How to Adapt Your Sales Tactics to Your Clients’ Needs | Selling a product isn’t just about knowing the best features of your product and pitching it in an enthusiastic way. To really sell a product successfully, you need to ensure that you’re selling to the individual client. This means shifting your focus from your business and your products to the customer and their needs. Here are a few tips for achieving a customer-focused sales presentation.
- Creating a Dialogue
So often when people hear the word “presentation”, they’re imagining a one-sided monologue where only one person’s viewpoint is being expressed. In sales, however, a sales presentation should be all about creating a dialogue. Rather than getting caught up in creating a sleek video presentation with EDI software or memorizing a particularly snappy pitch, you should leave space in your presentation for the client’s point of view.
Right from the start, your presentation should be focused on the specific client’s needs, address their concerns, and then move on from there to discuss the product. The client should feel assured from the get-go that they are your top priority and that you’re selling to them because of their unique needs. Once you see a sales presentation as an opportunity to open a dialogue between two parties, you’ll have an easier time shifting your focus to the client’s needs.
- Selling Solutions
When you begin curating your sales presentations, it’s important to have the mindset of selling a solution rather than a product. This means that traditional selling techniques won’t be applicable in your situation. If you’ve been in the sales game for some time, you may have to completely reset your mindset about what selling looks like. All the techniques and strategies you’ve learned are about selling a product, and that’s not what you’re doing here.
In fact, you may want to get rid of the concept of “selling” altogether. You’re not really selling anything. Instead, you’re helping the customer find solutions to an existing problem. The practical sides of being a salesperson – quotas, objectives, and goals – should be left at the door when you’re presenting to a client. At that moment, all you should be focusing on is their needs.
- Addressing Unique Concerns
As you begin to shift your mindset into helping customers find solutions, it’s important to remember that everyone’s needs are unique. In order to sell to clients successfully, you need to be adept at handling a variety of different needs. Going into a sales situation believing that you already know all the concerns a client has could lead to overlooking some important questions unique to that client. You should get used to delaying your presentation until you’re fully aware of the situation and the client’s needs.
- Find the Client’s Perspective
It’s not enough to just ask questions and find out what a client’s needs are. To give presentations that are full of the empathy needed to sell a product, you need to wear your client’s shoes. As you create a presentation, take a minute to assume the client’s point of view and see how it feels from the perspective of the buyer, rather than the seller. It’s likely that you have some blind spots to points where you’re neglecting the buyer’s needs in favor of trying to make a sale.
- Ask Questions
Lastly, to become fully aware of the client’s needs, you have to get comfortable asking a lot of questions before it’s time to start presenting. Another important thing to keep in mind is that a client’s wants are not necessarily the same as their needs. Initially, they may have a specific product in mind for solving a problem they have. By asking questions and doing your research, you may uncover the real need they have, and be able to sell more effectively as a result. Being a salesperson who sells to client’s needs can be tricky and difficult, but at the end of the day, it ensures that both parties win.
