What are the most innovative sales techniques for standing out from competitors?

Research, Research & Research. When reaching out to prospects, we should make sure our message fits their needs like a glove. Imagine we're selling a service – we should check places like Builtwith, LinkedIn, and job portals to get the scoop on what they use, when they got it, and any changes they're making. Armed with this info, our emails and calls aren't just generic pitches; they're personalised stories crafted just for them. In this we are offering a solution that fits into their world seamlessly. This way, we stand out from the competition.

Some innovative sales techniques include personalized video outreach, social selling through authentic engagement on social media platforms, leveraging AI-driven sales tools for predictive analytics, and creating interactive and immersive experiences for potential clients through virtual or augmented reality presentations.

Craft narratives that highlight the unique features and benefits of your products and/or services that resonates emotionally with your target audience. Develop proactive customer success programs that go beyond the initial sale. Foster collaboration between your sales, marketing, and customer service teams ensuring seamless experience for customers as they move through the entire sales process and beyond.

The risk of using the social proof is often it has been misused. People have asked their friends and families to say good things about them. Of you read some of the testimonials, you can see that by reading in-between the lines. Make sure to stay away from that and establish authenticity. In that case, yes a useful tool.

Incorporating social proof into your sales strategy not only adds credibility and authority to your pitch but also creates a persuasive narrative that can resonate with potential customers. It's a compelling way to showcase the real-world impact of your product or service and build confidence among your target audience. As an example, I love to use Problem-Solving Narratives. Using social proof to narrate how your product or service has successfully addressed the specific problems or needs of previous customers. This storytelling approach helps prospects visualize the practical application of your solution and how it can provide value in real-world scenarios.

Gamification is a very good too in getting your team to work but when not used well, will demoralise the team and you might turn to lose good team members. I have experienced it and l would not recommend it happens to anyone because it takes away the joy in your ways of work and easily influence your decision to switch companies. The KPI’s for the gamification must be clearly stated and updated as days go by in the month just to inform the individual of the respective position and this will create a healthy competition among the team

Gamification is extremely important if you are looking forward to improve the performance of your business development or the sales team. by introducing incentives for the top performers in terms of the highest number of cold calls, opportunities, created, revenue generated. The folks internally will compete with each other and will lead to higher activities leading to higher revenue.

3 good ideas below: Sales Leaderboard Competition - Create a real-time leaderboard that displays the sales performance of each team member. Award points for various achievements, such as closing deals, exceeding targets, or securing high-value contracts. Deal Closing Challenges - Introduce challenges related to closing specific types of deals or achieving sales milestones. Skills Development Quests - Design gamified quests that focus on enhancing specific sales skills. For example, create a series of challenges related to effective communication, objection handling, or building strong client relationships.

As per the study in Harvard Business school, the came to a conclusion that all selling would be relationship selling. The compliance for emails and cold calls are getting stricter. You can use social media platforms to engage with the prospects. Other than that I would recommend using networking connectors like coffee mug, Lunchclub and joining communities to build relationships with folks who can potentially be your customers or help you connect with decision makers. Always remember, your network is your network

AI has become an invaluable part of sales. It allows us to analyze behavioral patterns, helping us understand and adapt to each client's preferences. The use of NLP for sentiment analysis during interactions is enabling us to adjust our approach based on your real customers feedback. This approach is about enhancing understanding and communication, essential elements in any successful sales strategy.

Prioritizing customer value is fundamental in any business strategy. The key principle here is to start by understanding the customer's needs and preferences, then work backward to develop products or services that fulfill those requirements. This customer-centric approach ensures that what you create aligns with the actual needs of your target audience, enhancing satisfaction and loyalty. It involves a continuous feedback loop where you adapt and refine your offerings based on customer feedback, fostering a more sustainable and successful business model.

All the above points are great, while dealing with people act humanly and with empathy, this goes a long way. Process shall not make you process jughead, having a conversation to break ice is pretty effective and all the research you have done can be utilized here. Once you know the person, a little better it's good to have an idea on their challenges to understand and personalize the offering. Set expectations, right this is an important step and being a guiding beacon until you close the deals.