Having a high-performing sales department requires a lot of planning and a carefully thought-out structure with how to operate. There are multiple different sales techniques businesses use to try and maximise the performance of their business and sales department, but what is the best technique? This article will explore the different sales techniques that businesses use, discussing how your business can choose the technique that will best work for you.
A sales technique is a selling method used by a sales representative or a sales team to try and win as many deals as possible, generating revenue for the business. Sales techniques are usually applied to parts of a sales process to improve efficiency, leading to an increase in the likelihood that deals will be won. There are multiple different sales techniques that different businesses use, and it is unlikely that one sales technique will fit all businesses. With that covered, the rest of this article will explore different popular sales techniques used by businesses.
The SPIN selling technique businesses use is based on a sales team asking the right questions to clients. SPIN is an acronym for asking clients different questions based on their situation, problem, implication, and need payoff (SPIN). By asking your clients these questions, you let the buyer do the talking, keeping them engaged and sparking their interest in your product. As Crunchbase shares, the SPIN selling technique was found to be effective from an analysis of 35,000 sales calls by 10,000 salespeople, in 23 countries for over 12 years.
With this technique, you will be able to identify if your product can help a prospect’s situation, helping you pinpoint key areas of a client’s query to focus on to increase the chances you make a sale.
The challenger sale technique is based on research by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson, who are co-authors of the book “The Challenger Sale”. This book explained research where B2B salespeople were split into 5 personas, which were relationship builders, hard workers, lone wolves, reactive problem solvers and challengers. After an in-depth assessment, it was found that the challenger sales persona was by far the most successful.
This sales technique steers away from the idea that it is good to build a relationship with customers and instead believes sales representatives should teach, tailor, and take control of their clients.
This technique is effective, with your business taking a firm stance on the value and quality of its product or service to offer a mutually beneficial deal to clients. As highlighted by Soco, 40% of high sales performers primarily use the challenger-style sales technique.
The SNAP selling technique focuses on understanding your prospect’s thoughts and priorities to gain their trust when winning a deal. The SNAP acronym stands for simple, invaluable, align and priorities. This shows how this technique aims to provide information on a product that aligns with their needs and priorities. To effectively use this technique, a sales department must focus on informing customers about how their product or service helps the client’s needs. Some tips to use the SNAP technique effectively are:
Unlike the other techniques, the Sandler sales technique is based on the idea that a prospect will have to convince the seller that they are eligible for the product or service being sold to them. With this technique, the seller will be asking questions to determine whether potential buyers’ needs suit the product. If it is found that the client is not eligible, the seller will quickly inform them to not waste any further time. For the Sandler technique to be successful, these tips must be followed:
All of these different sales techniques are based on the idea of getting to understand your customer well by starting a dialogue with them, and CRM software makes this a streamlined process. CRM software allows businesses to get better data visibility, with Webinar Care sharing a statistic that 74% of businesses found that CRM software gave them improved access to their customer data. This section will look at how this increased data visibility can help a business improve and streamline its sales technique.
Sales automation CRM software is able to record and store customer information in an accessible way for staff. This will help sales representatives get a better understanding of their customers before and during their interactions. These streamlines areas for each of the sales techniques, making sales teams work more efficiently.
Through increased data visibility, the leadership of a business is able to make data-driven decisions. Gaining insightful information on the performance of the sales funnel, for example, where deals are being lost, can be viewed by leadership. As a result, businesses can make low-risk data-driven decisions regarding what areas of the business to invest in to get the highest sales performance. Moreover, leadership can view the performance of staff, viewing how many deals are being won and lost by individual sales representatives, and where in the sales process this is happening. This will give your business useful insights into any adjustments that may need to be made to your sales technique and structure, to get your sales department operating at its full potential.
TEB is a sales automated CRM software that will completely transform your sales process, regardless of the sales techniques employed at your business. TEB streamlines the entire sales funnel, greatly increasing the productivity and efficiency of your entire sales process. Furthermore, TEB enables your business to make low-risk data-driven decisions to get ahead in your industry. TEB achieves this through multiple unique features such as:
To learn more about TEB, and see first-hand all the features that can enhance your sales funnel, get in touch with us to request a call.
