Remember the child-hood game – Telephone? The game where you sit in a circle and someone whispers a sentence into the ear of the person next to them and that person whispers the sentence into the ear of the person next to them and so on until it comes back to the person who started it. The last person says outload what the sentence was, and it is very different from the sentence originally whispered.
That is how communication works – everyone has their own take on what is being said. This is what you don’t want to happen with your prospective customers. You don’t want them to get information from your website that is different from what your sales teams are telling them or play the telephone game when conveying information within their corporate decision-making machine.
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To ensure customers receive the correct information, it is important to have a consistent message from your sales and marketing departments.
Below are four tips to avoid communicating mixed messages in B2B sales:
- Know the product – Every employee represents the company and should be able to tell anyone who asks what the product does and its value. As a company, provide education and marketing materials to everyone so they can do the 30 second “elevator pitch”.
If you are a salesperson,
- learn as much as you can about the product –its features and benefits and history. Try to get real life examples of customer experiences to build stories for presentations. This is the best way to convey the product to prospective customers.
- if someone asks you about an area of the product that is out of your scope of knowledge, don’t be afraid to tell them that you will find out the answer. Do not make up and answer; that is the best way to lose trust and the customer.
As a company, ensure the message is consistent by:
- setting up a training program for all salespeople including partners that sell your product.
- create a script or at the very least the product features and benefits for sales to focus on. Each sales person will have their own demo style and may go off script, but having a script gives everyone the same baseline to work from so the message is consistent.
- update training with each new release, feature, and product discovery
- make sure all working from same marketing documents/collateral – make sure new versions are available to all and known by all
- Build relationships – customers buy from people they trust -focus on building the relationship with the prospective customer. To build trust:
- Let the customer speak – ask questions about their needs and pain points and listen to the answers – the customer should speak more than you.
- Focus on consultative sales where you guide the prospective customer through the purchase to make the best decision for their company.
- Know your Industry and get involved– learn about your industry and get involved with industry associations. Building relationships with others in the industry will help you connect and build rapport with prospective customers. Getting a referral from a trusted source is the best way to connect with prospective customers.
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- Take advantage of Software and technology – Let technology help you make the sales process more efficient and consistent.
- Use CRM systems (especially cloud based) to keep track of all communication- email, text, and document phone calls – with the prospective customer
- Use social media for communicating your content marketing, blogs, and product information
- Email text – Follow up conversations with written communication to confirm that was said and what was heard
- Deliver product demonstrations via web conferencing when you can’t present in person
In the end, a great B2B salesperson is one who can network, consult, and build relationships. This is done with consistent communication.
Armed with their product and industry knowledge and contacts, the salesperson can extract what the true value of their product or service is for the prospective customer’s needs.
Using the right sales and marketing technology, they will make the sales process easier for themselves and for the customer by having product collateral, pricing quotes, and customer stories at their fingertips; making the sales process a win for them and for the customer.
Improving Marketing and Sales Alignment, Adjusting to the New Normal and Scaling Business Growth Despite Covid-19, catch more in these conversations with experts from JotForm, Xactly, Demandbase!
