Almost all salespeople in India understand their job wrong. They either work like
- A thief whose job is to steal from unsuspecting prospects
- Or a bully whose job is to push the prospects into buying whether they want it or not
Most of these salespeople treat their prospects as a commodity and celebrate when the transaction is done!
What if your prospects feel that it’s a privilege to work with you?
What if they stand in a virtual queue to get on a call with you?
What if you could get prospects to practically beg for your attention?
All this is easy if you correctly understand your role as a salesperson.
In reality – As a salesperson, you are the guide and your prospect is the hero of the story.
Your job is to guide them through their challenges and obstacles and to help them successfully achieve their goals and transformation.
This can be done only if have done the customer profile analysis. When you successfully do that, the sale and transaction happen naturally as a byproduct.
When instead of being a pushy salesman you identify the problems that they are already facing and guide them through to a solution this is how your prospects react
And this new way of thinking reshapes everything that you do in sales.
How to sell like a guide?
Effective Selling Strategies: 10 questions you need to answer before trying to sell
1. Who are my ideal leads
Typically salespeople act like beggars in front of anyone who shows the slightest bit of interest. In fact, I receive 5-6 calls every day!
All of them are not more than 20 seconds long and with the same 3 lines:
- Am I talking to Rahul?
- Are you interested in buying real estate in Noida?
- Ok, when the requirement arises can you give me a call on this number?
I mean who are you?
How do I know you are any good at what you do?
And you expect me to just randomly save numbers and remember you when the need arises?
That’s borderline insane!
As a sales rep that’s the worst way to conduct yourself.
It’s like wasting away your limited time contacting completely random strangers who don’t need what you have when there are people out there who are actively looking for what you are offering.
How to find and reach the right leads instead.
- Understand that the current process of calling random databases is useless
- Define your target audience/ target companies
- Figure out who are the right decision makers in those companies who have the authority to make the buying decision regarding your product/service
- Use the right tools to find the contacts of those decision-makers. And only contact them.
Cold calling is hard enough, you don’t need to make it harder for yourself by trying to contact random people who don’t need your product or your guidence,
Also Read: Best Cold Call Opening Lines that will Force Customers to Listen
Why does this matter: only a specific sort of people will be looking for your guidance as a salesperson and if you’re not talking to those people exclusively then you’re wasting your time, efforts, and chances of success!
2. Do they really have a problem that I can solve?
This is basically lead qualification level 1 for you.
Anyone who is ready to listen is not a prospect for you. There are many people who will listen to you out of courtesy, just because they are nice people. This is why it’s extremely important to qualify your leads and figure out if they really have a problem that you can solve.
Most salespeople will just ask the buying question before delivering value or building trust.
The problem with that is – people might talk to you but they won’t buy from a random stranger over the first call.
Plus most people don’t even know that they have a problem, or what a solution could look like,
The Solution
This is where as a salesperson you have to be tactical in finding out if they really have a problem that you can help them solve
Instead of talking about what you offer ask about what they are currently doing.
Next time you call – instead of asking
Are you interested in buying a new property?
Ask
Where do you currently invest? Are you getting sufficient returns on your investment?
Why does this matter: if you’re selling like a guide you cannot guide someone who doesn’t need any guidance!
3. Can I really solve their problem?
The last part is about figuring out if they really have a problem. But it takes a lot of earnestness to honestly see if you can actually help them find the solution that they are looking for. Or will they be better off with some other provider? Being the guide means doing what’s best for the hero. Even if it does not involve you. Plus this approach has multiple benefits.
- You disqualify the prospect at an early stage rather than creating disagreement and friction later on
- You showcase that you care enough to find what’s best for them, this helps you build trust. Even if they don’t buy from you.
- Because you did the work to build trust it becomes super easy to ask for hot referrals of people who might end up buying from you.
This is a 2-step process,
- Asking and finding out what is the solution that they are looking for
- Take a cold hard look back at your own offering and see if it matches.
For example: if you offer real-estate investment but they are looking for residential property, then even if they are going to buy real estate, they are not your prospects.
Plus this level of qualification helps you present yourself as a specialist and charge a premium for your expertise.
Why does this matter: they come to you with high faith seeking your guidance which means you have a responsibility not to mess guide them that is if they need something which you can’t offer or if you’re not the best person to solve their problem then you say so and let them go find someone who is.
4. What do they already know – How far along are they in the process [Discovery]
The moment someone says they are interested, most salespeople will just start rambling out a stump sales pitch.
If you do this stop! Because you might be,
- Repeating information that he already knows
- Rambling about something that’s not relevant
In both cases, you are actually rambling instead of letting the prospect describe what he already knows, and in the process sabotaging your chances of closing the sale.
Instead, at this point the process of selling is rather simple – just ask a few relevant questions and patiently listen to find the right insights that will help you close the sale later on.
