS solutions, IT was predominantly a product sale. “Shifting boxes” and “selling tin” were common phrases among IT Sales Professionals. Selling servers and IT hardware were predominantly products, and the solutions were mostly the mixing and configuration of the different types of hardware with some custom development software thrown in for good measure.

SaaS has changed this forever as fewer and fewer companies have on premise hardware or software. With everything now hosted in the cloud, many companies now only have Laptops, a printer and a modem on premise.

This move from what was largely a transactional and tangible sale of a product, to a more solution orientated, intangible sale, has proven difficult for many sales professionals as one is

Most people find selling a product much easier than selling a service because your prospects get to see, touch and experience a product. Human beings communicate through our five senses and these are extremely important in selling. Next time you’re walking past a coffee shop or your local bakers I’m sure the aromas will be trying to entice you in the door.

Car salespeople love getting potential buyers to sit inside a new car as the small of the new car, the feeling of the leather seats and comfort of sitting down creates a desirable experience for most of us.

Compare these scenarios with Insurance or Pensions or cloud based technology solutions where the five senses are rarely engaged by the “product”.

7. Technology Sales Models

When it comes to Technology Sales Models there are many different models to choose from:

SPIN Selling developed by Neil Rackham in the late 80’s focussed on S – situation, P – problem, I – implication and N – need or payoff. This is still hugely popular, however, some people believe this SPIN is much better suited to simple transactional sales with few buyers, rather than the complex technology sales of todays market.

Solution Selling as the name says focusses on selling a solution rather than a product and is widely used among technology sales professionals. Solution Selling involves much more time in the early stages of the sales uncovering the prospects needs and pain points and uncovering the underlying problems that are causing the pain. Furthermore, solution selling is better suited to selling technology services as it also helps uncover different decision makers and stakeholders within the business.

Consultative Sales Methodology is very similar to Solution Selling, however, where Solution Selling is based around selling a technology Consultative Selling is more focussed on the pre-sales consulting stage and building relationships through empathy.

Whilst choosing the right sales methodology is important these are all things that can be learned. What’s more important, are the values and work ethics of your team.

8. Selling Software as a Service (SaaS)

SaaS Sales Campaign in a BoxTraditionally software was sold as an on premise solution and was often customised to the individual company’s requirements. The advent of SaaS has changed this dramatically and reduced the amount of custom software development undertaken in house.

The Custom Development of software was expensive, time consuming and in some cases took so long that the original requirement had either changed or was no longer required by the time the software had been built and deployed.

SaaS software is essentially a switch on and switch off service allowing greater flexibility with the added benefit of lower entry costs as the software or platform is being resold multiple times. No more high up from capital costs with SaaS providing the perfect Op Ex solution.

Selling SaaS solutions are different to selling technology services. Whereby most SaaS sales are focussed on the software, features and benefits and demos these things are sometimes never touched on when selling managed services.

SaaS companies also have a slightly different methodology with most using MEDDIC or even CHAMP.

MEDDIC is probably the best known SaaS sales process with M standing for Metrics, E standing for the economic buyer, D stands for Decision making criteria as in why choose you. The next D stand for Decision making process, I stands for Identification of the pains and lastly C stands for Champion, who will help you sell internally.

CHAMP – is a simpler version with CH representing Challenges, A standing for Authority, M standing for Money and P standing for Priority.

9. Selling IT Managed Services

Managed Services or Managed IT Services are what we would describe as the Business as Usual IT services that a business needs to keep the doors open.

As a services business very large part of your market will be SME’s and you will be dealing with the Business Owner who may have little or no knowledge around technology.

As always when selling technology risk avoidance for these clients is key as they will need reassurance certain disaster scenarios are covered.

Whereas historically these would have included a lot of hardware sales the modern Managed Services contracts predominantly involve delivering services such as licensing, patch updates, remote monitoring, technical support and advice, deployment and possibly configuration of SaaS software.

The outsourced managed services model is particularly popular with Small Medium Enterprise (SMEs) organisations who typically are not large enough to have their own in house IT Department and therefore outsource the IT function in their business via a Managed Services contract.

The alternative to outsourced managed services is sometimes referred to as a break-fix contract where the customer is simply charged on a form of pay as you go.

Break-fix contracts now seem to be very rare as most services businesses prefer to sell the security of a Managed Services contract whereby the clients know the costs every month and can plan around this.

Many larger organisations will also outsource part of their IT function but often retain some specialist IT staff to manage the contracts and deal with specialist IT projects unique to their organisation.

10. IT Professional Services

Selling information technology services may involve what’s called IT Professional Services. These are typically intangible services based around:

Fault Diagnosis and Problem Solving. Let’s pretend that you’re organisations IT system develops a fault and no one internally is capable of identifying the root cause of the problem an fixing it. You may choose to approach an external contractor who provide IT Professional Services and they will supply a specialist to find and fix the problem.
Consulting. With technology moving so rapidly it’s almost impossible to keep up with everything. Your organisation may choose to hire an IT Professional Services firm to benchmark where you currently are from an IT perspective and then make recommendations based on your current and future requirements. Examples of this could be moving from On Premise to the Cloud or some form of Business Process Automation.
Bespoke Solutions. Some organisations require completely bespoke solutions designed and built for them. This may require business analysts, project managers in addition to the technologists in order to achieve the outcomes the client desires.

Both Professional Services and Managed Service contracts are classed as Business to Business (B2B) Sales. Largely speaking, Professional Services sales tend to be to larger enterprise organisations, with Managed Services contracts more suited to SME and Mid Market companies who have a limited IT Department.

11. Turning your IT Product Knowledge into powerful sales questions

Product knowledge when selling technology services as you can imagine is hugely important, however, it’s not for the reasons you may be thinking.

Everyone has heard the saying “when you’re telling you’re not selling”. Modern selling regardless of which sales methodology you are using is based around intelligent questioning. The value of any sales professional is not in the information they give, but in the information the gather.

Technology sales people have previously earned a reputation of talking “bits and bytes” which left the non-technical buyers even more confused.

The most successful Technology Services reps now focus on selling business solutions that solve business problems. The technology in many cases is completely irrelevant to the user, its what the technology enables them to do that is important. Those are the reasons people will buy.

Product knowledge in any sale has only two benefits as follows:

The product knowledge should be turned into powerful sales questions that make the prospect stop and think: “wow what a great question”, “wow, why didn’t I think of that”, “wow this sales rep has done this before”, “wow this sales rep really is a subject matter expert”, “wow I wished my sales reps were as good as this one”.
The product knowledge should provide the self confidence the sales rep needs to go into any board room and not be intimidated or fearful. The product knowledge should allow the sales rep to say to themselves “this company may be great at abc but they need me because I am an expert in xyz. Without confidence in the boardroom sales people will be outmanoeuvred by both their competitors and savvy buyers.

12. CIO’s and other Buyers you need to target.

In many cases the CIO or Head of IT is at the very least involved in the decision making process when selling technology services if not the final decision maker. This has however, changed for line of business applications over the years, with the advent of SaaS or cloud-based software.

In some cases where companies have developed very specific SaaS solutions that will only be used within the one department the “Line of Business Head” would fulfil the role of the CIO.

For example, purchases of a SaaS solution such as Digital Signature software that will be used to allow the companys sales people to get contracts signed digitally would typically not involve the CIO.

It’s also worth noting that studies show 93% of B2B buyers will require a business case before they can make a decision. In general a Business Case usually means that something is going to require board approval which takes us back to the complex sale.

CIO’s are highly valuable buyers and they know this. With many being introverts they often keep a low profile on social media and are difficult to start relationships with.

With this in mind it’s important to be armed with research, data, insights and case studies to demonstrate the value.

As previously mentioned these clients expect and require in depth research before approaching them, a track record of successfully delivering services in their niche with a high level of client satisfaction.

Exhibition Sales Training – how to maximise your investment

by Iain Swanston

Exhibition Sales Training - maximising your investment

11 Steps to Create Sales Battlecards that Win More Deals

by Iain Swanston

Sales Prospecting Training Course | Start Filling your Pipeline Now!

by Iain Swanston

Latihan Jualan Maya | 5 Teknik Jualan untuk Menguasai

by Iain Swanston

How to Build a SaaS Sales Playbook? (with FREE Template)

by Iain Swanston

Sales Training and Consulting for B2B Companies

by Iain Swanston

Why invest in Sales Training and Consulting?

There are normally two reasons companies invest in our Sales Training and Consulting services. Firstly, they are often in a hurry to find sales growth and are looking for a short cut, a growth hack.

Often these companies would eventually find the right strategies and tactics themselves, but they may be keen to capitalise on their first mover advantage or satisfy the needs of external investors.

For these companies we provide a shortcut, we help them avoid the pitfalls and roadblocks that every growing business experiences.

When you engage with Klozers your team has access to over 70 years experience in B2B sales and marketing.

Our sales training can help you get the best out of your team, alongside our consultancy services that will help you deploy the changes identified by our consultancy

Let’s take a closer look at why it makes so much sense to use sales training and consulting services together.

1. Why sales consulting compliments your sales training?

Many companies make the mistake of rushing into training as the solution to improving sales performance.

Indeed, training may be part of the solution, but it is never the whole solution. Before any training takes place it’s important to understand the root causes of the challenges within the sales department and only when we truly understand the problems can we prescribe the best possible solution.

By rushing into training we would be assuming that everything else that affects sales is 100% perfect, and that is simply never the case.

As with anything, the greater the investment upfront in terms of the diagnosis, the more effective the training will be.

This is because the training can then be customised to meet the exact needs of the business which makes it much more impactful.

2. Why is Sales Training so effective?

Sales training builds both skills and confidence, and those are simply unbeatable in front of a customer.

The best salespeople are like athletes and they are hungry to learn more and stay at the top of their game.

