A New Sales Strategy - Are you a Salesperson or a 'customer' to your Customer?
Confused!!? Let me explain.
With too much noise & so many vendors to deal with, your customers are constantly pressed for time. This in addition with their day-to-day responsibilities of operations, technology, infra/devops, etc. based on their role. Hence, we keep hearing about methods to cut through the noise by taking a consultative approach & driving value conversations. This is great!
However, if I ask who do your customers care about the most?
The answer would most likely be their customers/end-users who drive revenues ultimately. Hence, every new technology/investment is evaluated w.r.t. increased revenues, user experience & other related metrics.
In today’s digital world, where every organization has a critical user facing website or app, becoming a customer by signing up for their services is fairly straightforward. We all shop online & consume videos on the go. Hence, Ecommerce & Media/OTT applications are the primary suspects. Hence if you sell to Ecommerce & Media Businesses, signing up for the services, doing transactions on ecommerce platforms, consuming videos on different devices/browsers/connectivity etc., helps you provide genuine feedback & consult on real points which might be helpful in improving user experience and revenues.
Now the question arises what if it’s Enterprises or Finserv? There is always a way & as an example, with Banks the option of e-KYC has made the signing up process seamless. Once signed up, you could use services like Net banking, mobile banking etc. and compare the experience on various banking applications. This helps you provide real points on the comparative differentiation from a customer’s perspective.
An interesting instance recently was when the CIO of an online matrimonial site offered their premium services given that I was already using the app extensively and sharing feedback (good and bad) on the various aspects of the experience. The luxuries of being a customer!
These are just some of the examples on how you can take your Consultative selling approach to the next level & become a ‘Customer’ to your customer. Off course, there would be times when such use cases might not be feasible and in those cases, going the extra mile & talking to real customers like employees using the internal applications, would give you the desired seat on the table & your customers will come to trust you with their Business.
Be passionate about making your customers successful. Your success will be a factor of it. All the best!
