This short sales insight is aimed at sales people who want to be seen as trusted advisers and at company leaders who need their sales teams to become trusted advisers.
Why do buyers need sales people or traditional reps in 2019. Do buyers really want to meet a sales person who is telling them what to buy?
More sales transactions take place digitally then ever before. Buyers have little need to speak to a rep or sales person. They have access to digital product information at unprecedented level with Google searches alone reaching 4 Million searches every minute in 2018 according to DOMO.
The days of the transactional sales person are numbered because the need for the ‘teller seller’, is diminishing fast. Life is too short and time is money.
So what do buyers want instead?
When I meet my customer’s customers during coaching calls, I see three recurring expectations buyers have of a sales person:
- Understand my challenges and opportunities
- Ask questions that give me new insight about my issues
- Provide solutions that solve my problems
‘Tell me what to buy’ is certainly not an expectation.
These expectations lead on to the need to become a trusted adviser instead of the traditional sales person. For the trusted adviser the customer relationship and requirements are at the core of all actions.
Being a trusted adviser means you:
- Achieve larger, more interesting deals
- Link outstanding sales results to outstanding customer relationships
- Help creating differentiation and competitive advantage for your customers and your own organisation
- Build deeper, longer lasting customer relationships
- Use trust as the basis of the commercial relationship with customers
- Are pro-active, exploring ideas to best support customers
Reaching the status of trusted adviser does not happen overnight. It will be the result of a planned approach in a professional manner. This planned approach puts the customer at the centre of the relationship.
The trusted adviser will have to build a trusting relationship using advanced sales competencies such as initial engagement, active listening, asking probing questions, re-capping and presentation skills.
If you need your sales team to become trusted advisers, feel free to share these concepts.
I may be able to help you get there. contact me
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