The reason they are so good is that they are constantly looking for an edge, an advantage, and this keeps driving them forward.

These are small but important things that make the difference and gets more deals over the line. Our training is designed to keep your team at the top of their game and help them benefit from the very latest insights and industry best practice.

Our sales trainers work hard to keep your team engaged and motivated during training sessions, using a range of mediums to maintain their attention and inspire them.

Your sales trainer will help your team sell more effectively whether that be over the phone, in-person or online.

They can help them improve their lead generation, closing and account management skills, and provide indispensable mentoring services.

3. What happens before training takes place?

Before your training sessions begin, it’s important to identify what you want to get from them. As a sales training provider we offer bespoke services that are based on your specific needs and challenges.

We can provide a full sales consultancy service in advance of any training. This would typically include an evaluation of your current sales unit in relation to sales maturity and best practice.

We can also provide full training needs analysis so you can gain a better understanding of your requirements before staring any training course.

For sales training to be effective, they need to be delivered in a way that maintains your teams’ attention, which means your sessions will include a great deal of interactivity.

Our sales training sessions include a range of demonstrations, exercises, games and roleplay.

4. What is the aim of Sales Training

Our goal as a provider is not to deliver sales training, but to deliver results.

Therefore we believe the goal of Sales training is to help you meet a range of sales goals faster than you would if you were to continue without any intervention.

Not every company’s needs are the same, but businesses often invest in sales training because they want to improve their staff’s sales skills, close more deals, create more conversions, make their staff feel more supported, improve morale and boost the average value of their sales.

However, ultimately all of these lead to one overall benefit – an improvement in results. Some companies invest in training because they have identified a particular problem that needs addressing which is being caused by a skills gaps within their businesses.

Training may also benefit your team if they seem to be lacking direction, or are feeling unmotivated. A lack of motivation can often occur because staff are unclear on what their roles are, or because the current strategies they are using are not working.

In many occasions this is why Sales consultancy is a perfect fit alongside sales training as it can also help you identify and deal with additional challenges.

5. How can a Sales Consultant help our business?

A sales consultant will help your business by taking a close look at your current situation, identifying strengths and weaknesses, and helping you make positive changes to drive revenue growth.

If you are not currently meeting your sales targets, our sales consultants can help you find out why this is happening and develop strategies to address the issues.

Our experienced consultants can help with optimising your sales processes and ensuring you get the maximum conversion ratios from the leads you are generating.

With our years of experience in B2B sales our sales consultants can introduce you to specific resources that will support your business.

These can include lead generation, marketing, sales tracking, and training programmes and software that will give you a better insight into how your sales team are performing.

6. Adding Sales Experience to your Leadership Team

When you are immersed in the day-to-day running of your company, it can be hard to assess your situation objectively.

It’s often impossible to find anyone around you who is not objective as your team all have a role which in some way will make them subjective.

Our sales consultants aren’t just there to identify problems that you weren’t previously aware of, we are completely hands on and happy to work alongside your team to implement any solutions.

Where applicable we will highlight your strengths and help you make the most of the resources that you currently have. In most cases this revolves around the creation of a sales plan, which we work with you to develop and if required are happy to help with executing against the plan.

Our consultants will work with you to help you improve relationships between departments and colleagues. For instance, we are often called upon for detailed advice on aligning sales and marketing departments so you’re delivering coherent messages to your customers.

Indeed aligning sales and marketing is one of our most popular services.

7. Which Companies benefit the most from Consulting Services

We typically have two types of customers of our consulting services. The first are larger organisations who already have a Sales Plan in place.

They need help executing and delivering against the plan as they simply lack the internal resources to do this themselves.

The second group are those looking for external and objective advice. In some cases they have seen a substantial decline in sales recently or aren’t meeting their targets they need to reach and hence are reaching out for support.

These businesses hire us because we have a track record of turning companies around. Alternately you may need external support if you have experienced changes in your industry and you’re struggling to keep up with your competitors.

Companies also may hire us because they feel missed sales targets are starting to affect morale and staff retention rates.

By investing in training and consultancy services, you can show your team you’re determined to improve and start achieving more.

8. Build a Selling System

It’s also common for companies to invest in sales consultancy services because their sales processes are confused and unclear, with team members pulling in different directions.

We are a huge advocate of having a selling system. Finance has a system, operations have a system so why not sales. Building a repeatable scalable selling system is simply a must for any business.

By mapping this out we can help your salespeople to understand how and where they can influence buyers and sell to people on different parts of their journey, helping you secure more sales.

Our consultants can also help you gain a richer understanding of the data available to you, from both your marketing automation and CRM platforms.

In many cases our clients either don’t have enough data or they are overwhelmed by data, and miss out on the most important parts. Either way we can help.

In Conclusion

Sales is an ever changing environment and more and more businesses are improving their performance, staff retention rates and workplace morale.

For most of use this means competition is tough and by investing in our sales training and consultancy services we can give you that edge you need to not just compete, but win.

Sales consultants and trainers can provide invaluable mentorship, help you identify and eradicate weaknesses, and help you make the changes that you need to not only survive but prosper.

Our team can breathe new life into your organisation and inspire people throughout your company. Whether you’ve been missing your targets or are simply ready to build upon recent success and take your business to the next level, there are many great reasons for hiring sales training and consultancy professionals.

If you are ready to hire a sales trainer, sales consultant or both, come and talk with us.

Sales and Service Training Courses

by Iain Swanston

If your business is typical, up to 80% of next years revenues will come from this years customers. Despite this many organisations give little or no thought to customer service, viewing it merely as a cost to the business.

In many cases customer service is a cost to the business, however, survey after survey shows customer service as a core component of your brand. In certain cases some brands who understand the commercial value of great customer service, use it as an opportunity to cross sell and upsell, thus driving additional revenue into the business.

There are so many great statistics for investing in sales and service training once you look into it, it’s difficult to ignore. As an example studies show that 82% of customers leave because of a poor experience and of those 73% leave because of a reaction to rude staff.

Structured and well supported training can help your team meet your customers expectations and even exceed them. The right sales and service training can make your team more adept at winning customers’ trust, whilst boosting your teams confidence.

The best sales and service training programmes are designed to help companies move away from customer service and towards customer experiences.

How can Sales and Service Training help my team?

Often the biggest challenge in business is winning new customers. Given that’s the case it surely makes sense to do everything possible to not only keep those customers, but to maximise the revenue from them.

Most service issues have a simple root problem, for example, 55% of customers are leaving because of delays in resolving a dispute and 51% are leaving because of poor staff training. What’s possibly most important to note, is that all these problems can be easily remedied.

Sales and service training can give your team a system to measure, track and consistently improve your customer service and sales. This will help change the mindset of your team, enabling them to make a real impact by being able to identify what matters most and take action to improve.

When done correctly training can enhance your workplace culture substantially and provide your sales team with additional skills that can benefit them personally throughout their careers.

Why Sales and Service Training is Important — Sales and Service Training

Close More Deals and Learn New Skills

Most companies are unaware of the potential sales opportunities they have with existing customers. With repeat customer spending up to 67% more, sales and service training is more than just handling complaints and returns.

A big part of resolving customers problems should be finding new solutions to the problems customers encounter. In most cases the problems that customers experience are actually the best opportunities for cross selling and upselling.

Training can introduce your team to new strategies and tactics that they may simply never come across before. In addition to external input, there are often great lessons that can be shared internally, and these should be captured and documented for the benefit of others.

Training will help your team become more familiar with your own company’s best practices. In a well structured sales and service training programme, your staff will not only learn new techniques, but also find out why they are so effective and which situations they should be deployed in.

Benefit from External Sales Specialists

Often a key benefit of sales and service training is that it gives your team a chance to take onboard new ideas and strategies from outside the business. In many cases they are more open to learning from external facilitators with an in-depth knowledge than from internal colleagues.

Sales and service specialists can give your team more than just the skills they need to engage potential customers in meaningful conversations. They can help you explain on your customers terms why your products and service may be a good fit for them.

Sales and service training will help your team use the product knowledge and information that they have about your products and services, and turn this into powerful questions that make the buyer want to buy rather than them having to sell to them.

Retain the Best Staff

Many companies are now switched on to the fact that it’s easier to retain quality staff when you invest in training courses for them.

If your team members feel you aren’t investing in them, there’s a high possibility that they will move to a company that will. Investing in training shows your employees that you are eager to help them improve.

When staff receive quality training, they tend to feel more supported, which in turn boosts their confidence. Recruitment costs to replace team members can be incredibly expensive and take up an inordinate amount of management time.

It’s therefore important to try and keep hold of the employees that you have already invested in and continue to develop them.

benefits of sales and service training — Sales and Service Training

Should Managers attend Sales and Service Training?

Sales Managers are responsible for the day to day activities and performance of those activities for members in their team.

Your Managers set the bar in terms of what is acceptable performance and what is not. With this in mind, it’s important that sales managers attend every sales and service training along with their staff so they can hear the information first-hand.

When managers know exactly what’s covered and agreed during training, they can ensure their staff apply this knowledge to real-life scenarios and coach them if they are struggling.

Sales training often includes an element of goal-setting, which is yet another reason why it’s so important for managers to attend. It’s important for the managers to set realistic, yet achievable goals, rather than targets that are out of your team’s reach.

Failure to do this will simply harm the confidence of the team and demotivate them.

Increase your Customer Satisfaction Ratings

Training like everything else in your business needs to deliver a return on your investment. Whilst not everything should be judged by customer service scores, any service training should ultimately improve your customer satisfaction ratings.

Customer expectations are arguably higher than they have ever been and today’s customers expect to receive high-quality service more than ever before.

If they have a bad experience with a member of your team, they’re likely to make their opinions public and Social Media can amplify bad news like never before.

Customer Service training will not only teach your team to deliver the best customer experiences possible, but also turn your happy customers into advocates for your brand, thus generating new business referrals.

