The client acquisition process is about helping your prospect buy rather than selling them a product or service, but many people in the business of sales tend to forget that. A salesperson’s chief responsibility is not to hit his or her quota, but to educate potential clients about how a particular item or service can offer a solution to business problems.
By working first educate yourself on the latest developments in your industry and then share that insight with your potential and existing clients, you can foster greater trust in your abilities. When prospects are more aware of all of their options, they can also be more decisive about what they want. Additionally, they may be better able to identify the financial or business-related issues to which you could find a solution together.
This provides you with more direction and enables you to tailor your presentations to clients. As the conversation with prospects progresses, you can gradually move from explaining your business purpose and determining their problems to explaining how your service or product can help.
An educational tactic that we use at The Covenant Group is telling stories. Provide your prospects with anecdotes about past clients who had challenges similar to theirs. This can make it more clear for them what problems they face and what they can do to fix it.
Commit to ongoing education
It is not enough to attain clients, you also have to retain them by offering value added service. Stay updated on your clients’ individual needs and changes to their demands or situations. Be sure that you are abreast of developments in product offerings or your industry in order to better serve your clients. Share relevant knowledge and resources with them as well, so they are informed about new opportunities or solutions that can help them. Remember, clientsare not only buying a service or product, but also paying for the expertise and support that you can offer.
As you make recommendations for your clients – be it in terms of new products or additional service – work to deepen their knowledge and understanding by putting your suggestions in context. This not only assists them in their decision-making process, but also serves to show the client that you have his or her best interests in mind. As you know, people treats facts as factors but make decisions based on emotions. Understanding the emotional relevance of a product or service to the client is pivotal in making a sale.
What do you do to inform your prospects? How do you educate your clients as an extension of the sales process?
