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How do you balance product knowledge and emotional intelligence?

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As an IT sales professional, you need to master two essential skills: product knowledge and emotional intelligence. Product knowledge helps you understand the features, benefits, and value propositions of your solutions, while emotional intelligence helps you connect with your prospects, understand their needs, and influence their decisions. But how do you balance these two skills and avoid overloading or underwhelming your prospects with information? Here are some tips to help you achieve the right balance.

本文章的要点总结

Segment your audience:

Categorize prospects into distinct groups—owners, top managers, and lower-level executives. This streamlines the process, letting you tailor pitches that resonate with each segment's unique interests and goals.
Embrace storytelling:

Integrating stories and examples in your pitches can vividly demonstrate your product's impact. It's about painting a picture your clients can see themselves in, making technical details relatable and solutions tangible.

本摘要由 AI 和以下专家提供支持

1 Know your audience

Before you pitch your product, you need to research your audience and tailor your message accordingly. Find out who they are, what they do, what challenges they face, and what goals they have. Use tools like LinkedIn, CRM, and social media to gather insights and build rapport. Then, use your emotional intelligence to adapt your communication style, tone, and language to match their preferences and expectations. For example, if your prospect is a technical expert, you can use more jargon and details, but if they are a business leader, you need to focus more on the outcomes and benefits.

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Vlad Buyanov

B2B Sales Expert | 18+ Years in Sales Management | Helping Startups & Companies Build High-Performance Sales Teams
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?? In real life, researching your audience and tailoring to each individual customer can take an inordinate amount of time and effort (and time is of the essence in sales). Therefore, it is often more effective to divide the audience into 3 segments: 1. Owners and CEOs. Profit and business growth are important to them. 2. Top managers (heads of business functions). KPIs of their business areas are important to them. 3. Middle and lower level managers and executives. They are trying to meet their narrower objectives. By the way, this is further confirmation of why it's important for salespeople to build c-level relationships.

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Talia Loemba-Bouity

SDR/BDR | Multilingual
(已编辑)
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Knowing your audience and understanding their challenges are essential when presenting a product. It is important to carry out careful work upstream in order to find the right contacts, as well as the challenges and needs of the company. LinkedIn Sales Navigator and the company's official website are tools that may be useful in your search. Emotional intelligence is essential when presenting the product. Which product should bring added value to the company.

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Chris Chia

Business Development with the ability to handle P&L Responsibility
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The start of every interest comes from a relevant solution that solves a problem clients face. As part of the sales development, Emotional Intelligence is used for problem identification and drive and hunger for the client to solve it. Following the identification of the hunger for the solution, be honest with yourself if your technology solves the client's needs. Most of the time, the specific solution required may not be the primary need that your client intends to solve. In this case, if it is at least somewhat of a fit, lean on the strength of what you have, and frame it as a solution to them. But please be ethical. If it does not work, don't use rapport and pull capital from clients without delivering any value. Cheers!

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2 Ask open-ended questions

One of the best ways to balance product knowledge and emotional intelligence is to ask open-ended questions that encourage your prospects to share their opinions, feelings, and concerns. Open-ended questions help you uncover their pain points, motivations, and objections, as well as demonstrate your interest and empathy. They also give you an opportunity to showcase your product knowledge by providing relevant and specific answers that address their needs and show your value. For example, you can ask questions like "How do you currently handle X?" or "What are the main challenges you face with Y?" or "How would Z improve your situation?"

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Talia Loemba-Bouity

SDR/BDR | Multilingual
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Knowing how to ask good questions is very important in an exchange with the prospect. But it is also important to know how to listen to your interlocutor. This is the best way to establish trust and better understand their needs. The mistake not to make is to monopolize the floor and play a question-and-answer game; it might bore him.

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3 Use stories and examples

Another effective way to balance product knowledge and emotional intelligence is to use stories and examples that illustrate how your product can solve your prospects' problems and help them achieve their goals. Stories and examples help you engage your prospects' emotions, imagination, and curiosity, as well as provide proof and credibility for your claims. They also help you simplify complex concepts and make them more relatable and memorable. For example, you can use stories and examples from your own experience, your customers' testimonials, or your industry's best practices.

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Chris Chia

Business Development with the ability to handle P&L Responsibility
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After understanding the client's current unsatisfaction and hunger to solve, apply only relevant stories and examples where it got solved. However, if you dont actually have a case study, show them the direct benefit from using your solution. Display only available facts. Dont create a story out of thin air. You will fail due diligence if the client decides to check your story out. And all will be lost.

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4 Check for understanding

Finally, you need to check for understanding and feedback throughout your sales conversation to make sure you are balancing product knowledge and emotional intelligence effectively. Checking for understanding helps you confirm that your prospects are following and interested in what you are saying, as well as identify any gaps or misunderstandings that need clarification. It also helps you gauge their level of satisfaction, trust, and readiness to buy. You can check for understanding by using techniques like summarizing, paraphrasing, reflecting, or asking closed-ended questions like "Does that make sense?" or "Do you have any questions?" or "Are you happy with that?"

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Chris Chia

Business Development with the ability to handle P&L Responsibility
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Have the prospect feedback to you when you are at critical conversation pivots to ensure that you are on the same track as the client. When they mention a critical problem they want to solve, repeat, write it down and clarify it with them. Once you reach the solution presentation stage, make sure you have the prospect sufficiently engaged to ensure that you are showing them what they are actively looking for to solve their problem.

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5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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Chris Chia

Business Development with the ability to handle P&L Responsibility
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Always keep it relevant to the client. Detect engagement in the query and solution discussion. A lack of engagement is a very strong indication that you are off track, or they do not find that the solutions solve their problem.

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How do you balance product knowledge and emotional intelligence?

1

2

3

4

5

1 Know your audience

2 Ask open-ended questions

3 Use stories and examples

4 Check for understanding

5 Here’s what else to consider

IT Sales

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How do you balance product knowledge and emotional intelligence?

1

2

3

4

5

1 Know your audience

2 Ask open-ended questions

3 Use stories and examples

4 Check for understanding

5 Here’s what else to consider

IT Sales

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