Omnichannel Customer Support

Modern customer service training often starts before your customers have even made a purchase. In most cases your customers first interaction with your brand is either your website or social media pages.

It’s important to include these as part of your wider customer experience strategy. This is supported by many statistics for example, using three channels instead of one for marketing campaigns results in a 287% higher purchase rate.

Providing Omnichannel customer support helps your team keep your clients happy across a range of channels and mediums. It can help them communicate with your customers better not only over traditional channels like the phone, but also via live chat, email, social media, SMS and other platforms.

The most successful customer service teams around today adopt an omnichannel approach with research showing that companies with an omnichannel approach experience a 23 fold increase in customer satisfaction.

We believe it’s really important to include these areas in your service programme. Many companies are failing to meet their customers’ expectations which makes it easier for you and your team to stand out from the crowd and win business from them.

Sales and Service Training Course — Sales and Service Training

Build Expert Product Knowledge

No matter the industry customers want to deal with experts and not agents who are simply following a call centre script.

Sales and service training encourages your team to get to know your products inside out so they can answer any and every relevant question they might be faced with.

If sales reps don’t have the knowledge that they require, they are more likely to leave customers feeling frustrated, with the customer going on to air their feedback publicly.

The more your reps know about your products and services, the better they can address customer pain points and explain why your solutions are the answer to their problems.

Enhance Customer Loyalty

Repeated studies show that customers tend to be much more loyal to companies that offer outstanding customer service. Many of today’s customers say that customer service is more important than price when they’re deciding who to do business with.

By investing in sales and service training, you can attract and retain more customers and gain a real edge over your competitors. Part of your overall programme should include how you plan to collect and share customer reviews.

With 70% of people taking action based on customer reviews this is an essential component of every sales and customer service training.

Resolve Disputes Quickly

Delays when resolving complaints can often be the straw that breaks the camels back with 55% of people leaving a brand because of delays in resolution.

Sales and service training can help your reps resolve complaints quickly which is important when dealing with angry and frustrated customers.

Training can help them show tactical empathy when they are dealing with an angry customer and enable them to steer the conversation in the right direction, no matter which medium they are communicating on.

Understanding active listening skills can turn your team into better, more helpful listeners that pay close attention to what your customers have to say and then use the skills and information they have to deliver the best outcome possible.

Why Customers stay after sales and service training — Sales and Service Training

Customer Service Training

Unlike traditional customer service training courses, Klozers provides the latest in business simulation software, that allows your team to experience a 2 year customer experience transformation program in 1 day.

Our state of the art business simulation goes way beyond basic communication skills and helps your sales team understand customer expectations, sales process, and what truly drives sales performance across the organisation.

Designed specifically as a holistic cross departmental our customer service courses are designed to engage everyone from your front line sales team, product and services teams and company management.

The customer service training includes two options as follows:

Enterprise Customer Service Training

SaaS Customer Success Training

Please contact us for further information.

In Summary

How important is retaining your existing customers?

How valuable would the extra revenue be if your customer service team were actively cross selling and upselling throughout their day?

Investing in sales and service training will make your staff and customers much happier. If you look after your staff they will in turn look after your customers.

If you feel you need to make improvements in these areas, please give us a call. We would love to work with you and make the sales and service goals you have in mind a reality.

12 Critical Objectives of Sales Management

by Iain Swanston

The Objectives of Sales Management

There are many objectives and goals for sales management and the importance of each will vary from business to business.

Business to business sales can be complex, with many variables and whilst the obvious objectives of revenue, profitability and growth are important it’s easy to argue a case for the plethora of other objectives such as customer satisfaction, team morale, employee retention.

Effective sales management is the key to running every successful sales team. When sales management is executed correctly, the rest of your enterprise benefits.

Sales managers are responsible for inspiring teams, leading by example, maximising profits and providing customers with the best experience to make sure they return for more.

We’ve resisted the urge to include the all to common piece around smart goals, because we assume your past all that and looking for something more meaningful.

So, we’ve listed below what we believe to be the main objectives of sales management, enjoy.

1. Sales Plan

We’ve listed sales plan at the very start because of it’s importance. Without a plan it’s difficult to track progress, meet or exceed your goals and align your sales team around those goals.

Quite simply, the sales plan ensures that not only is everyone on your company boat rowing in the same direction, it ensures that the boat itself is going in the right direction.

As with any objective or goal, the sales manager should be measured on the execution of the sales plan.

For some reason the majority of companies do not have a sales plan and miss out on the many benefits they bring.

2. Sales Strategy

Strategy is listed in the dictionary as “an approach” and although it sounds simple coming up with the best approach or strategy to how you gain maximum market penetration with the budget available to you is never easy.

At best if you nail your sales strategy sales will take off and at worst you will find that sales become like wading through treacle. An eternal hardship that consumes any profits you dreamed of as it sucks the life from your business.

Once you’ve agreed on a strategy you need to review this on a monthly basis and adjust as required.

Beware however, of changing your strategy before it has had a chance to mature or you might just end up going round in circles.

Once you’ve decided on your sales strategy the next challenge is aligning all your resources including the sales team and executing on that strategy.

3. Reporting and Metrics

Before you start to implement and share your strategy and sales plan you will need to give some thought as to how you are going to measure your progress.

Data is the new oil and Sales reporting is an essential part of the modern sales managers day to day activities.

Your reporting system should tell you everything from how well your reps are performing on a daily basis, to the cost of customer acquisition on your latest sales campaign.

Reports will tell you which areas you are succeeding in and areas need your attention. You should draw up a list of baseline sales metrics and then from there you can measure progress towards your targets.

In almost every scenario, you will be asked to generate Management Reports for your board and these will include things like your current sales funnel/sales pipeline which will provide information such as how many live deals you currently have in your funnel, the average size of each deal and the average length of the journey through the funnel.

It’s critically important that you not only can generate the right reports, but that you can interpret the results in a meaningful way.

4. Sales Performance

There is no one individual who has as much influence over sales than the sales manager.

Every day the Manager sets the bar between what is acceptable and what is not, in terms performance from their team.

They are responsible for not just managing, but also the training, coaching and development of the sales team.

Every salesperson wants to sell, every salesperson wants to be part of a winning team and the sales managers that succeed are those that focus on 2 things:

They do everything they can to help salespeople sell more
They do everything they can to develop their salespeople.

Unfortunately, as the manager has the power to make everything a success, they can also be architects of their own failure.

5. Key duties of the Sales Manager

Sales managers are tasked with developing sales teams, coordinating all operations within sales departments and identifying and implement the right sales techniques to deliver success.

Although the aim is to meet sales targets, it’s not uncommon for these aims to be surpassed.

The right sales management processes can give you a substantial edge over your competitors and ensure your company is thriving rather than simply surviving.

As a minimum the sales manager should address the following areas in their plan. Strategy, Process, People, Channels, Technology, Customers and Leadership

6. Team Morale

Morale is extremely important when it comes to building a winning sales team. The more inspired and confident your team are, the more they will achieve.

This is why it’s so important to ensure each member of your team feels listened to and respected. The easiest way to do this is by including them in the sales planning wherever possible.

Provide real-time information on as much as possible including things like the exact costs to the business to employ them, the profitability of your sales and how many deals they need to close to breakeven in terms of their own cost to the company.

Transparency is essential, so make sure each member of your team knows how well you’re currently performing.

What’s also important in terms of morale is being completely fair and not having any personal favourites in the team.

It’s normally easy for managers not to have favourites, however, many find it more difficult to deal with disruptive sales reps and often ignore them rather than look to resolve the problem.

Often times the most disruptive sales reps can be a top performer but you will still need to let them go if you feel they are damaging the overall morale and productivity of the team.

It’s incredibly important to foster a positive workplace culture where workplace friction is addressed as soon as it arises.

7. Setting realistic but ambitious targets

When it comes to setting your sales targets it’s vital to strike a balance between being ambitious and being realistic.

If your targets are unrealistically high, your sales team and your sales team fall so far behind that they don’t believe they can hit those targets, they will quickly become demotivated.

We recommend that you include your sales team as part of the planning process to help you set your sales targets.

By doing this you are much more likely to get buy in from the sales team and as the manager, you can still guide the team to create targets that are challenging.

Unrealistic targets will only serve to damage morale substantially and in turn, this will lower the overall performance of the team.

Managers should guide and coach their team members through the entire period of the targets to help ensure they remain on track and re-motivate them if they begin to lose confidence.

Managers typically have lots of experiences and skills that they can draw on from when they were a salesperson that will support their sales reps.

8. Building a sales funnel

Creating a sales funnel that continually is topped up with new, high quality sales leads is one of the most important objectives of sales management.

A sales funnel, also known as a pipeline is used to outline each step a customer takes throughout their journey towards making a purchase.

In B2B sales the salespeople are responsible for moving the deals or opportunities through the sales funnel.

There is nothing more demotivating to sales reps than the struggle to fill the sales funnel with new leads. It’s therefore important that you work with your marketing team to ensure a continuous flow of good quality sales leads.

If you are using Sales Development Reps (SDRs) to generate their own sales leads then you must give them the strategies and tactics to generate those leads.

Tactics like cold calling and cold email campaigns do work but they on their own it is a slow way to scale your business. As the sales manager it’s your responsibility to break the entire sales process down into easy, manageable stages.

Sales funnels enable salespeople to remain organised and in control, especially when used in conjunction with a good CRM system.

With the right CRM dashboards in place Sales reps can easily see the progress they have already made towards their sales targets.

This in turn will inspire them to continue focussing on moving deals through the sales funnel.

9. When can I expect results?

In our experience every overnight success has taken years of hard work to get there. With that said, you should see early indications of success in months, not years.

It’s important to manage expectations and collectively agree what success looks like in the initial phases.

