MAIN INSIGHT 67
Julian Taylor
DIRECTOR OF SALES ENABLEMENT
How has the role of sales people changed in recent years?
Nobody likes being sold to. But, we all enjoy buying things to some degree. When you apply this lens to enterprise sales, it becomes clear that there needs to be a shift in the way sales people approach their prospects. Instead of trying to sell to their prospects, sales people should be helping them to buy. This is a subtle, but important difference because it puts the buyer at the heart of the purchase.
When shifting to a buyer-centric approach, it is also important for salespeople to move beyond selling based on pain points and frustrations. Addressing pain points is a great way to get your foot in the door, but ultimately it’s the impact of your product or service that will convince somebody to buy from you. This is particularly important in enterprise level sales where there can be many stakeholders. If a salesperson can help their prospects understand the real business impact of their offering, it makes it far more likely that they will complete the purchase.
What role do human sales teams play in a digital world?
We inherently live in a digital world. Access to information online has made buyers more educated than ever before and changed the way they make purchase decisions. As a result, buyers don’t engage with salespeople until the latter stages of their buying journey and the role of a salesperson has now become that of an educator and trusted advisor. Even though a salesperson is not involved in as much of the buying journey as they were previously, the old cliché is still true - people buy from people.
The simplest way for salespeople to start earning trust with their prospects is to ensure that anything they say matches up with the content available to the prospect online. Having a consistent message and tone of voice throughout the buying journey helps to give potential buyers a sense of reliability. To achieve this requires close collaboration between sales and marketing teams, the result is well worth the time and effort.
The old cliché is still true - people buy from people.
Sales people need to coach their main points of contact at a prospect company to have conversations with C-suites on their behalf.
What separates great sales people from good ones?
In recent years, the C-suites of businesses have become far more involved in purchase making decisions than they were previously. Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) in particular are heavily involved now, which can be tricky because they often prefer to save money where possible! To add a further level of challenge in closing deals, sales people rarely get to interact directly with the C-suite. But this is not to say that they can’t be influenced. Instead, sales people need to coach their main points of contact at a prospect company to have conversations with C-suites on their behalf. A good salesperson can give their prospects a compelling reason to purchase their product, but a great salesperson gives their prospects the context and messaging needed to provide the C-suite with a compelling reason to make the purchase.
Evotix develop technologies that are transforming management of the world’s most critical EHS and well-being challenges. They bring people and technology together with intuitive, human tools that radically change the approach to health and safety.
