The Value of Strategic Selling

image concept of a good marketing strategyAn oft-used word, strategy seems as ubiquitous as an iPhone. But what does it mean relative to selling? Whatever you are selling, a product, a service, real estate, banking or soon to be trips to Mars, a sound strategy wins deals!

PREMIUM RESEARCH: Developing an effective, motivated and focused salesforce

Establish your target audience. What firms’ needs best fit your service/product offering?

  1. Will those firms, your price point and market goals be a match, a win-win for both?
  2. Identify the right buyers, the most critical step.
  3. Understand each buyer’s role: Technical, User, Coach and Economic. More on this later!
  4. Align your selling team with the right corresponding buyer irrespective of title.
  5. Once the buyers are determined, their roles delineated, define each of their Win-Results.
  6. A Win-Result is an objective business outcome that gives each buyer a subjective, personal win.
  7. Once identified, all actions must advance the win-result to close with little to no luck involved.

Now that you have your targets, scour LinkedIn, Google, Twitter, Facebook and your prospects’ websites for your buyers’ titles, emails. There are no shortcuts. Discovery takes effort and focus, two things we control.

So who are these buyers and what do they want? All of them want to feel good about their pending purchase as do we all. Large sales involve several “buyers” who work collaboratively and what and when to purchase. Ultimately, one person owns the decision. Stay tuned for who that might be!

The Technical Buyer is not someone involved in IT. This buyer eliminates firms because of logistical reasons: poor locations match, bandwidth, technology. The Technical Buyer is not the final word, rather a counselor to the ultimate decision maker and concerned with practical matching of need to offering.

The User Buyer is exactly what it sounds like. This buyer will actually use your product/service every day. They are keenly aware of, totally concerned with how the sale will improve productivity and performance. Will your offering fix an issue, solve a problem? They will be interested in functionality to the extent is solves their problem. They influence the buying decision, but ultimately, do not decide.

The Coach Buyer. This is a person, in or outside your prospect’s firm, who has valuable information and wants you to succeed. They may or may not have a personal interest or a business reason for that but will guide you through the internal navigation and culture of your prospect. They are invaluable and every sale needs one, but they never decide to buy!

The Economic Buyer. Yes, this is the person who makes the final decision and does not always have the “highest” title. They “own” the purchase to ensure the purchase will produce a consistent business outcome. They also decide on how the purchase will serve a subjective personal self-interest. Here’s the key to identifying this critical buyer; they can say yes, when all others say no; they can say no when all others say yes. And don’t be shy about asking this very question.

Well, hope this helps all you sales pros. Stay tuned for the next chapter: building your Sales Funnel!

MORE: Passion + Persistence = New Clients

 

Joe Palestina

Joe Palestina
Joe Palestina is VP, client development, at Aditi Staffing. He can be reached at Joep (at) aditistaffing (dot) com.

Joe Palestina

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