This is why we are such advocates of creating a sales plan that everyone can align themselves behind.

Your sales plan should identify what we call the lead indicators rather than the lag indicators for success and you can start tracking them immediately.

It’s unlikely your sales management will deliver exceptional results immediately but with planning, patience and persistence you will slowly turn the ship around.

Trial-and-error can play a big role in helping you create the right sales process for you.

Even when you start seeing the results that you’ve been aiming for, you should always be prepared to make amendments as customer behaviours and requirements, technology and markets change.

10. Motivating your Sales Team

As a sales manager, you will be tasked with overseeing things like data, technology, processes and sales pipelines which you may or may not find easy.

However, often the biggest challenge is people management and listening to your team is very important.

It’s essential to ask your team what drives them and what their personal goals are and then tie them into your own business objectives.

Not every member of your sales team will be motivated by money alone, so try to find out what else drives them and why they were interested in a career in sales in the first place.

It’s also essential to deliver additional support for those members working remotely during any lockdown period.

Some team members will be comfortable working from home, whilst others will prefer to be out in the field visiting customers and working in a busy office environment.

11. Do great salespeople make great sales managers?

One problem many companies encounter is that not all great salespeople make a fantastic sales manager.

Being a sales manager requires a whole host of different skills not required by salespeople, and it may take time to start seeing success once you’ve moved from making sales to overseeing them.

Most of the key tasks assigned to sales managers are strategic versus the tactical skills required by salespeople.

For example, data analysis is hugely important for every sales manager, as is planning, strategy and people management.

In addition, identifying realistic goals, hiring the right salespeople, creating incentives, arranging ongoing training and learning and matching the right kind of guidance to specific individuals in your team are all important.

12. Learning & Development

It’s easy to overlook training as a Sales Manager because there never seems to be any free time for developing your team or indeed yourself.

Training falls into the category of important/not urgent and because of this it often gets overlooked. In nearly every case the salespeople who don’t want training are those that need it the most.

Learning and development starts by hiring the right salespeople and only recruiting those who are driven and determined with great people skills.

The team that you inherit may be very different from this and it’s your objective as the sales manager to improve the team that you’re working with over the coming months or years.

It’s also important to seek out coachable people as these people are great learners and will continuously improve given the right support.

You will encounter people that already have good sales skills but seem unwilling to continue learning or taking feedback and this can become a problem.

These people not only don’t want to learn but they don’t want others to learn either and can sabotage and undermine your leadership.

Under these circumstances, as long as you have done everything possible to try and support these people if they still refuse then you will have no alternative to letting them go.

If you’re able to offer real-time information that you can display in the workplace, you should certainly do this as this creates incentives and keeps your salespeople’s eyes on the ball.

Transparency is essential, so make sure each member of your team knows how well you’re currently performing.

In conclusion

Sales managers are arguably the single most important part of your sales team and the right manager will help you achieve outstanding results when they build an exceptional and focussed team that they take the time to support.

They will ensure the organisation has the right people, structures, technology and sales processes in place progress which can be tracked and clearly visible for all the stakeholders.

By ensuring team members remain willing to learn and committing to learning more themselves, sales managers can deliver real success, even in the most competitive markets.

Sales Negotiation Training

by Iain Swanston

Key Negotiation Skills – Introduction

There is a common misconception that sales negotiation skills are only required towards the end of the sales process. The part in every sales process where costs and terms are agreed. Whilst this is undoubtedly true, it’s also true that the best salespeople are negotiating all the way through the sales process. In fact every Professional salesperson negotiates, every single day which is why it’s an important part of any training programme.

From negotiating with their children on what to have for breakfast, to negotiating with a Partner on where to go for dinner. In between times they will negotiate workloads with their line managers, negotiate meeting times with co-workers, negotiate dates & times for appointments with prospects and lastly negotiating sales contracts, project delivery and aftercare contracts. In short, Negotiation is actually unavoidable, and the ability to Negotiate is a core skill for every Salesperson.

Planning for Sales Negotiations

Like most things in life when it comes to Negotiation knowledge is power. The more information you have and better prepared you are then the more likely you will achieve a successful negotiation. Follow the information below to discover how to research and plan your next negotiation.

Sales Negotiation Goals

These are the needs, wants and desires of the parties involved in the negotiation. In business this can be complicated as not only may both sides have differing goals, but parties within each side may have differing and even conflicting Goals.

Goals can be subjective for example “We need to increase the confidence of our people.” or they can be more objective like “We need to reduce our overheads by 10 this quarter”. Either way it’s important to know both your own Goals and that of the other side. Important questions you must ask are:

Have we identified all the Goals?
What are the Prioritised Goals?
What are the Business Goals?
What are the Personal Goals?
Are there conflicting Goals?

Business Goals Examples	Personal Goals Examples
Strategic	Security
Change	Satisfaction
Growth	Peer Pressure
Improvement	Financial Gain

Please note Goals are NOT the same as outcomes.

Example:

Goals – George is 65 years old and would like to retire (Goal). In order to fund his retirement he needs to sell his business but no one wants to invest a large sum of capital. Mike would like to buy a business (Goal) but does not have any capital to invest.

The Outcome is the Negotiated agreement that they come to.

Negotiation Options

These are all the possible solutions that satisfy the goals of both parties. They are all possibilities that both parties agree or say Yes to.

By investing time to explore all the Options then you are more likely to find:

Alternative solutions
Enable both parties to achieve their goals
Reach the Best Possible Agreement (BPA)

Example:

Goals – George is 65 years old and would like to retire (Goal). In order to fund his retirement he needs to sell his business but no one wants to invest a large sum of capital. Mike would like to buy a business (Goal) but does not have any capital to invest.

Option – George can sell his business to Mike but rather than invest a lump sum he agrees to pay George on a Monthly basis from the profits for the next 5 years and hence fund his retirement.

Criteria for Negotiation

Criteria are the “terms” of any possible Option

Example:

Option – George can sell his business to Mike but rather than invest a lump sum he agrees to pay George on a Monthly basis from the profits for the next 5 years and hence fund his retirement.

Criteria – George needs to guarantee a minimum payment every month regardless of the profitability of that month. Mike needs to ensure ensure he will not be liable for any warranty, liability or compensations claims from the period before he take responsibility/ownership of the business.

Get expert Sales Negotiation Training from our Sales Coaches

Sales Negotiation Coaching — Sales Negotiation Training

CNA – Cost of No Agreement

Not all Negotiations end in an agreement, it is therefore vital before entering into any Negotiation that you first work out what the Cost of No Agreement is for both parties. The costs of no agreement can be both Objective and Subjective.

Example:

Option – George can sell his business to Mike but rather than invest a lump sum he agrees to pay George on a Monthly basis from the profits for the next 5 years and hence fund his retirement.

CNA – George does not have the financial resources to retire (Objective) however he has been trying unsuccessfully to sell his business for three years and is now desperate (Subjective) for a solution. Mike is keen to buy a business (Objective) but knows there are hundreds of businesses for sale and he is pretty relaxed (Subjective) if this deal doesn’t go through another one will come along.

The Subjective Cost of No Agreement can be more powerful than the Objective ones as people make decisions emotionally and then justify their position intellectually afterwards.

BATNA – Best Alternative to No Agreement

Not all Negotiations end in an Agreement, it is therefore vital before entering into any Negotiations that you first work out what the Best Alternative to No Agreement is. In some cases you may well experience that the other party is so entrenched in their position that they have no desire to Negotiate. BATNA is typically but not always, an alternative course of action that can be taken if no agreement is reached.

BATNA helps you prepare for a Negotiation by:

Helps prevent you from agreeing to something you will regret
Defining your Minimum Possible Agreement (MPA)
Provides you with a Plan B
Helps prevent you from over or underestimating the your own and the other party’s position
Helps you understand where the leverage is
Identifying alternative Options

Example:

Option – George can sell his business to Mike but rather than invest a lump sum he agrees to pay George on a Monthly basis from the profits for the next 5 years and hence fund his retirement.

CNA – George does not have the financial resources to retire (CNA) and has been trying unsuccessfully to sell his business for three years and is now desperate for a solution. Mike is keen to buy a business and has spent £3,000 with Solicitors and Accountants thus far completing his due diligence on the company.

BATNA – George is in discussion with his Lawyers to explore the possibilities of a Management Buyout for the business. Mike knows there are hundreds of businesses for sale and he is pretty relaxed if this deal doesn’t go through another one will come along.

Concessions for Negotiation

A concession is something given to the other party in furtherance of the agreement. These concessions should be identified in advance and segmented for both parties in terms of:

High Value – High Cost

High Value – Low Cost

Remember – Never give anything away without receiving something of equal or greater value in return.

Example:

Option – George can sell his business to Mike but rather than invest a lump sum he agrees to pay George on a Monthly basis from the profits for the next 5 years and hence fund his retirement.

Concessions – George is prepared to spend 3 months of his time ensuring during the handover period which is Low Cost to him as he will be retired but High Value to Mike as he is new to the industry and recognises the benefit of George’s experience.

Mike is prepared to move quickly which has no cost to him however this is High Value to George as the last thing he wants is a long protracted sale.

