This post was drawn from the teachings contained in Duct Tape Selling – Think Like a Marketer Sell Like a Superstar by John Jantsch
In order to thrive in our digitally driven business environment, a salesperson needs to think and act more like a marketer. Although to some degree this has always been true, it is painfully true now that prospective clients have access to tons of information, tools to avoid unwanted sales messages, and the ability to freely publish both flattering and unflattering information about the companies with which they do business.
For salespeople, this means the following elements of selling have changed:
Listening is the New Prospecting
While it has become much more difficult to gain access to prospects over the phone and through email, it’s actually become much easier to understand the individual needs of a prospect, mostly because of social media.
Salespeople should create their own socially driven listening stations by adding social profiles in their CRM tools. This will enable them to stay on top of what customers and competitors are doing and saying. When you listen actively instead of prospect, you’ll find that potential and existing customers will voluntarily and publicly share sales clues.
Educating is the New Presenting
It used to be that salespeople were encouraged to perfect their pitch. Pitching was the main sales tool and they still teach it in many sales training courses. But over time, the pitch became just an effective manipulation strategy full of psychological tricks and gimmicks.
Today’s salesperson has to be ready to teach, publish, and demonstrate their expertise. You should be ready to answer questions in blog posts, engage in social media conversations, and hold online and offline seminars to educate prospects.
Insight is the New Information Sharing
With just a click of a mouse, prospects have access to the best information in the world. They have access to everything we share online, as well as what our competitors, customers, and partners say about us and the industry.
This can make prospects either very smart or very confused about what’s being sold. Today’s salesperson must be a filter and provide insight, context, and guidance about the information. Your job is to help the prospects understand the questions they need to ask, then providing the answers.
Story Building is the New Nurturing
Stories are the best way to build relationship. Mister Rogers used to say, “It’s hard not to like someone once you know their story.”
Storytelling is collaborative. Salespeople have to be able to relate the organization’s core stories to the world of the customer, then help the customer create a new story, with themselves in the star role by solving the client’s problems.
One can only accomplish conclusive story building through proof instead of promise. You have to actively understand, measure, and communicate the real results that clients achieve in every engagement. And you must bring those stories to new customers and prospects.
Value Delivery is the New Closing
Whenever I hear the word “closing,” all I can think of is Alec Baldwin’s “Always Be Closing” speech in the film Glengarry Glen Ross. But that concept doesn’t work today; the modern salesperson must “always be building value.”
That’s not to say that closed deals don’t count. They do, and your success as a salesperson depends on that, but keeping the mindset of adding value over the pressure to close at any cost is the difference between old and new.
When you deliver value and education, traditional closing tactics become obsolete. It’s not about more schmoozing; it’s a call for you to explore genuine, mutually beneficial insight that will leave clients thinking about their problems in new ways. This includes delivering value with referral sources and strategic partners in ways that benefit your best clients as well as your partners, and building platforms that provide customers with everything they need to meet their goals.
Today’s sales superstars attract, teach, convert, serve, measure, and most importantly “guide” clients and prospects while creating a brand that means trust and expertise.
John Jantsch is a marketing consultant, speaker and author of Duct Tape Marketing, The Commitment Engine and The Referral Engine and the founder of the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network. His latest book, Duct Tape Selling – Think Like a Marketer, Sell Like a Superstar, is available online and in bookstores May 15.
