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Strategic Selling

Written by: Gary Silverman

Article Overview: All of us preach the basics of selling and encourage all sales people to go “Back to the Basics” of building value in yourself and your product. That’s a given particularly in today’s competitive environment. Much time and effort is invested in training your sales force on product knowledge, features, benefits, and closing tools. Little time is invested in training on the “Strategy of Selling”. This is what I am referring to.

Strategic Selling

Let’s look at the four “W’s” and one “H”, the fundamentals.

WHO - a prospect who has a current or future need for your product or service.

WHAT - your specific offering used by your prospect or customer.

WHERE - wherever your customer is located.

WHEN - how quickly can you deliver your product or service.

Let’s focus on the “HOW”. Selling skills are painted with a broad brush of generalities, a kind of “one size fits all” approach. Most have worked for generations. Will they continue to work? Are you presenting the same old sales story packaged and repackaged? Have they heard it all before and are looking for a new motivation? As your customer becomes more discriminating and selective the battle on the sales front becomes more challenging. It is time to devise a strategy tailor made for the needs of your prospect, one aimed at their “Hot Buttons”, solving their problem NOT yours.

Before you attempt to close your prospect you must develop a strategy based on what he or she has been telling you in the interview. The more time you invest in counseling, more clues will become apparent. The goal is a close more typical of a rifle shot than a shotgun blast hoping you’d hit or come near the target. We’ve been given TWO ears and ONE mouth encouraging us to listen twice as much as we talk. It’s time to subscribe to this sales philosophy rather than the usual “talking and waiting to talk”. Your prospect will tell you how to sell them. Glue these points into a strategic closing “stew”. Once your customer recognizes his own words, they will be easier to close. If you are trying to close on the first visit than you need to think on your feet, it may require you to take some notes. Be a student of human nature, body language, and use some detective skills to prepare your strategy. You may just need to make an educated guess. Much of science is predicated on a hypothesis, a theory, an accidental find, or an educated guess. Sales is part science part art. You must have a clear vision of your prospect’s goals. It may be as simple as just asking them what they are and how to sell them. Go figure.

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Article Tags: body language, broad brush, clear vision, detective skills, ears, educated guess, generalities, generations, glue, hot buttons, human nature, hypothesis, motivation, rifle shot, sales philosophy, science, shotgun blast, tailor, target



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