Negotiation Strategies

Aggressive Tactics

Shoot the hostage
- This strategy is extremely aggressive as it involves an immediate offer to walk away with no deal which is designed to throw and unsettle the other party. This is often delivered in a reluctant tone “we don’t want to do this but…”,
Delaying tactics
- When time is clearly on one parties side the process can often be deliberately slowed which is extremely effective when there are cost implications if talks over run. This tactic also applies if the other party has another meeting or needs to leave. The negotiator deliberately talks around the subject to delay the real conversation and then uses time to put pressure on the other party to come to an agreement.
Poor Me
- This strategy is used to play the false victim that needs rescued by the other party.
Last Minute.com
- As the name suggests this strategy involves the Negotiator agreeing to a solution right up until they are required to sign and then withdrawing. The withdrawal is usually followed up quickly with a counter offer at dramatically reduced terms.
Misleading/lying
- Often Negotiators will make exaggerated claims or even lie so without hard data to support them you should discount these. They may also issue warnings and threats or make matters personal to unbalance you.
Missing People
- Everyone knows the importance of having all the Decision Makers in the room but Negotiators may even turn up with complete strangers. In sales some companies will remove Sales People from the final negotiations. If the Sales People have a relationship with the other party they could be more empathetic and weaker negotiators. Turning up without warning with complete strangers also unbalances the other party.

Co-operative Tactics

Agree on the Process
- Spend time up front agreeing the process and format of the Negotiations including what’s in scope and what’s not.
Win Win Agreements
- Most professional Negotiators accept that any final agreement must be fair and sustainable for the life of the time period. In most business scenarios it should never be win at all costs as this destroys relationships.
Matching Rights
- Offer the other party the right to match any solution that you receive. For example if one of two business partners decides to sell their shares to another party they may have the agreement that the other party gets first refusal if they match the offer.
Contingent Agreements
- These are simply agreements based on future events. Financial Bonus may be tied to Performance. Football transfer fees can be include Contingent Agreements that provides the selling club additional revenue if a player is sold on and or if a player is capped by their country or simply makes a certain number of appearances.
Multiple Offers
- When multiple offers are placed on the table this allows both parties to indicate preferences and encourages creativity as a winning hybrid offer can be formed. Placing one offer on the table often leads to a refusal and a stall in the process.

Sales Negotiation Checklist

1. Be prepared to walk away. Sales Negotiation is 70% Mindset and 30% Strategy and unless you are prepared to walk away, no strategy will help you.

2. It’s not what you charge it’s what your worth. Thoroughly research the market and discuss with the buyer the Value you bring to the table?

3. Take council from colleagues and external advisors and agree a pre-meeting strategy for the negotiations then PRACTICE.

4. Never give anything away without receiving something of equal or greater value in return.

5. Never enter a Negotiation without first providing your price and outline terms in advance, to anchor the prospect to a higher number and terms.

6. Where possible in high value deals do not include your sales people in Negotiations, as they will be emotionally involved in the sale and not objective.

7. Ensure everyone in your team have agreed in advance your trade-offs, your concessions, and your best alternative to a negotiated settlement.

8. You must be comfortable with silence and at most only talk 30% of the time, as the more you talk the more information you are giving away.

9. If it’s not Win Win then you run the danger of the prospect backing out or failing to implement your agreement, then the lawyers are the only winners.

10. Negotiation is between human beings, you must therefore be familiar with Human Psychology, DiSC, Neuro Linguistic and Programming.

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Cara Membina Corong Jualan SaaS

by Iain Swanston

1. Apakah itu Corong Jualan?

Corong jualan ialah urutan tindakan, peristiwa atau peringkat yang dilalui pengguna sebelum membeli produk atau perkhidmatan. Corong jualan direka bentuk untuk membolehkan pemasar menjejak, merekod dan mengoptimumkan proses jualan untuk meningkatkan hasil.

Anda boleh mengetahui lebih lanjut tentang latihan jualan SaaS kami di sini .

2. Bagaimana untuk membina Corong Jualan SaaS

Corong jualan SaaS anda ialah bahagian penting dalam kejayaan Apl anda. Jika anda menawarkan apl SaaS maka mencipta corong jualan yang boleh berulang, berskala dan boleh dijejaki ialah salah satu langkah penting yang perlu anda ambil.

Kedengaran mudah? Kemudian fikir semula. Corong jualan adalah tempat banyak syarikat baru beralih ke perjuangan menjana pendapatan, dan dalam banyak kes gagal.

Sebelum mula membina corong anda adalah wajar mempertimbangkan di mana anda berada dalam perjalanan apl anda.

3. Tiga peringkat utama pembangunan SaaS

Malangnya, dalam jualan tidak pernah ada penyelesaian satu saiz yang sesuai untuk semua, dan titik permulaan untuk membina corong jualan SaaS bergantung pada tempat anda berada, dari segi tiga peringkat utama perniagaan SaaS?

Adakah anda di:
Fasa 1 : permulaan perjalanan di mana Pengasas dan pasukan utama masih cuba untuk mewujudkan kesesuaian produk/pasaran.

Fasa 2 : di mana pengasas dan ahli pasukan utama telah membuktikan kesesuaian produk/pasaran dan membuktikan mereka boleh melaksanakan sistem dan proses yang boleh digunakan oleh orang lain untuk menjual.

Fasa 3 , halangan terakhir di mana anda mempunyai kesesuaian pasaran produk yang terbukti, anda telah mengenal pasti dan membuktikan sistem dan proses yang betul untuk penskalaan dan anda kini bersedia untuk meningkatkan jualan anda, menumpukan pada pemerolehan pelanggan dan membina MRR anda.

Strategi yang anda gunakan untuk membina corong jualan SaaS akan berbeza-beza bergantung pada perkara yang anda pelajari dalam Langkah 1 di atas.

Jadi untuk tujuan latihan ini saya akan menganggap anda berada di Langkah 1. Jika anda masih bergelut untuk membina corong jualan pada langkah 2 dan 3 maka sama ada anda terlepas sesuatu pada langkah 1 atau sesuatu telah berubah yang menyebabkan semua yang anda pelajari pada langkah 1 berhenti berfungsi.

4. Bina corong pemasaran sebelum corong jualan anda

Dengan mana-mana perniagaan adalah penting untuk anda menyediakan keadaan optimum untuk pasukan jualan anda berjaya. Dalam dunia SaaS tidak mencukupi untuk mempunyai tapak web yang hebat, anda memerlukan tapak web yang:

a) boleh didapati oleh produk dan perkhidmatan anda dalam enjin carian utama – Google, Bing, Yahoo & YouTube
b) boleh didapati dengan masalah yang anda selesaikan dalam enjin carian utama – Google, Bing, Yahoo & YouTube
c) boleh menukar trafik web kepada pemasaran petunjuk yang layak

Banyak syarikat mengabaikan perkara ini dan tergesa-gesa membina pasukan jualan keluar. Hakikatnya ialah setiap prospek berpotensi yang diminati oleh Pasukan keluar anda akan pergi ke tapak web anda untuk membuat penyelidikan lanjut.

Melainkan pengalaman web adalah sama atau lebih besar daripada pengalaman prospek dengan pasukan keluar anda, mereka akan segera dimatikan.

Untuk membina corong pemasaran anda mesti mencipta “kandungan pertama pengguna yang menarik”. Ini adalah kandungan yang sedang dicari oleh pengguna secara aktif bukan kandungan yang ingin didorong oleh pasukan jualan dan pemasaran anda.

Corong pemasaran SaaS anda ialah bahagian penting dalam strategi jualan Masuk anda. Untuk melakukan ini dengan jayanya, anda perlu mencipta kandungan berkualiti tinggi pada setiap peringkat perjalanan pembeli seperti yang ditunjukkan di bawah.

Kandungan harus menceritakan kisah jenama anda secara halus dan kejayaan yang telah anda bawa kepada pengguna lain. Jadikan pengguna awal anda sebagai Pahlawan bukan anda.

TOFU – Bahagian atas corong
Bahagian pertama corong jualan anda atau dikenali sebagai TOFU ialah peringkat kesedaran corong tersebut. Prospek menyedari masalah yang mereka hadapi dan sedang menyiasat penyelesaiannya.

Tapak web anda mesti mempunyai kandungan yang membincangkan masalah ini dan meletakkan syarikat anda sebagai Pakar Perkara . Kandungan yang paling popular di sini ialah:

Bagaimana untuk membimbing
Video penerangan
Catatan blog
Magnet Plumbum

Pada peringkat ini, prospek berada dalam mod penyelidikan, bukan mod membeli dan hanya mengumpul maklumat.

Prospek anda mungkin tidak berminat dengan penyelesaian pada peringkat ini kerana mereka masih cuba untuk mendiagnosis sendiri masalah mereka sendiri dengan tepat. Tidak mungkin prospek anda ingin bercakap dengan jualan pada peringkat ini.

Kami mengesyorkan anda menggunakan automasi pemasaran untuk menjejak artikel/halaman mana prospek anda memasuki tapak kerana ini adalah masalah yang menjadi perhatian utama mereka. Mengetahui perkara ini boleh memudahkan jualan untuk mengadakan perbualan yang berkaitan dengan mereka.

Anda juga mungkin berjaya melibatkan prospek dengan chatbots di tapak anda, namun ramai yang mahu kekal tanpa nama pada peringkat ini.

Tengah Corong
Pertengahan corong jualan anda ialah apabila prospek mula menilai penyelesaian khusus berdasarkan apa yang mereka pelajari pada peringkat 1. Bahagian tengah kandungan corong termasuk:

Persembahan
Demonstrasi
Kajian kes

Dari segi praktikal, mereka akan membuat beberapa bentuk senarai pendek pembekal yang berpotensi, dan mereka kemudiannya akan menggali lebih dalam butiran setiap penyelesaian yang berpotensi.

Pada peringkat ini prospek mungkin masih tidak terlibat dengan anda kerana mereka selalunya hanya menyelidik bagi pihak orang lain dalam organisasi mereka sendiri dan keutamaan mereka adalah pengumpulan maklumat.

Bahagian bawah Corong
Pada masa prospek anda telah mencapai bahagian bawah corong pemasaran anda dalam banyak kes mereka telah “membeli” satu pembekal atau penyelesaian tertentu.

Mereka telah membuat keputusan sebahagian besarnya mengenai pengalaman web mereka tentang jenama, pemesejan jualan anda dan keupayaan anda untuk meletakkan diri anda bukan sahaja sebagai pemimpin walaupun tetapi sebagai pemimpin pemikiran yang memahami masalah mereka.

