17 Aug Habits of successful sales professionals Interview with Allan Langer Podcast Episode 41
How do you elevate your sales team of professionals to make 10 times more than your current flow? How do you build a successful sales pipeline that closes at a higher rate than before? Well, my interview with successful author, trainer and sales coach, Allan Langer will tell you the fundamentals of building that winning team and habits you need to be successful.
Here are the main chapters of the interview with Allan Langer regarding sales and the habits you need to be successful:
- 0:00 – Introduction
- 2:33 – Main sales methodology and approach
- 4:17 – Why it is important to solve the customer’s problem first in sales
- 5:36 – How to reframe your sales approach to close
- 6:28 – The most common mistake sales professionals make
- 9:40 – Modern sales approach for COVID-19
- 12:07 – COVID-19 sales difference B2B and B2C
- 14:36 – Always ask WHY in sales
- 16:32 – Advice: If you were speaking to a CMO or sales director on reframing a problem, what advice would you give them?
How to sell in the COVID-19 norm
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A sales process around the customer
Traditionally, when sales programs were created, it was mostly, if not all about the product and it’s features and uses. Very little was directed at understanding and training sales professionals on asking the right questions about the customer during the needs analysis phase. As a result, sales are lost at the moment when irrelevant features are mentioned which don’t address the immediate problem of the customer.
The Harvard Business Review (HBR) released a study back in 2017 regarding the reason why sales professionals lose a lead during the early stages of the sales process. In the study it indicated that “Over 50% of marketing and IT prefer a salesperson who will listen and match a solution to solve their specific needs.” (Source: HBR, 2017)
Stop going right into the sales pitch!
Too often sales reps, especially inexperienced reps go straight into the pitch, talking about the features and regurgitating what they memorized the brochure of the product without properly listening to the customer during the needs assessment process.
A modern sales approach in a COVID-19 world
As the world and businesses transition and adapt to an online setting, the sales approach needs to be adjusted accordingly, namely the listening phase.
Top online sales reps will spend the time during the call to listen and understand the clients needs and really dig deep into understanding their challenges before even offering a solution or feature of their product.
For instance, in the interview with Allan, he talks about this (11:36) in an example of an online demo call. Instead of going through the entire demo process, take the time to listen and ask the prospect what you are trying to solve with your business, then afterwards, show the key features of the product that will help solve that customer’s problem first.
What advice Allan gives to reframing a problem they are trying to solve?
Allan’s answer is – Get better at storytelling – the reason is because it helps to breakdown the problem easier for your customer to understand
A tip around that includes: using analogies to put an image in your customer’s mind to relate your product or service back to your customer.
Reach out to Allan
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The Point of View business Show highlights business professionals in Asia and around the world to get an understanding on what makes them effective, how they do it and advice to help you grow in Leadership, Branding, Marketing and Sales. Follow the journey and connect with me on LinkedIn.