3 key discovery questions to find out what they already know
- I see that you are looking for a CRM to manage your leads and track your sales team, what other CRMs have you considered?
- What are deal-breaker features for you?
- Do you have any specific questions or concerns?
3 important things to make sure you don’t do it all wrong!
- Don’t start rambling about your features/pitch! The point here is to understand what they already know.
- Also, keep it simple, ask questions, and listen for more than 80% of this part of the conversation. Try to understand what they don’t already know.
- Also, try to figure out what information they think is critical!
Note: these questions are tailored for CRM you will have to re-frame them as per your useless.
Why does this matter: to be able to guide them you need to first earn their respect. You can’t do that if all you care about is making your sale. You have to genuinely make an effort to understand their problem and showcase that you can actually guide them to a solution.
5. What pre-defined expectations do they have?
Most salespeople make one common mistake that turns the sales process into an argument.
They pitch too soon. And the prospect comes with his own preconceived ideas of what the solution has to look like. As a result, the conversation turns into an argument even when they both are essentially saying the same thing.
So next time – before you go-
These are the 3 packages that we offer
ask
What features are essential for you?
Why does this matter: to sell like a guide means they will have some misguided expectations which you will have to understand and reset in order to succeed and you cannot do that before you understand what those misguided expectations are.
6. What do they need to know before they can decide?
For almost all the prospects there are a few make-or-break aspects to the deal. Things are a must-have for prospects. If you have done the qualification right and if you ask it correctly the prospect Will reveal the specific ways in which they are stuck and they need your help. That is the exact selling proposition that you can pitch them on and close them right away.
Why does this matter: if you want to get some when you have the first understanding of what their nonnegotiables are! What are the things that they are not going to compromise on?
7. What concerns need to be addressed first to get to a yes?
if you sell prematurely you might be able to get the transaction but you always stand at the risk of a dissatisfied customer or worse refunds! A much better way to deal with the situation is to understand and address their concerns pay for pitching are going for the final closure call.
As discussed,
- You will be able to capture FB Leads and automatically send them Instant welcome message on WhatsApp
- All the interactions between your team members and the prospects will be logged in the CRM automatically
- You will be able to automatically distribute leads to your team members based on the location of the leads
- Your team members will be able to send one click SMS to any prospect who does not receive the call
- you will be able to send Bulk WhatsApp retargetting blast to all the people who have received the call
And as for your query
- We do not charge anything for WhatsApp messages other than Facebook's official charges
- we will provide training an on boarding immediately after the payment is complete
- and all the support regarding the CRM will be provided through the WhatsApp group
Based on all this, are you ready to move ahead and make the payment for all five members on a quarterly basis?Why does this matter: they are not going to close before they get answers to all their questions but if you proactively look at those questions and answer them then you get a far better chance of closing the deal without having to beg or for closure!
8. How to master the pricing conversation!
if you pitch a bunch of features or benefits and then tell them about the pricing then they will invariably start comparing you with competitors who are offering similar features or benefits at a lower price.
You have to sell them in the complete package.
That is the transformation that they are looking for which you are best suited to provide, and you have to present your pricing as the pricing for the transformation.
So as we discussed you get the one stop platform that Will help you implement all the growth strategies that you have in mind and help you achieve your growth targets and the total price for that is just 499/per user/ per moWhy does this matter: selling like a guide means you are not selling features or benefits you are selling the transformation that they desire and you are selling them solutions to the obstacles that stand between them and that transformation which they have been desperately looking for and unless you sell like that you will always get compared with your competitors and haggled around for price!
9. How to make them feel like a winner from the moment they say, yes!
Most salespeople are too afraid to ask for big commitments and referrals up-front because they don’t put in the effort in the earlier stages. As a result, they sell free trials and monthly plans because the prospect is not confident enough to commit long-term.
Instead, if you put in the effort in the earlier stages and showcase how you can actually and completely solve all the obstacles that stand between them and the transformation that they are looking for.
Create a situation where by the time they say yes they feel absolutely confident that by choosing you they have actually already solved the problem (at least that’s what they need to feel)
Most salespeople will fail at this step, even the ones who sell like a guide! This is the hardest part this is super fruitful because, if you succeed in this step then they start asking questions like:
- I wanted to take for just two members but now I’m thinking of adding more team members how do I do that?
- I have a friend who is facing a similar problem can you talk to him?
If you have sold correctly then they start referring people even before completing the purchase.
Why does this matter: the previous eight steps will give you the sale if you do it right but this step actually tells you whether and how well did you say I like a guide.
Conclusion
Most salespeople who sell the traditional way keep complaining about things like science is hard it’s competitive customers are demanding and things like that but the moment you switch your role from a salesperson to a guide, the game changes completely and then you become the prize, whether you want to sell like this or you want to keep begging for deals is something that you have to decide for yourself.