Peady’s Selling Engagement sponsored by IRD Prospector

However good your product or service is, the simple truth is that no-one will buy it if they don’t believe you can help.

We all know how important it is to learn and understand the needs, the pain points and challenges of our clients and prospective clients. We also know that successful sales outcomes are driven by a demonstration of how our product or service can work to effect the necessary changes.

That’s sales 101!

Is that enough?

In this fast paced and sophisticated business environment is that sufficient? Knowing and understanding needs or challenging and then helping to overcome them? Let me pose the question…..shouldn’t we also have some understanding and knowledge of the customer base that our clients are trying to communicate with? Truth is I feel you do.

Is it important?

I’ll let you be the judge but surely the more you know about your client’s customers, the more effective your business conversations will be and ultimately the solutions you create and implement will deliver on the agreed expectations.

You might like to investigate

• Who they are? (age groupings, sex, geographics, income brackets, B2B or B2C)
• What they buy? (are the purchase patterns evenly spread or are some products/services stronger than others)
• When they buy or purchase? (is there a seasonality or peak buying cycle)
• Why they buy it? (price, the USP, service, convenience, ego)
• How they buy? (online, phone, shopfront/office, client salesforce, a combination of several)
• What’s the value of the average sale?
• Is it a short or long buying cycle?
• Is the customer base changing?

Strong outcomes

The best “win-win” outcomes are always driven by emphasising the benefits that your product or service brings to your clients.
If you know the challenges that face them and also know the core attributes of their customer base it’s that much easier to offer practical real-world solutions.

About the author 

Stephen Pead is a media industry veteran of 30 years with significant experience in direct sales, sales management and general management. He is based in Sydney and specialises in helping SME’s market their businesses more effectively and providing training for salespeople and sales managers.
He can be contacted at [email protected]