Bahagian bawah kandungan Corong akan termasuk perkara seperti:

penetapan harga
Jadual perbandingan
Testimoni
Ulasan

Untuk penyelesaian yang lebih mudah dengan harga lebih rendah, anda akan mendapati mereka kini bersedia untuk mengambil percubaan jika anda menawarkan Seruan Tindakan (CTA) yang kukuh, manakala untuk penyelesaian yang lebih mahal dan kompleks, mereka kini akan terlibat dengan jualan.

Imej di bawah menunjukkan di mana corong pemasaran mudah beralih ke troli beli-belah dan jualan B2B yang lebih kompleks beralih kepada petunjuk untuk jualan.

Kejayaan bukan terletak pada memilih model yang betul, tetapi membina model anda sendiri berdasarkan data dan percubaan dan kesilapan.

Corong Pemasaran SaaS yang ringkas — Corong Jualan SaaS

Kebanyakan perisian pemasaran kini menjejaki tingkah laku pengguna di tapak web anda dan mungkin menggunakan pemarkahan petunjuk untuk memaklumkan jurujual apabila masa terbaik untuk mendekati prospek secara proaktif.

Dari pengalaman kami sendiri, masanya hampir selalu kepada awal dan program pemupukan utama yang jelas adalah sama berkesan.

Untuk melakukan ini, anda harus membina dalam pemasaran anda sekurang-kurangnya tiga magnet utama berbeza yang akan membantu anda menjadikan pelawat web anda menjadi pelanggan supaya anda boleh terus berhubung.

5. Pengiklanan untuk mengisi Corong Jualan anda

Banyak syarikat berjaya mengisi corong jualan mereka melalui pengiklanan. Pengiklanan digital telah matang ke tahap yang membolehkan penjejakan dan pelaporan yang ketara membolehkan anda memahami Nisbah Penukaran dan CAC anda dalam masa beberapa minggu.

Pada peringkat pertama, kami akan menyokong “Kempen Penyasaran Semula”. Ini hanyalah proses meletakkan tambahan di hadapan orang yang telah melawat tapak web anda.

Kajian menunjukkan penyasaran semula adalah tujuh kali lebih berkesan daripada kempen baharu, itulah sebabnya kami menganjurkan ini sebagai titik permulaan.

Strategi ini berfungsi dengan sangat baik dengan kempen pemasaran kandungan yang kuat. Saluran tambah yang paling popular untuk B2B ialah LinkedIn, namun, banyak syarikat juga telah berjaya dengan Facebook dan Instagram.

Tidak perlu dikatakan ini akan ditakrifkan oleh khalayak anda. Pengiklanan boleh digunakan dalam corong mudah untuk memacu jualan dan yang lebih kompleks untuk mendorong pertanyaan baharu untuk wakil jualan.

Jualan yang lebih kompleks mungkin memerlukan urutan yang ditentukan di mana pengguna mengklik dan mengiklankan untuk menerima magnet petunjuk dengan setiap petunjuk berharga $3.

Jika anda kemudiannya berjaya menukar 5% daripada petunjuk baharu ini, anda boleh mengaitkan $60 setiap jualan daripada pengiklanan kepada CAC anda.

Anda boleh membina urutan atau model yang boleh dijejaki daripada sebarang aktiviti bukan sahaja pengiklanan. Contohnya, acara, webinar dan telejualan membolehkan anda memahami aktiviti mana yang paling berkesan kos bukan sahaja untuk mengisi corong anda, tetapi sebenarnya menukar kepada pesanan.

6. Cara Membina Corong Jualan SaaS

Corong jualan anda akan berbeza-beza bergantung pada strategi jualan anda. Adakah anda menjual Apl anda secara langsung atau adakah anda menjual melalui rakan kongsi? Saluran manakah yang telah anda putuskan untuk fokus pada mulanya?

1. Kenal pasti Profil Prospek Sempurna anda. Ini ialah versi wakil jualan persona pemasaran. Ia termasuk semua yang akan disertakan oleh persona pemasaran, serta beberapa maklumat tambahan yang membantu jualan memahami dan berkomunikasi pada tahap yang lebih mendalam dengan prospek.

2. Bina pemesejan jualan anda. Sebahagian daripada kesesuaian produk/pasaran ialah memahami masalah perniagaan dan atau peribadi yang diselesaikan oleh produk anda.

Dalam pengalaman kami perkhidmatan SaaS yang paling berjaya ialah penyelesaian perniagaan yang menyelesaikan masalah perniagaan.

Sebaik sahaja anda memahami bagaimana ini berkaitan dengan produk/perkhidmatan anda sendiri pada tahap yang mendalam, anda boleh mula membina pemesejan jualan anda.

Ini adalah perkataan dan bahasa bernuansa yang telah anda buktikan bahawa prospek berhubung dengannya. Tidak cukup mengetahui tentang perniagaan dan penyelesaian anda sendiri, anda harus tahu tentang pelanggan anda.

Anda harus tahu dengan tepat bagaimana penyelesaian anda membantu pelanggan anda menjimatkan wang, menjana wang dan menjadikan kehidupan mereka lebih mudah.

3. Kempen Penjanaan Utama.

Sebaik sahaja anda telah mengenal pasti prospek sasaran anda dan membina pemesejan jualan anda, anda perlu mula bekerja pada kempen Penjanaan Utama.

Terdapat dua pendekatan utama untuk Penjanaan Peneraju seperti berikut:

a) Penjanaan Peneraju Masuk. Kempen penjanaan petunjuk masuk ialah tempat prospek menghubungi anda terlebih dahulu. Mereka boleh mengisi borang di halaman web anda, menelefon anda atau menghantar e-mel kepada anda. Untuk menjana petunjuk jualan masuk, anda perlu melakukan beberapa bentuk penciptaan kandungan, kempen iklan, webinar, program rujukan atau SEO.

b) Penjanaan petunjuk keluar. Kempen penjanaan petunjuk keluar ialah tempat anda menghubungi prospek melalui telefon, e-mel, mel terus, acara atau pemasaran berasaskan akaun. Kempen keluar selalu bermakna anda perlu membina pasukan kata keluar yang mungkin mahal.

Majoriti syarikat SaaS menggunakan gabungan masuk dan keluar, walau bagaimanapun, mereka hampir selalu memberi penekanan pada satu lebih daripada yang lain.

Sebagai panduan yang sangat kasar, perkhidmatan SaaS yang berkos lebih rendah dan menyasarkan PKS adalah diterajui pemasaran dan mempunyai tumpuan utama Masuk.

Perkhidmatan SaaS yang lebih berbelanja dan menyasarkan Pasaran Pertengahan kepada organisasi Perusahaan akan mempunyai pendekatan yang lebih diterajui jualan melalui Pemasaran Berasaskan Akaun.

7. Apakah Peringkat Corong Jualan SaaS?

Peringkat corong jualan anda hanyalah satu siri langkah yang dilalui oleh prospek anda untuk membuat pesanan.

Peringkat ini boleh berbeza-beza dan tiada satu corong yang boleh anda gunakan pada setiap apl. Walaupun peringkatnya sama, kaedah yang anda gunakan untuk memindahkan prospek melalui corong mungkin berbeza-beza.

Corong jualan anda ialah tempat yang bagus untuk mula mengumpul data untuk mengukur prestasi dan membuat penambahbaikan dari semasa ke semasa.

Secara umum, prospek harus bergerak melalui corong jualan secepat mungkin – ini dipanggil kitaran jualan atau kelajuan paip.

Mengukur kelajuan prospek bergerak melalui kitaran membolehkan anda mengenal pasti sekatan dalam corong anda dan kawasan di mana prospek perlahan.

Titik “melekat” ini adalah tempat anda harus melihat untuk membuat penambahbaikan.

8. Bilakah saya boleh menunjukkan produk SaaS saya kepada pelanggan?

Masa demo aplikasi SaaS dalam proses jualan telah menjadi subjek perbincangan bagi banyak syarikat.

Jawapan malangnya kepada soalan itu ialah “terpulang”. Banyak syarikat berjaya mendemonstrasikan apl mereka pada permulaan proses jualan, walau bagaimanapun, terdapat juga ramai yang membuat demo pada permulaan dan kemudiannya prospek mereka hilang ke dalam lubang hitam mel suara dan e-mel yang tidak dijawab.

Pendek kata, penyelesaian yang lebih murah dan mudah, maka lebih awal dalam proses anda boleh demo dan penyelesaian yang lebih mahal dan kompleks demo harus ditolak sejauh mungkin dalam proses penjualan.

tunjuk cara aplikasi saas — Cara Membina Corong Jualan SaaS

Realitinya ialah terdapat kecenderungan untuk Usahawan dan jurujual tergesa-gesa untuk mendemonstrasikan aplikasi mereka, dengan harapan demo itu akan meyakinkan prospek untuk mendaftar.

Walaupun prospek itu layak dan sesuai, demo tanpa sebarang bentuk diagnosis kesakitan prospek berada dalam bahaya kehilangan prospek.

Prospek anda perlu tahu bahawa anda tahu dan anda memahami dunia mereka. Ini hanya boleh dicapai melalui penyoalan yang bijak dan disasarkan. Jika anda ingin mempercepatkan jualan, perlahankan jualan.

Demo biasanya merupakan titik leveraj terbesar jurujual dan jika anda memberikannya tidak lama lagi anda akan kehilangan leveraj dan kemungkinan besar prospek.

Sebagai peraturan umum – tolak demo apl sejauh mungkin dalam proses jualan anda.

Demo memerlukan masa dan wang terutamanya untuk jualan yang kompleks di mana lebih kerap daripada tidak demo yang dipesan lebih dahulu diperlukan.

