A large part of buyer’s journey is traversed without their knowledge. Sales team must wake up to the challenge and rise above those, irrespective of which industry they belong to. Against an aggressive competition, currently organizations are finding that their salespeople are unable to build a gripping valuablestory to set themselves apart.
If the salespeople’s portfolio is complex, the challenge becomeseven more insurmountable.
The big question is how can sales team rise above the daunting challenge? What does it take to develop differentiation and create a valuable impression?
A contemporary sales team needs a strategy, robust communications and latest technology.
With the right strategy, salespeoplecan have their act together – communicate the product value through differentiation; clearand concise. Cutting-edge technology allows them to convey innovation and create a lasting memorable engagement. With this winning combination of strategy, communication and technology, sales teams can separate themselves from the competition and close more deals.
Here are some exact challenges that the current sales force face and how aligning with the respective marketing team can help them mitigate those challenges.
- Communicating Value
Sales teammust gain expertise in positioning their product / service features and benefits and another pain area is where they usually fail to communicate the value. Highlighting the product value and communicating it to their target market are equally important.
Here’s where the sales department needs marketing’s help; salespeople need to put themselves in the position of their prospect and be able to answer their crucial questions: Why should this product or service matter? How will it help prospects do their jobs better?
If sales people cannot convert complex, competitive product and solution information and communicate them through concise and articulate value propositions, they will not be effective.
Sirius Decisions, a leading marketing firm, reported that the foremost challenge for B2B sales is “their inability to communicate value differentiation.”
Marketers must focus on interactive applications that help in communicating a detailed and complex story in a more viable and relative manner that helps the sales team deliver value propositions to the prospects.These applications offer a mode for deeper sales conversations, which reveals prospects’ hidden needs and address thoseneeds through the product or service in the offering.
Software companies and digital agencies areboth great resources for organizations seeking to develop an interactive application as part of their customer engagement strategy.
- Showing rather than telling
A verbal explanation most often falls on deaf ears. However, while businesses communicate with their prospects through visual content, it is a step ahead in snowballing sales through retention and action.
Technological innovations such as augmented and virtual realitydo just that. These advancements are attractive for a prospect to experience your product or service. Of course, visualizing a digital solution is one thing, but interacting with it to solve a real business challenge is completely different.
If prospects are involved and actively participate in the sales experience, they remember not only who you are but what you can do for them.
Cisco builds immersive environments that use visuals, animations and interactive medium to create a multi-sensory experience, resulting in highly engaged customers with better memory retention rates.
- Understanding multi-buyers’ needs
Consumers, both B2C and B2B, are bombarded with a myriad of advertisements and become target of numerous sales tactics. It’s imperative to understand exactly who your buyers are, what their needs are and how you can tailor a personalized pitch of your offerings to cater to the need of multiple buyers, all at the same time.
Sales team must put themselves their buyers’ shoes to identify with their needs.
Merely listing product details will never close the sale; rather, you need to have an authentic conversation – listening and adjusting your pitch as per the demands of varying decision-makers. This is what communicates your value, builds your credibility and inevitably closes the deal.
- Leverage latest technology
In the current technology-driven world, there are widespreadlist of tools to help salespeople close deals. Cloud technology, CRM systems, data analytics tools, web content management and sales software are there to be leveraged and seamlessly put to implementation. AI and Machine Learning has been overwhelming lately due to their easy accessibility, interactivity and effectiveness.
Wayfair, an online furniture retailer, rolled out its augmented reality app, that allows customers to place virtual furniture in their homes to give a complete look and feel experience for better engagement and closer to winning the purchase.
However, companies need to prioritize their technologyplatform such that it will align with both sales’ and marketing’s needs and goals.
- Link with prospects on an emotional level
Establishing and building emotional connections with prospects transcends traditional sales and marketing relationships. When prospects could immerse themselves in a solution and fully explore a product themselves, they develop deeper understanding and retention, creating an emotional connection.
Building engaging, educational and interactive experiences has been proven to create double conversations than passive content. While enhancing conversations around specific personas falls under marketing’s purview, the ability to successfully deliver those experiences to prospects is the job of the sales team.
That’s why the culmination of the challenges mentioned above needs to be solved by marketing and sales working together to create a deep breakdown of each buyer persona.
Conclusion
Whatever the challenges are there are always solutions around the corner. The need is to rise to the challenge with right combination of strategy, communication and technology. Salespeople will be able to develop meaningful dialogue with prospects, accelerate the sales cycle and close more deals when they work closely with their marketing counterparts.
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