Achieving buy-ability: Sell the thinking

If you’ve been following our content for some time, you’ll know that we’re big on relationships.

We’re big on forming bonds and building rapport with the people that matter, and creating partnerships that stretch long into the future.

We recognise that the cold pitch isn't always the best approach.

Instead, we’re all about selling the thinking along the way to achieving buy-ability.

Let’s get into it.

Buy-ability, not cold pitching

So as you’re striving for sales, what you should be trying to achieve is buy-ability. Modern sales techniques are about building relationships – and lasting ones at that. So buy-ability is about building trust and the knowledge that you solve problems.

As you’ll have gathered from our content so far recently, we’re all about the relationship-building process along the way to a sale. It’s not about cold pitching and spamming prospects with offers, as that will definitely not achieve buy-ability.

And achieving buy-ability is about building trust with prospects, something that can be done through the power of meaningful content and thought leadership.

If you’re consistently answering market challenges through your content, which in turn guides prospects through the pipeline, you’ll be far more likely to achieve the all-important buy-ability.

Because cold pitching turns off prospects so quickly, your best bet is warming them up by trying to be genuinely useful.

If you can demonstrate that you’re out to help, not sell, people will be far more likely to have a conversation with you. And from there, who knows? A conversation is all you can target in the beginning, so it’s about getting a foot in the door.

Once you’ve got a foot in the door, it’s about selling the thinking – not the services.

Sell the thinking, not the services

It might sound odd, but selling the thinking behind your business rather than the services is a sure-fire way to convince prospects that you really know your onions.

For example, if you’re a strategy agency, what’s the thinking behind the framework? What makes you stand out from the crowd?

It’s not necessarily about giving away all your secrets, but it is about lifting the lid ever so slightly and letting the world have a peek into your world.

Demonstrate this through content and conversations if you can, instead of being up-front and trying to sell a service.

After all, people buy solutions – not services.

A whitepaper detailing the philosophy behind your frameworks or business model would be incredibly interesting and helpful to numerous prospective clients, and may just tip a deal over the line.

It’s about demonstrating that you’re thinkers as well as doers, meaning that you can provide solutions and solve problems.

In today’s complex and competitive landscape, that’s just as important – if not more important – than simply being able to provide a service.

In our world, we’re often not selling commodities – we’re selling big pieces of work that are transformative to other businesses.

That’s why it’s so critical to sell the thinking behind the product or service.

And by selling the thinking, you automatically achieve buy-ability along the way because you’ve proven that you can handle the heavy lifting.

Takeaways

I suppose if there’s anything to take away from this, it would be as simple as examining your business and how it was formed – what was the thought process behind it? Why did you launch in the first place and where is the thought that went into each product or service? Do you have a differentiator?

Once you’ve identified that, it’s about communicating your value through content and conversations so you can achieve the buy-ability we all crave so much.

It’s not about pitching and spamming, but proving your value so that you’re worth investing time and resources into.

It’s not an easy task and may take some time as you build the relationships required, but the pay off is worth it in the end.