The internet has revolutionised our world in ways that we never dreamt of when we first came across it. We can have instant communications with people that we have never met; we never have to go into a supermarket again and we can watch world events unfold from wherever we are in the world.
For the sales person, it has made our lives both easier and more difficult. It is now much easier to find out information about our prospective customers and it is much easier to communicate with them and to keep them informed of our products and services. However, our customers can, and expect to be able to, find out all about our products and services without ever talking to us, which can make our life much more difficult.
Customer Research
20 years ago, to find out what our customer was doing, we had to read annual reports and search numerous paper reports and news services to find just a small subset of their activities. Companies didn’t need to keep up a constant flow of information about themselves as news moved slowly. Today, in the era of 24 hour news, companies are making huge amounts of information available via their websites and are using Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to disseminate it. It is very easy to find out all about a company’s operations before you ever go to visit them and every sales person should be doing this. Not knowing everything that you can about a company before you visit them means you are failing to prepare and preparing to fail.
By understanding the potential customer better, a sales person can determine if they are likely to be a good customer, based on their pre-defined criteria. This allows them to decide whether to even visit them or not. They can start to understand their likely needs and issues to determine the most appropriate person to go to visit and, once there, to direct their questioning at understanding these needs through appropriate questioning. All of this makes it quicker and simpler to generate sales opportunities.
Communication and Feedback
Whether we like it or not, receiving emails, texts and tweets from suppliers is here to stay. It has never been so easy to prepare the ground for a sales call than by connecting with your client and making the aware of your products. It allows you to keep prospects warm while they are moving towards a purchasing decision which is vital to being successful.
Getting feedback on products and services is also very simple and very important. Most people will look for online reviews of new products before they commit to a purchase. In general, they are more likely to choose a product that is reviewed, even if not very well, over a product that has not been reviewed.
Informed buyers
All of the information and feedback, of course, works both ways. As a result of information being available, buyers are significantly more aware of what products are available and of their benefits. They know their good features and their poor parts. Before a sales person steps through the door, the chances are that the buyer has already researched their products and has a good idea whether they are going to buy or not.
This can be a good thing as you know that the customer has already eliminated some of the competition. However, it also means that the customer expects more from you. 20 years ago, a sales person was valuable for the information that they knew about their product and could tell their customers as a result. However, the customers now know that already so the sales person has to find new ways of adding value to the process. They need to provide insights that are not immediately available to the buyer, provide information that is not in the public domain and provide real value to the customer. Your customer will expect this so you should be ready to provide it.
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