How to Develop Your Unique Selling Package Part 1
Filed under: Business to Business Selling, Sales Planning, Strategic Selling
How do you answer when asked ….. “Why out of all the vendors available to me right now, should I buy from you and your company?”
It’s a good question isn’t it?
I was asked this last year by a Sales Manager in charge of 12 sales people and being caught off guard, I fumbled my way through it.
Now I have crafted a message that I can recite in my sleep, while in the shower, driving to work or anywhere else and when I work with any client this is the first thing we go to work on.
It’s a muddy marketplace out there with plenty of alternatives, and people are not sitting there patiently waiting for you to come into their lives. We have to give our buyers a reason to buy from us and for them to be able to position us in a heartbeat.
So how do we build an answer to that question?
The first part of Strategic Selling involves starting each call with a strong strategic uniqueness or philosophy statement about you and your company that takes less than two minutes to present. It also involves you developing a more strategic or “big picture” focus to your selling messaging, selling language, and overall philosophy or approach to a customer’s business.
The “Five Strategic Buying Questions”
How effective are you at explaining the complete story of your product or services? A strong opening strategic message of competitive uniqueness is an effective way to start a sales call. Explaining your statement of uniqueness, or “Elevator speech” begins to position your customer as to why they want to select you over all of your competitors. However, success in selling involves more than just delivering a strong opening selling statement.
You also need to provide your potential buyer with a simple, yet complete explanation of what you have to offer and why it will be of such value to your prospect.
The “Five Strategic Buying Questions” cover all of the major questions a prospect will ask as they evaluate and consider your selling offer.
These five strategic buying questions are:
- Where can this take us? Explaining how your product or service can change or redirect their business, efficiency, or profitability.
- Who can this help? Explaining whom in the customer’s organisation will find the most value from your offering.
- Why is it better? Explaining why your approach is better, provides more value, is a lower risk or a lower total cost than any of your competitors.
- What does it do? Explaining what kinds of results or outcomes you will be able to receive.
- How does it work? Explaining the mechanics and details of how it functions.
Small Business Owners have been answering these simple buying questions in sales calls for decades. However, the majority of salespeople answer these questions in the wrong order!
I wish I had a dollar for every time I worked on a clients business where all the communication to the market was all about what the product does, the technical side of things rather than what the product will do for their client.
Are You Product or Customer Focused?
Cognitive business owners present their idea or product with far too much detail rather than the emotion around the purchase. The buyer gets overloaded and bogged down trying to find the reason for buying. As my father use to say (he was a great sales person), “a confused mind says no”.
Most buyers find it difficult to absorb new information in this manner, or at least this order. The technical approach of providing all of the details so you then can understand the big picture normally just does not work. In most cases, it is just too complex for your customer to collect all of the detailed information provided and then assemble it in their minds to understand the “big picture” of what is being explained and proposed.
But the more persuasive way or strategic way is to reverse the order and begin your product or service presentation by starting off with explaining where your product or service can take your customer and then discussing who in their organisation will receive the most value.
How are you presenting your information? Is it from the more persuasive big picture down to the details, or are you a detailed and technically biased salesperson who still expects customers to be able to assemble all of your detailed explanations into one overall understanding of what you’re selling and why it’ll provide such value to your customer?
Stay tuned for Part 2 where I will go through Your Strategic Message of Uniqueness
Plan Each Sales Call in Writing
This is one of the simplest of all time management techniques to implement. It will immediately increase the effectiveness of every sales call you make.
Simply answer these four questions before each sales call (preferably in writing, but at least mentally).
1. What outcomes do I want from this sales call?
There may be many outcomes from any sales call. Do I want a sale, a referral, a testimonial letter, a second appointment, information etc? By not asking this key question we often overlook vital outcomes and are unprepared in a sales call.
2. What will I show the customer in this sales call?
This depends a lot on the answers to questions:
Will I show them a letter from a happy customer, relevant figures, a brochure etc? Many times we have all been in a sales presentation wishing we had one extra piece of information with us. We knew that if we had it, our whole presentation would be more effective. However we haven’t asked question number two, so we don’t have that piece of information. By the time we go back to the office and get it, our customers enthusiasm has greatly diminished.
3. What concerns will my customers have?
Will they be concerned about price, our reputation, our service etc? Often by taking several moments to think this through in advance we can be better prepared for potential concerns our customer may raise.
4. How will I ask for action?
This is a key part of every sales presentation. It can be as simple as asking for the next meeting. How will you do it? How will you ask for the order? How will you ask for the information you need? In planning this in advance, your presentation will be far more professional and get you better results.
When you study the life histories of great trial lawyers who earn over one million dollars a year, the will always say that 90% of their success is preparation. They have thought through in advance what they are going to say. Answer these four questions for your next call.
Tags: planning, sales call, sales call planning
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