Because if cold calls from your salespeople used to work, as you have seen with the change in consumer habits, the seller-centric or salesperson-centric methodology has become user-centric. Today it is the consumer who has the power. Your potential customer is the one who seeks the information, who creates the expectations about your products or services.
And you may wonder, how can your sales team approach your buyer? Transforming the way you sell.
1. Transforming the way you select your target.
As has been done throughout the Inbound process, you need to make sure that the sales team is targeting the right people, your buyer personas. If you have attracted and converted your leads by following this marketing methodology, the sales opportunities that reach sales managers must be right for your company. However, not all sales opportunities are ready to close, which is why it is so important to understand where they are in theirbuyer’s journey.
{{cta(‘bb2971b9-bf36-4c36-8edc-75223dba5208’)}}2. Transforming the way you search for accounts.
To be effective in the search for Inbound opportunities, it is necessary to understand how the company’s prospects behave and what their consumption patterns are. Without a context to hold on to, it would be difficult to close a sale. To offer a personalized selling experience, you need to research sales opportunities.
For example, a B2B company would want to gather as much information about their contact as possible: know their company information and research trends in their industry; assess their company size and annual revenue; know what they sell and to whom, etc. In addition, it can be very interesting to look at the LinkedIn profile of the company you are researching, as well as the people who work there, not just the lead.
It is essential to collect the information we get from leads when they browse our website. For example, do you know what content he has downloaded, what pages he looks at and what he identifies with? This is the kind of information that allows sales reps to personalize conversations with each lead by knowing their needs and how they have “engaged” with the company.
3. Transforming the way you connect.
Before contacting this lead, the sales rep needs to know what the objective of the call is. And in order to establish the connection there are some basic rules to follow:
First, create empathy, that is, establish a good relationship with sales opportunities. An environment of trust must be created, thanks to the information previously collected from the lead.
It is also important to educate the contact, offering help. This way, there will be more attention from you. Contacts can tell when someone is interested in their needs and objectives.
Leads always remember the experience they have. For this reason, it is important to know the sales rep’s target audience. In this way, you can adapt conversations to each person and speak their language. And by that we do not mean speaking the same language.
4. Transforming the way you are perceived as a salesperson.
The sales manager has to be a sales educator. To put yourself in the position to educate prospects, you must become a true confidant and truly understand the lead’s issues and challenges. In short, to become a machine that listens and understands problems in order to adapt to the needs of sales opportunities.
This is what is known as humanizing the sales process, leaving behind the coldness with which deals were closed in more traditional methodologies. For this reason, it is necessary to break down the barriers that make the sales rep look like a cold salesperson who doesn’t care who he or she is talking to.
Your salesperson must become a trusted advisor. Focus on building a personal brand because people buy from people (and brands) they like and trust.