Sebarang demo yang dipesan lebih dahulu mesti dihantar hanya kepada pembuat keputusan kanan pada pasukan pembeli prospek. Jika sesuai, anda juga boleh mempunyai dua demo dalam proses jualan – tidak ada peraturan selain jika ia berfungsi lakukannya.

Kebanyakan wakil jualan membuat kesilapan menggunakan bahagian proses jualan ini untuk menerangkan manfaat produk dengan lebih terperinci.

Apabila anda memberitahu anda tidak menjual. Gunakan soalan penyiasatan yang bijak untuk mendapatkan prospek memberitahu anda bagaimana penyelesaian itu akan menyelesaikan masalah perniagaan mereka.

Anda harus mengelak daripada bercakap tentang ciri yang anda percaya berkaitan dengannya. Jika anda tidak mendedahkan perkara ini dalam peringkat penemuan proses jualan, sememangnya berisiko untuk memperkenalkan apa-apa yang baharu di bawah proses tersebut.

Untuk penyelesaian yang lebih mudah dengan harga yang lebih rendah, anda akan mendapati mereka kini bersedia untuk menjalani percubaan, manakala untuk penyelesaian yang lebih mahal dan kompleks, mereka kini akan terlibat dengan wakil jualan.

Untuk menunjukkan bahawa mereka telah menjalankan usaha wajar mereka akan sentiasa bercakap dengan dua atau tiga pembekal yang berpotensi.

Ini tidak semestinya untuk mengurangkan harga pembekal, tetapi kadangkala mereka perlu mengesahkan kepada kumpulan pembelian yang lebih luas dalam organisasi mereka mengapa mereka mempunyai keutamaan.

Percubaan apl juga merupakan cara yang baik untuk membuat pengguna mendaftar, namun, nisbah penukaran percubaan untuk ditutup biasanya lemah dalam kebanyakan kes SaaS.

Bergantung pada harga, anda boleh menawarkan percubaan terurus, supaya mereka boleh menilai perisian anda semasa anda mengurusnya lebih jauh di bawah proses jualan.

Semasa percubaan, prospek dapat melihat bagaimana produk akan berfungsi untuk mereka dalam amalan. Adalah penting untuk menentukan masa percubaan dengan bijak dan memastikan anda telah bersetuju terlebih dahulu apa yang berlaku jika percubaan itu berjaya.

Kami telah mencipta grafik di atas untuk cuba menerangkan secara visual cara ini mungkin berfungsi untuk organisasi anda.

Perlu diperhatikan dalam contoh, majoriti CAC anda akan menjadi pemasaran, manakala dalam corong yang lebih kompleks kos anda akan termasuk pemasaran, jualan + penerimaan pelanggan.

9. Contoh Corong Jualan SaaS

Corong jualan di bawah adalah contoh. Anda TIDAK seharusnya meniru ini melainkan ia sesuai dengan proses jualan anda.

Mereka direka bentuk untuk menjadi titik permulaan bagi mereka yang ingin membangunkan corong jualan.

Seperti yang anda lihat daripada grafik, terdapat banyak alternatif kepada peringkat yang digunakan untuk membentuk corong jualan anda bergantung pada jenis corong yang anda cipta.

Untuk corong digital semata-mata anda boleh mempunyai:

Lead Magnet Landing page – tempat prospek tiba selepas mengklik pada iklan anda
Halaman Pengesahan – mengesahkan tawaran, percubaan atau pembelian percuma anda
Halaman Upsell – di mana prospek mempunyai peluang untuk menambah perkhidmatan tambahan atau menaik taraf
Halaman pembayaran – tempat prospek membayar untuk perkhidmatan tersebut
Halaman Tahniah atau Terima Kasih – di mana anda boleh menandatangani prospek pos dengan langkah seterusnya yang sesuai.

Corong Jualan dengan Saluran Paip — Cara Membina Corong Jualan SaaS

10. Metrik corong jualan SaaS

Mengenai metrik, kami percaya ini ialah metrik dan KPI operasi jualan biasa yang biasa digunakan oleh kebanyakan orang. Tidak perlu dikatakan metrik ini penting dan anda harus merekod dan melaporkannya.

LTT – Membawa kepada penukaran percubaan
Ini ialah bilangan petunjuk yang telah menukar kepada percubaan.

DCR – Nisbah penukaran demo
Bilangan demo yang berjaya menukar ke peringkat seterusnya dalam proses jualan.

TTS – Penukaran percubaan kepada jualan
Ini ialah bilangan prospek pada percubaan percuma yang telah menukar kepada pelanggan berbayar.

LTV – Nilai Sepanjang Hayat pelanggan
Ini ialah purata jumlah nilai yang akan dibelanjakan oleh pelanggan sebelum meninggalkan perkhidmatan. Ironinya ini boleh menjadi lebih sukar untuk mengukur lebih baik produk anda kerana, tanpa pelanggan meninggalkan anda tidak akan tahu berapa lama mereka tinggal dan jumlah nilai mereka kepada perniagaan.

Churn – Bilangan pelanggan yang pergi
Pelanggan akan pergi dan itu tidak selalu menjadi perkara yang buruk. Jika pelanggan yang keluar sesuai dengan ICP (Profil Pelanggan Ideal) anda maka anda menghadapi masalah. Pelanggan yang meninggalkan yang tidak sesuai dengan ICP anda mungkin membebaskan sumber berharga yang boleh dibelanjakan untuk ICP anda.

MRR – Pendapatan berulang bulanan
Hasil berulang bulanan memberi anda gambaran keseluruhan kejayaan anda, namun, ia hanyalah gambaran keseluruhan dan anda perlu melihat butiran dalam data untuk mendapatkan gambaran yang lebih tepat.

ARR – Hasil berulang tahunan
Hasil berulang tahunan memberikan gambaran keseluruhan perniagaan yang baik, tetapi seperti MRR, anda harus mengkaji semua data untuk mendapatkan gambaran yang lebih tepat tentang kesihatan usaha niaga anda.

Kitaran Jualan – Masa dari hubungan awal hingga pesanan tertutup
Ini biasanya singkatan untuk penyelesaian yang lebih mudah bernilai rendah dan lebih lama untuk jualan Perusahaan yang kompleks. Contohnya, jualan kepada bank Tahap 1 mungkin mengambil masa 18 bulan dari hubungan awal hingga ditutup.

CAC – Kos Pemerolehan Pelanggan
Adalah penting untuk memahami kos anda untuk memperoleh seorang pelanggan. Dalam dunia yang ideal, anda akan menemui perkara ini dalam fasa awal perniagaan apabila anda membuktikan cadangan nilai. Tanpa angka ini adalah mustahil untuk dimasukkan ke dalam sistem dan proses untuk meningkatkan perniagaan kerana anda tidak akan tahu berapa banyak yang boleh anda belanjakan untuk pemasaran dan jualan bahagian hadapan.

Churn Negatif –
Pergolakan negatif ialah metrik pertumbuhan yang berkuasa yang menunjukkan bahawa hasil daripada jualan tinggi dan jualan silang pelanggan sedia ada menghilangkan hasil yang hilang apabila pelanggan pergi.

11. Penyerahan Cadangan SaaS

Selepas demo terakhir, anda tidak boleh menawarkan untuk menghantar cadangan.

Cadangan memerlukan masa dan wang dan jika prospek anda berminat mereka akan meminta anda untuk cadangan.

Jika prospek anda tidak meminta cadangan daripada anda maka ia memberitahu anda bahawa mereka tidak berminat untuk bekerja dengan anda dan anda perlu meneruskan proses jualan untuk memahami di mana anda telah silap.

Apabila proses jualan terhenti, ia jarang berlaku kerana sesuatu yang anda telah lakukan salah pada masa itu – lebih kerap, ia adalah sesuatu yang anda terlepas lebih awal dalam proses jualan.

Pastikan anda yakin semua faedah perisian telah diterangkan dengan jelas kepada mereka dan dipetakan mengikut keperluan mereka yang dinyatakan.

Jika boleh, sentiasa dapatkan White Knight anda untuk membantu anda mencipta cadangan dan rasa semak versi draf dengan mereka sebelum menghantar salinan rasmi.

Sebelum menghantar cadangan anda, anda mesti mempunyai pemahaman yang jelas tentang langkah seterusnya jika anda menang atau kalah.

Tanpa ini, anda berkemungkinan besar menghabiskan tiga bulan berikutnya mengejar hantu dalam mel suara.

12. Menentukan harga kontrak SaaS anda

Banyak syarikat menyediakan harga terhad atau tiada langsung di tapak web mereka kerana mereka tidak mahu pesaing mereka melihat harga mereka, atau mereka fikir ia akan menakutkan bakal pelanggan.

Anda harus berbangga dengan harga anda dan nilai yang anda bawa. Biarkan persaingan melemahkan anda dan mengikat semua sumber mereka pada tawaran yang tidak menguntungkan.

Orang jarang membeli penyelesaian yang paling murah, jadi biarkan prospek anda melemahkan anda.

Jika anda masih bimbang untuk meletakkan harga anda di tapak web anda, fikirkan tentang perasaan anda apabila anda menyelidik penyelesaian yang anda minati hanya untuk mendapati halaman harga penuh dengan POA.

Jika anda seperti kebanyakan orang, anda mendapati ini benar-benar menjengkelkan dan segera beralih kepada pembekal berpotensi seterusnya.

Akhir sekali, kelebihan lain untuk memaparkan harga anda dengan bangga ialah ia melayakkan sesiapa sahaja yang tidak bersedia untuk melabur pada tahap itu.

Ini boleh menjimatkan banyak masa dan sumber anda dengan prospek yang mempunyai tahap belanjawan yang berbeza.

Terdapat banyak strategi harga yang tersedia untuk anda, namun, dari pengalaman kami, satu-satunya perkara yang dijamin, ialah anda akan menukar harga anda.

