How to identify your customers, converse with them, and ultimately convert them.
Before we get into the essay, a bit about me - I started my sales journey almost a decade ago and learnt to sell the hard way mostly by doing things. My very first sales was for a tiny amount of INR 4000 ( approx 100 USD back then) in 2011 for ad space on my college startup Pulse72+, over the years I have sold events, consumer products, marketing solutions, enterprise software and industrial tech across the globe.
There is a common misconception that ‘A Good Salesperson Can Sell Anything’. Why do I call this a misconception? If someone is good at outside sales they needn't necessarily be good in telesales or social selling, and this for a fact is true in many instances.
A good salesperson is someone who knows how to build relationships with prospects. They can quickly diffuse concerns, overcome objections, and make prospective customers feel comfortable with their decision to buy.
The point I am trying to make is that the best salespeople aren't magicians who can perform magic tricks to convert prospective customers and we are evolving to new modes/models of sales, one need not necessarily be good at all modes of sales. One may be good in traditional IT service sales that doesn't mean they will be good in SaaS sales as well. Exceptions are always there.
But, sales ability is fundamental, more so than the product or service being sold. So, the focus here is on the fundamental aspects.
What is Sales?
Sales is the process wherein two or more parties engage in a transaction in which the buyer(s) receive the offering and seller(s) get something of value in return, usually money.
In order, to understand 'how to sell' one needs to get to the very fundamental reasoning of why people buy anything they buy.
People buy things that:
Solves a problem (Saves money)
Makes them feel good
Confirms to society
Confirms to self-identify
Provides Growth (Makes money)
Provides Safety
When one knows the 'why' the 'how' becomes easy. Let's ask some interrogative questions, as sales is all about asking right questions to— sense opportunities, analyze and research prospective customers, inquire them to get more information, listen to them carefully, and ask great follow on questions in return.
The sales questions to ask yourself:
Whom am I selling to?
What problem does my product/solution solve?
What drives them to buy my product/solution?
Where are they?
How is my product or Solution impacting their lives or what are the benefits my customers derive?
Is my pricing, packaging, and distribution right for how my buyers buy?
I have made a bunch of further questions here that will help you get to the answers and this self-interrogation should be followed up with getting to know your customers.
In the case of B2B enterprise sales for most questions, a simple google search can get you answers about your prospective customer. Whereas if you are in the B2C side or selling to SMBs you can use this simple excel tool for analyzing and getting to know your customer.
When it comes to that of an early-stage startup, the founders or core members of the founding team must have the ability to sell the product or solution. As a founder do remember that you're always selling, during- the hiring process of early employees, potential partnerships, early customers, investors, your dream to your co-founders, and advisors. Conviction and knowing what you are selling to each of these stakeholders matters most.
It is quite common to see that many founders and salespersons get a deal done by leveraging their existing relationships, which privilege not everyone might have. One needn’t worry about this, as one can always start afresh and build relationships from the ground up. What matters is to understand that most sales process is a marathon and not a sprint.
As we further get into the sales process, I often like the idea of equating a Salesperson to Sherlock Holmes.
You may ask why so?
“My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people do not know.” For me, what the legendary character Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle offers is not just a way to solve a crime and sensing things around. It is more of an approach, a way of thinking that can be applied to countless occupations — one such is sales which I often relate to.
Sherlock Holmes has this unique ability to see things others don’t, which leads him to crack case after case. As a Sales Sherlock, you need to see things others don’t and grab opportunities to sell but there isn’t a promise to win on every sale as I had mentioned in another context in the very beginning, but one does as a Sales Sherlock promise to answer the important questions of clients or prospects and comes across as a resourceful person.
In the sales journey, one definitely needs to keep learning from every ‘No’ you receive and get accustomed to staying afloat in the sea of rejections as you get deep into this journey.
Learning from every 'No' will eventually lead to successful sales strategies, favourable results, and a win-win situation that helps you overcome all your initial disadvantage of not having priorly established relationships. To win in sales one approach that can help you jump queues is to become your customer’s friend and his go-to resource person, will dive into this in the latter part of this essay.
If you have been closely following, you would have by now started asking the question of how/where to find these customers or leads? There are basically two sales outreach process - Outbound and Inbound. The difference between these two lies in the fact that who initiates the sale. In outbound sales, you contact the prospective customer first. Instead of the prospect coming to you. With inbound, the customer reaches out to you, maybe after reading your Linkedin post, seeing your Tweet, attending one of your webinars, or reading a blog post, etc.
When it comes to outreach to prospective customers there are four primary channels to source prospective customers:
Warm Intros: Asking for referrals from people you know (friends, family, co-workers, and investors, etc.), Networking Conferences.
Buying Lead Lists: Pro-Tip: Beware of directly reaching out to the CEO unless it’s a small company, even if you are good fit high chances of getting ignored due to lack of time-bandwidth on the CEO's side.
Content Marketing and Advertising
Manually Generating Leads From LinkedIn ( & Other relevant social media platforms depending on the nature of business)
Whether it is outbound or inbound sales, the most important thing is the approach with which you initiate the sales process.
What do I mean by approach? For me when selling is done right, it wouldn’t even feel like selling. It would be like a consultation from a trusted advisor rather than selling.
Sales approach and the 7 stages
There are essentially 7 stages in selling:
Investigate: Research your leads and prospects as Homes will do. The investigation phase helps you act as Sales Sherlock in the six stages that follow.
Inquire: The more information you get, the more you can help, add value, differentiate from the competition, and close sales. You will have to make it your business to know everything about your customer.
Listen and Tune In: Repeat back what your customer said and make them feel understood. Ask great questions and make sure you don't annoy your customers as Holmes does at times.
Educate: ’Teaching’ is the new pitching. Stay solution-focused. ( Remember the earlier part where I previously mentioned about being the go-to resource person.)
Qualify: Look for the Budget, Need, Timeline, and Decision-makers.
Close: If all the previous stages are done right this happens automatically.
Retain: If you think your job is done when you close the deal with a customer you are wrong, one needs to look at how they can sell more to the account (now that you have closed), retain, and get referrals for more customers. People keep coming to Holmes to solve cases, like that make sure your customers keep coming back to you.
You will be able to avoid the tricky part where most people flounder - handling objections and negotiations if you choose the right prospects in the very early stage of the sales process. One thing most people fail to do even if they do everything right is taking a hard look if the customer is a right fit to your offering, is he able to see the value and if you are able to convey the value to him which I call 'prospecting'. It is always better to stay away from a customer or deal if your investigation says they aren't the right prospects as you can spend your time and effort, efficiently to close the right ones.
Showing Up and Following Up
80% of success in sales and life is just showing up. Showing up is more than merely putting in a physical appearance. It's also intellectually showing up to your customers and the remaining 20% is chasing opportunities with follow-ups. When you tend to do more in sales, there are more possible moments of breakthrough you generate to close sales.
Questioning, looking at patterns, consistency and clear communication are the skills that contribute to the fundamental ability to sell, which will help one close deal and make sales repeatable. Most people have a problem with selling because they forget to focus on the basics.
Always remember that “People buy from People they Trust”. Use the reasoning from first principles to understand why your prospective customer must buy from you and act like a Sales Sherlock to have meaningful conversations with them to build ‘trust’ that will eventually help you close.
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