Much of the old school sales representative training focuses on "closing" and other strategies for convincing clients to do business with you. Those strategies may have worked in the industrial age where there wasn't as much access to information. However, those strategies are becoming less and less effective today in the information age. In this age where prospective clients can go on Google and pull up everything they want about your company, sales development training on building relationships is important and necessary, if you want to have success in building relationships.
There is an old saying that goes "no one likes to be sold, but people love to buy." As a sales rep, your job is to build a relationship with prospects so that when they are interested in buying, they include you on the buying decision. To do that, you want to invest some time with the prospect discovering what their needs are, what their desires are, and what options are available to them to addressing those needs and desires. Sales representative training will show you how to do that!
Sales representative training that focuses on relationship selling teaches you that fundamental aspect involved in a sales process is to ask questions. By letting the client talk, he or she will generally reveal what the "hot" buttons are. The hot buttons are the key drivers in that prospect’s life that moves them towards purchasing a solution to a problem or challenge. If you begin by asking questions, you can find out exactly what these "hot buttons" are and they will aid you in the sales process.
People do business with people they know, like and trust. Therefore it is important that you spend some time getting to know a client and allowing that client to get to know you. Find some ways to identify commonality between yourself and the client. People tend to like people more when they have something in common. If the client has kids and you have kids, talk about the kids. If both you and the client like a certain sport, talk about it.
Once you have taken the time to develop some level of commonality with the client, then you can begin to move deeper into the sales process. As you move deeper into the sales process you still want to ask questions. These questions should be designed to identify needs that your product or service helps address. Advanced sales representative training may be needed to develop your skills in discovering needs and wants.
For instance, if you sell a call center service, ask questions that are related to how they handle service requests now. You want to know what they like about their current process as well as what they don’t like. You also want to know what their ideal scenario is for this process. Train and practice how to engage the client in this fashion so that the client uses his or her own words to discover themselves how the solutions you have to offer are the best for them. Armed with this information, you can then advance the client to the next step in the sales process.
Of course, you only want to advance if you truly have the right solution for the client. If you know that your solution is not going to meet the needs of the client, it makes no sense in trying to advance to the next step. You are simply wasting your time as well as the time of the client. You will not make the sale, get a referral, and waste time could have been spent with a prospect who is more of a match for your product offering.
Build relationships with your prospects should be a part of any sales representative training program. Building relationships is all about focusing on what is in your prospect's best interest. When you focus on your prospect, you prospect will want to forge a mutually beneficial relationship. Consider that sales takes a lifetime to master. As you progress in your skills, you will want to have more and more sales representative training to continue to eleveate your skills to new levels. |