Sebagai peraturan asas jika harga anda ditetapkan terlalu tinggi untuk kontrak jangka pendek atau percubaan berbayar, prospek mungkin gagal untuk mengalami manfaat penuh perisian sebelum kontrak tamat dan mereka mungkin memutuskan untuk tidak memperbaharui .

Jika boleh, anda harus memberi ganjaran kepada prospek semasa tempoh percubaan untuk menambah maklumat dan menggunakan perkhidmatan tersebut.

Contohnya, tawarkan percubaan yang lebih pendek dan beri insentif kepada pengguna jika mereka melengkapkan persediaan profil/akaun mereka.

Tawarkan tempoh percuma lagi menggalakkan mereka menggunakan produk sebagai contoh jika mereka memuat naik data ke dalam sistem.

Ideanya adalah untuk “menyertai” pengguna baharu anda langkah demi langkah dan menjadikan produk anda selekat mungkin.
Jika prospek mahu meneruskan, anda harus menggunakan kontrak dengan tandatangan digital untuk mempercepatkan proses jualan.

Jangan sekali-kali menghantar kontrak dalam e-mel atau pautan ke kontrak digital kerana ini boleh diabaikan dengan mudah.

Susun untuk mendapatkan prospek melalui telefon dan bercakap melalui kontrak dengan mereka. Sebaik sahaja mereka bersetuju dengan segala-galanya dalam kontrak hanya minta mereka menandatangani semasa anda mempunyai mereka di telefon.

Dengan cara ini anda mengekalkan kawalan ke atas proses jualan.

13. Mengapa corong jualan sangat penting untuk penyedia SaaS

Banyak perniagaan telah gagal selepas bergelut untuk melaksanakan corong jualan. Pemasaran dan penjualan produk SaaS boleh menjadi sangat mencabar, dan kemungkinan pelanggan sasaran anda sudah terharu dengan tawaran daripada vendor perisian yang bersaing.

Fikirkan tentang bahagian belanjawan sedia ada pembeli yang mana anda akan memenangi hasil. Apakah pesaing langsung atau tidak langsung yang akan anda ambil belanjawan?

Anda mungkin bersaing dengan beberapa jenama terbesar dan paling berkuasa di dunia yang menyediakan penyelesaian generik kepada masalah yang sama yang anda selesaikan.

Ini bermakna anda perlu menawarkan sesuatu yang tersendiri yang sebenarnya diperlukan oleh pelanggan anda.

Kajian CB Insights mengatakan 42% daripada syarikat permulaan SaaS gagal kerana mereka menawarkan produk yang tidak diperlukan pelanggan sasaran mereka.

Meyakinkan bakal pelanggan perisian anda menawarkan nilai tulen adalah penting.

14. Menguruskan jangkaan prospek

Mencipta corong jualan adalah tentang membina perjalanan dari pelawat web, kepada pelanggan dan melalui tunjuk cara dan jejak dan berakhir dengan kontrak ditandatangani.

Corong jualan anda harus menekankan setiap peringkat utama yang akan dilalui oleh prospek anda dalam perjalanan mereka ke perjanjian yang dibuat.

Bersikap terbuka, lebih awal dan kongsi peringkat proses terlebih dahulu dengan prospek anda.
Anda harus memberi perhatian yang teliti kepada sebarang titik geseran yang mungkin berlaku semasa prospek anda melalui saluran jualan anda.

Ini akan memberi anda peluang untuk membuat penambahbaikan pada corong anda pada masa hadapan.
Apa yang paling penting ialah anda merekodkan semua titik data dalam corong jualan anda.

Ini akan membantu anda membuat keputusan berdasarkan fakta dan bukannya perasaan hati anda. Ia boleh mengambil masa untuk corong jualan anda menjadi berkesan sepenuhnya dan anda mungkin perlu membuat beberapa pemurnian sebelum anda mempunyai corong jualan yang benar-benar dioptimumkan.

Ramai pelanggan tidak mempunyai pemahaman yang mendalam tentang perkara yang mereka perlukan apabila mereka mula-mula bertemu dengan anda. Menyediakan penyelesaian bukan hanya produk dengan membantu prospek membuat hubungan antara kedua-duanya.

Apa yang benar juga ialah pengguna sering membeli apa yang mereka mahu bukan apa yang mereka perlukan.

Inilah sebabnya mengapa sangat penting untuk bertanya soalan yang disasarkan supaya anda boleh menentukan dengan tepat keperluan mereka supaya anda boleh meletakkan perisian anda dengan cara yang paling menguntungkan.

Soalan-soalan ini juga akan memberitahu anda sejauh mana mereka perlu membuat keputusan.

15. Kebangkitan penyelesaian SaaS

Nampaknya segala-galanya di dunia kini dikuasakan dalam talian oleh Aplikasi SaaS. Daripada Netflix dan Amazon Prime ke LinkedIn dan Microsoft M365, kami kini dikelilingi oleh penyelesaian SaaS dalam satu perihalan atau yang lain.

Dari segi kewangan SaaS masuk akal kerana ia mengelakkan perbelanjaan modal yang besar di hadapan dan mengurangkan risiko penyelesaian.

Lagipun, jika ia tidak berfungsi, anda biasanya hanya terkunci dalam tempoh maksimum 12 bulan. Kelebihan lain SaaS termasuk cara ia biasanya cepat digunakan dan tidak memerlukan penyelenggaraan di pihak pelanggan.

Peningkatan biasanya dihantar secara automatik, dengan pelanggan biasanya ditawarkan tahap perkhidmatan yang terjamin.

Sandaran dan pemulihan data biasanya dijalankan bagi pihak pelanggan, supaya mereka boleh menumpukan pada perkara yang terbaik yang mereka lakukan, selamat dengan pengetahuan bahawa segala-galanya dikendalikan oleh pembangun perisian itu sendiri.

Lockdown telah mengecas turbo SaaS
Kerja jarak jauh semakin meningkat walaupun sebelum wabak, jadi hakikat bahawa produk SaaS membenarkan individu bekerja dan bekerjasama dari mana-mana sahaja telah membantu untuk membenamkan SaaS lebih mendalam dalam kehidupan seharian kita.

Terdapat beribu-ribu produk baharu produk SaaS sedang dibangunkan di setiap negara di seluruh dunia jadi persaingan adalah sengit, namun, tiada penghujung yang jelas kepada selera pengguna dan perniagaan terhadap penyelesaian SaaS.

Corong jualan yang koheren boleh menjadi perbezaan antara produk anda menjadi kejayaan viral dan dipaksa untuk kembali ke papan lukisan.

SaaS Sales Training Course Find out more & book

asking for the order - Top Question from Google

How do you ask customers for the sale? (The short answer)

In this article we will cover...

There’s a new way to deliver sales growth…

1. Why it's important for salespeople to ask for the sale?

2. Why asking for the sale can lose sales professionals the deal

3. How fear of rejection stops sales professionals asking for the sale

4. How to build confidence in salespeople

5. Why salespeople feel uncomfortable asking for the sale

6. What are sales closing techniques?

7. Handling objections in sales

8. What are sales transition statements and how do you use them?

9. What are the most popular sales closing phrases?

10. Why a consultative sales approach is important in modern selling

How to Build an Outbound Sales Team – Top question from Google

What is outbound sales?

Preparing to go Outbound

Building an Inhouse Team or Outsourcing

What are outbound sales activities?

Outbound sales strategy

Outbound and Inbound Sales Support

Consultative Sales Training – Top question from Google

What is a Consultative Sales Approach?

Steps involved in Consultative Selling

1. Research potential buyers thoroughly before contacting them

2. Define the Symptoms – What are the symptoms of the problem the potential customer is facing?

3. Root cause analysis – ask the buyer questions to understand and diagnose the underlying causes.

4. Business impact – Ask how the issue is impacting on the business. Does it impact on morale, performance, profitability or all three?

5. Financial Impact – Find out how much the problem will cost the business if they do not fix it.

6. Personal Impact – Find out how the problem affects the buyer personally – how does it affect their day to day job?

What do you need to be a good consultative salesperson?

What questions to ask?

Which Products and Services are best suited to Consultative Sales Techniques?

What is Consultative Sales Training?

Top question from Google - How to sell IT Services

How to sell IT services?

1. Building your brand

2. Ideal Client Profile – who are you selling to?

3. Your Value Proposition – what makes you different?

4. The Complex Sale

5. Stages of the Sales Process

6. Selling a product vs selling a service

7. Technology Sales Models

8. Selling Software as a Service (SaaS)

9. Selling IT Managed Services

10. IT Professional Services

11. Turning your IT Product Knowledge into powerful sales questions

12. CIO’s and other Buyers you need to target.

Why invest in Sales Training and Consulting?

1. Why sales consulting compliments your sales training?

2. Why is Sales Training so effective?

3. What happens before training takes place?

4. What is the aim of Sales Training

5. How can a Sales Consultant help our business?

6. Adding Sales Experience to your Leadership Team

7. Which Companies benefit the most from Consulting Services

8. Build a Selling System

In Conclusion

How can Sales and Service Training help my team?

Close More Deals and Learn New Skills

Benefit from External Sales Specialists

Retain the Best Staff

Should Managers attend Sales and Service Training?

Increase your Customer Satisfaction Ratings

Omnichannel Customer Support

Build Expert Product Knowledge

Enhance Customer Loyalty

Resolve Disputes Quickly

The Objectives of Sales Management

1. Sales Plan

2. Sales Strategy

3. Reporting and Metrics

4. Sales Performance

5. Key duties of the Sales Manager

6. Team Morale

7. Setting realistic but ambitious targets

8. Building a sales funnel

9. When can I expect results?

10. Motivating your Sales Team

11. Do great salespeople make great sales managers?