Getting Quick Wins with Insight Selling

Somehow the fourth quarter has already arrived. You have a small window to galvanize your sales team and sharpen your approach.? Most businesses still have a few more weeks to add deals to the pipeline that can still close for the year. So, how can you differentiate yourself and increase conversion rates? How can you create connections that aren’t simply product focused? Instead of asking customers about their needs, how can you demonstrate you know them before they do? Don’t ask customers to define their sales experience, make it definitive and prescriptive for them. Teach. Inform. Inspire. Your product might be perfect for their business, but the sale is almost always contingent on the knowledge, experience and expertise behind it. Amplify these assets with Insight Selling.

The Headwinds

Interest rates are high. Cash is tight and sales have been too slow. AI has injected the market with possibility and uncertainty. How do you keep pace with the scale of digital transformation, and your quarterly targets? With a superior brand, product and service only accounting for 38% of customer loyalty(1), how do you create a sales experience that makes a lasting impression??

For decades, businesses have adopted either a product-pitch focused or more of a probing approach, either sharing your demo and all your features and benefits or asking a litany of questions of the customer, hoping to qualify and gain awareness into their needs.?

Customers have spoken loudly over the years that neither of those approaches delivers value to them or helps them differentiate vendors and suppliers. The result is painful commoditization, price pressure and customer indecision. But imagine if the roles were reversed: What if you provided the insight, and the solution was discovered through an organic process of collaboration and mutual understanding??

This new form of selling isn’t about bombarding the customer with the minutiae of your product, but knowing your details about them and understanding their world. It centers on the quality of a human interaction, rather than the quality of a product. And critically, it works.

Why Insight Matters

Insight Selling removes the complexity of a transaction. It minimizes risk by drawing upon the seller’s expertise in data analysis, spending and marketing. By helping the customer to make an informed purchase decision, the typical relationship between ‘seller’ and ‘buyer’ soon transforms into a unique collaboration between buyer and trusted advisor.?

Instead of leading the sales conversation with ‘why’ a customer should invest in you, insight selling demonstrates a clear investment and interest in them. Imagine channeling the knowledge you’ve gained serving hundreds of customers into valuable advice that can help a customer save millions by simply avoiding common mistakes. Show them where the landmines are and what best practice looks like. This is setting them up for success. In a market where the sales experience is typically described as ‘very complex’(2), your customer-focussed insights will immediately elevate your proposition.

Using Your Insights

The first call

If chemistry and trust is key to a successful transaction, the first sales call can be a crucial way to foster that bond. So how are you conducting that first call to build credibility and add value? Are you sharing a unique perspective and asking thought provoking questions from the very beginning or just qualifying them? Is the conversation centered on product features or the client’s needs? Listen to your customers. Listen to your calls. Make sure you stand out from the crowd.?

Unite your company

Change the mindset. Inspire your company with a customer-centric philosophy. If product, sales, marketing and service work together to provide reps with the customer focused content vs the typical brand and product pitch this could make a world of difference but how often is that the case? How often do your teams really have a common understanding of the buyer's world? Is there a disconnect between what a customer learns online vs the sales conversation? Use Insight Selling as a catalyst for collaboration across all departments, before ultimately collaborating with the client.

Teach the skill set

Insight selling aims to inform and inspire a customer with valuable knowledge. But who’s teaching the teacher? What mechanisms do you have in place to ensure your AE, AMs and CSMs can implement these critical customer engagement techniques? Coach your sales teams. Provide managers with the tools to understand why Insight Selling is so vital, and how they can share this knowledge effectively.

The Long Term Solution

The ultimate aim should be to ensure that insight selling is embedded within the fabric of your company, occupying every aspect of the sales cycle. How can you take these ideas and package them into one solution? Insight Revenue draws upon 20 years of sales expertise and research to offer a program tailored to your organization’s specific needs. We’ll review your data, sales approach and messaging, listen to your calls and make actionable recommendations. We’ll align your company, offering the coaching and teaching required to extract value from every single sales interaction.?

No sales call should be wasted. No campaign should be launched without conviction. But crucially, no expertise or knowledge within your organization should be lost. Insight Selling elevates the talents at your disposal and directs them towards the customer’s needs. Galvanize your sales teams. Focus your company around being more customer-focused. Grasp the end of Q3 as a chance to redefine this year and the next.

1. ‘The Challenger Sale’? by Brent Adamson and Dixon Matthew page 68
2. ?https://www.gartner.com/en/sales/insights/b2b-buying-journey