The best selling techniques

Hello everyone,

This week we have another blogging with Ellie for you all. Last week’s poll question was, “Which of the following do you think is the most important selling technique?” With the multiple choice answers of: “Active listening”, “Warm calls”, “Social media selling” and “Identify needs & give solutions”.

In every business, no matter the industry, selling techniques are vital in order to gain business, but every business and individual will have their own preferred method.

The results to this poll question was as follows:

Active Listening = 30%

Warm Calls = 30%

Social media selling = 20%

Identify needs & give solutions = 20%

So a fairly even split across the answers and all of these are correct. There is no right way, but often a combination of these will contribute towards a successful sale.

When it comes to selling, it is all about relationship building, and in order to build and maintain a good relationship, it is so important to actively listen and build trust. This happens over time and then will mean the calls you make are “warm”. People like to do business with companies that they trust, know and that also come with good recommendations. It is a process.

Firstly, in terms of “Actively listening”, this is a key selling technique and came in at 30%. When a sales person speaks over their customer and doesn’t listen to them but instead proceeds to sell their products and come across a bit pushy, it makes the customer feel as though they have not been heard so this does not instill trust. You have to actually listen to the customer, understand what they need and what their issues are. If they feel listened to and heard, you can then work out the best solution that actually works for them. There is no point trying to sell them a product or a service that they wont need as this will not build a long term relationship. Actively listening will also save a lot of wasted time as you can quickly get to the bottom of what the customer needs.

Leading on from this, we have “Warm calls” with again 30%. Warm calls are calls that have been pre-planned with research prior to making the calls. They may be a follow up from social media leads or a networking event where you met this person once before. There is some kind of connection there. Warm leads tend to work better than cold calls for the fact that a partial relationship and therefore trust has already been built. If this customer has seen a lot of you on social media, or has seen heard of you / spoke to you before or absolutely would need your products and services, you are much more likely to get that sale at some stage! If this customer can see that you have thought about the reason for the call and done some work prior, they will feel more inclined to listen to you and be open to working with you. We always recommend warm calls where possible.

Thirdly, we have “Social media selling”, this came in at 20%. Social media selling is the process of using your business social media accounts to contact prospects, build connections and engage with customers. Social media selling has become more and more important as social media is a part of most peoples worlds daily. It is a brilliant way of building your company brand to assist with warm leads. It builds a part of your selling strategy. If you connect with the right companies that you know would have a need for your service or product, they can then see your posts and content, which will make it a nicer introduction when you do ring and speak to them. Research shows that it takes 7 touches to get someone to buy from you. These 7 touches can be in different forms such as calls, meetings, emails or social media engagement. It is great to use social media as one of these touches to help speed the sales process along. It also helps with building a solid brand and getting your company recognised.

Lastly, we have “Identify needs & give solutions” at 20%. This will often come hand in hand with actively listening. By actively listening you are then able to identify the needs of the customer and give accurate solutions that work for them.  There is no point in going straight in with the solution when you don’t understand what the need is. This will only frustrate the customer and lose trust with you because it shows you do not have their best interests at heart, and only care about selling anything, not the right thing. Identifying needs demonstrates your professional sales technique. Understanding their pain points means you won’t waste time selling something that they don’t need. You can focus your sales pitch on the areas they need help with and using the right solutions! This is a very important technique because if you have managed to get the customer on the phone or in a meeting ,you need to make sure the sales pitch is successful so you do not lose your chance.

As you can see all of these sales techniques have merit in building decent business relationships. They also all speak to one another so a combination of these techniques will no doubt be the best way to turn prospects into long standing customers.

I hope this blog has been interesting and informative. To read more blogs then just go to the main blog site by clicking on the image below and to listen to them as podcasts you can go the main podcast site here: Sinclair and Rush UK LTD • A podcast on Spotify for Podcasters

Thank you for reading and have a good day!