Develop extensive product knowledge
Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2024 6:47 am
You can't sell a product or service effectively if you don't know it inside and out. Understanding everything there is to understand about your offering informs other key elements of your sales efforts.
You can't anticipate or handle objections if you don't know the issues that potential customers consistently raise about the functionality of your product or service. You can't structure an effective value proposition if you don't know what kind of value your product or service can deliver. You can't differentiate yourself from your competitors if you don't know the features your offering has that theirs don't.
Take the time to thoroughly study your product or service. Know what makes it an exceptional choice and where it might fall behind its competitors. Know who benefits most from it. Know what software managers email lists it costs and why it costs so much. Know every last feature, bell and whistle.
Know all that and more. If you can develop extensive product knowledge, you'll be in a better position to craft thoughtful, personalized value propositions that prospects will be receptive to. That, in itself, is the key to effective sales efforts.
Being a compelling storyteller
Communication with prospects needs to be engaging to be effective. You want your buyer to have a vested interest in the sale, and using compelling storytelling to shape your pitches, presentations, and other correspondence with them helps in that case.
Get to know some relevant case studies from start to finish, and leverage those stories to help your prospect imagine how they would use your product or service. Be sure to cover elements like character, context, conflict, and a final resolution.
Let’s say you represent an edtech startup that sells a platform to automate curriculum and assignment management in the classroom. Right now, you’re pitching to a mid-sized community college that relies on outdated legacy software to handle those processes. In that case, you won’t just want to promote the bells and whistles of your platform or throw numbers at your prospect.
You might tell a story like: “Earlier this year, we sold our solution to Drollinger College, a community college of their size in Colorado that had similar technology. I stay in touch with the administrator, Emma, and the IT director, Shawna. They were initially reluctant to leave their legacy system because they thought the transition and growing pains of implementing a cloud-based curriculum planning solution might not be worth the effort.
You can't anticipate or handle objections if you don't know the issues that potential customers consistently raise about the functionality of your product or service. You can't structure an effective value proposition if you don't know what kind of value your product or service can deliver. You can't differentiate yourself from your competitors if you don't know the features your offering has that theirs don't.
Take the time to thoroughly study your product or service. Know what makes it an exceptional choice and where it might fall behind its competitors. Know who benefits most from it. Know what software managers email lists it costs and why it costs so much. Know every last feature, bell and whistle.
Know all that and more. If you can develop extensive product knowledge, you'll be in a better position to craft thoughtful, personalized value propositions that prospects will be receptive to. That, in itself, is the key to effective sales efforts.
Being a compelling storyteller
Communication with prospects needs to be engaging to be effective. You want your buyer to have a vested interest in the sale, and using compelling storytelling to shape your pitches, presentations, and other correspondence with them helps in that case.
Get to know some relevant case studies from start to finish, and leverage those stories to help your prospect imagine how they would use your product or service. Be sure to cover elements like character, context, conflict, and a final resolution.
Let’s say you represent an edtech startup that sells a platform to automate curriculum and assignment management in the classroom. Right now, you’re pitching to a mid-sized community college that relies on outdated legacy software to handle those processes. In that case, you won’t just want to promote the bells and whistles of your platform or throw numbers at your prospect.
You might tell a story like: “Earlier this year, we sold our solution to Drollinger College, a community college of their size in Colorado that had similar technology. I stay in touch with the administrator, Emma, and the IT director, Shawna. They were initially reluctant to leave their legacy system because they thought the transition and growing pains of implementing a cloud-based curriculum planning solution might not be worth the effort.