Surprisingly, the best price and best value is at the bottom of the customer's priority list. See what's at the top.
Why does a customer buy from one vendor rather than another? According to research recently conducted by The Rain Group (detailed report here), customers tend to buy from sellers who are superlative at the following tasks:
1. Bring New Perspectives and Ideas
If customers could diagnose their own problems and come up with
workable solutions on their own, they would do so. The reason that
they're turning to you and your firm is that they're stuck and need your
help. Therefore, you must be able to bring something new to the table.
2. Be Willing to Collaborate
Customers absolutely do NOT want you to sell them something, even
something that's wonderful. They want you to work with them to achieve a
mutual goal, by being responsive to the customer's concerns and ways of
doing business. Ideally, customers want you
to become integral to their success.
3. Have Confidence In Your Ability to Achieve Results
Customers will not buy from you if you can't persuade them that you,
your firm, and your firms offerings will truly achieve the promised
results. It is nearly impossible to persuade a customer to believe in
these things unless you yourself believe in them. You must make your
confidence contagious.
4. Listen, Really Listen, to the Customer
When they're describing themselves and their needs, customers sense
immediately
when somebody is just waiting for a break in the conversation in order
to launch into a sales pitch. In order to really listen, you must
suppress your own inner-voice and forget your goals. It's about the
customer, not about you.
5. Understand ALL the Customer's Needs
It's not enough to "connect the dots" between customer needs and your
company's offering. You must also connect with the individuals who will
be affected by your offering, and understand how buying from you will
satisfy their personal needs, like career advancement and job security.
6. Help the Customer Avoid Potential Pitfalls
Here's where many sellers fall flat. Customers know that every
business decision entails risk but they also want your help to minimize
that risk. They want to know what
could go wrong and what
has gone wrong in similar situations, and what steps you're taking to make sure these problems won't recur.
7. Craft a Compelling Solution
Solution selling is definitely not dead. Customers want and expect
you to have the basic selling skill of defining and proposing a workable
solution. What's different now though is that the ability to do this is
the "price of entry" and not enough, by itself, to win in a competitive
sales situation.
8. Communicate the Purchasing Process
Customers hate it when sellers dance around issues like price,
discounts, availability, total cost, add-on options, and so forth. They
want you to be able to tell them, in plain and simple language, what's
involved in a purchase and how that purchase will take place. No
surprises. No last minute upsells.
9. Connect Personally With the Customer
Ultimately, every selling situation involves making a connection
between two individuals who like and trust each other. As a great sales
guru once said: "All things being equal, most people would rather buy
from somebody they like... and that's true even when all things aren't
equal."
10. Provide Value That's Superior to Other Options
And here, finally, at the No. 10 spot (below everything else) comes
the price and how that price compares to similar offerings. Unless you
can prove that buying from you is the right business decision for the
customer, the customer can and should buy elsewhere. -Inc.com
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