The current sales environment is unquestionably different than the one that today’s young salespeople’s parents and grandparents worked in. While some things are the same, major fundamentals have changed, not the least of which is how salespeople view their relationships with customers and the sales technology available to assist them in successfully turning prospects into paying customers. With those changes in mind, the following are four important tips that your sales staff can put to use to ensure that they’re delivering the modern, customer-centric sales process your prospects expect and are maximizing the chances of successful closes with each and every lead. 

 

1) The Sales Game is All About People

The first and most important thing that salespeople – especially new ones – need to understand is that the sales process is never about the current sale. In reality, it’s about the current sale and all of the future sales that your company can hope to make going forward. Sales is a long game – with the potential for establishing a lifelong relationship. Always maintaining a clear focus on the fact that selling is all about people and the creation of trusting, long-term relationships is a surefire way for a salesperson to greatly improve their long-term success. They might miss out on a sale here or there in the present, but the business they generate in the long-run will make it more than worthwhile. 

 

2) Sell Benefits, Never Features

One of the biggest mistakes anyone can make in sales is confusing what’s truly important to customers. When that happens, salespeople tend to find themselves selling features, instead of the benefits of those features. For instance, a high horsepower engine isn’t what gets a car buyer excited, it’s the promise of the feeling of acceleration and power that gets them itching to buy. When engaged in the sales process, it’s crucial that your sales team keeps this fact in mind and spends their time driving home the benefits of your products or services, rather than just reciting the features in the brochure. 

 

3) Turn Concerns About Costs into Excitement About Investment

When house shoppers go out to open houses and eventually drop hundreds of thousands of dollars on their new home – the biggest, most important purchase of their lives – they feel the excitement, not a concern. Excitement wins out because they see that purchase for the long-term investment that it is, and as a result, they’re able to focus on the potential and promise it offers rather than the debt it’s putting them in. That same idea can be applied to almost any sales process. Buyers that get tied up on cost concerns often just need help to shift their perception of the solutions your team is offering to them from an expense to an investment. To be sure, sometimes the concern is well-placed, and the prospect simply can’t afford your products or services, but working hard to help potential customers see your offerings as an investment can go a long, long way. 

 

4) Learn to Love Technology

Once upon a time, sales were all about hitting the road with a briefcase and some promotional materials, but in today’s modern, connected world, technology is king. There are now some excellent technologies available to help your company streamline every aspect of the sales process, resulting in elevated close rates, happier salespeople, and better profitability. Arguably the most important of those tools is customer resource management software. CRM tools are designed to supercharge everything from lead collection and management, to the delivery of the sales process, to marketing, to billing and payments, and beyond. 

CRMDialer is one of the leading CRM platforms currently available, offering a full suite of traditional CRM tools with the added bonus of an industry-leading power dialer included at no extra charge. For more information on how CRMDialer can help your sales team take their productivity and effectiveness to the next level, start your free trial today.