Do you have a team of salespeople or order takers?
- Reading Time: 3 minutes.
What is the main job of salespeople?
This answer seems very logical, but if we tell you that it is not exactly "selling", would you have any other answer in your head?
Selling used to be the job of salespeople, and that's where the name comes from. But if you're a sales leader in a B2B company and you want to achieve your sales goals, then pay attention to where the focus should shift.
What do you think? What answer did you come up with?
You thought something like:
- Building relationships
- Knowing how to close
- Negotiate well
- Know the product
- Establish goals
- Overcoming objections
- Being strategic
- Giving killer pitches and demonstrations
Or did you come up with something else?
All of these answers are relevant in some way, but they are not the most important element of a salesperson's job.
The most important aspect of a salesperson's work is to to influence or, in other words, getting the prospect to allow you to help him or her.
And no, we don't mean becoming an "influencer" dancing on Tik Tok or visiting restaurants on Instagram. The job of the B2B salesperson is to convince your prospects to let you help and guide them, and to show them that you as a salesperson have the ability to recognize your prospect's pain and alleviate it with your knowledge and expertise.
How influential are your salespeople?
Influence as the basis of consultative selling
The basis of consultative sales is to generate change and a salesperson's job is to make that change happen. When this concept is not understood or pursued, you are likely to have a disoriented sales team, working mechanically, complaining about the quality of the leads they receive and juggling to meet business goals.
A salesperson who understands his mission has the ability to influence prospects and customers, move them through the sales funnel and internalize the objectives the buyer wants to achieve. He has the ability to influence not only the prospect, but also his pains, objections and challenges he is facing, to increase the likelihood of closing a deal.
If you focus on this, you will notice that a successful sale will not depend on luck or the phase of the moon, but on the sales strategy, the preparation of your collaborators and the ability to influence.
"I like to think of sales as the ability to gracefully persuade, not manipulate, a person so that it will be a win-win relationship."
- Bo Bennett
Selling is not the same as receiving orders
Influencing is not synonymous with hypnotizing. It is not about finding the perfect one-size-fits-all picth that will convince any lead. It is important that your prospect has the intention to be helped and gives you permission to do so.
If your prospect is very interested, requests a Demo, schedules a call and does the whole process on their own, your reps are not selling, they are taking orders. Which doesn't really make a change or a big difference to the company and its revenue.
When the buyer accepts that they are facing a real problem and is willing to have a sales rep lend a hand, listen to their pains and examine the best avenue to solve them, that is where the sales process has truly begun and where your team must excel.
Few sales professionals understand this crucial difference between taking orders and influencing buyers. That's why it's so common to see so many salespeople repetitively nagging without actually providing valuable input to their prospects. This common mistake is compounded when the company is going through a challenge or change that requires proactive and innovative actions by the sales team, who have spent their time taking orders instead of influencing.
The value of your sales team is measured by the amount of influence they are able to exert on your prospects and customers. From 1 to 10, how influential are the salespeople on your team?
>>Download the guide to measure how influential your salespeople are
At Innova Marketing Solutions we not only help you generate qualified leads that are really interested in your service, but we work hand in hand with your sales team to increase the effectiveness of their processes, influence the right prospects and start closing more sales.
Request a consultation to find out how we can support your business.
Influencing is not synonymous with hypnotizing. It is not about finding the perfect one-size-fits-all picth that will convince any lead. It is important that your prospect has the intention to be helped and gives you permission to do so.
Request a consultation to find out how we can support your business.