Tip No. 3: Understand how your customers market services and generate profit.<\/strong>
\nDon’t assume your customers are all alike. You cannot truly help your customers until you understand their business models. Instead of selling the features and benefits of your product, ask questions and listen to discover ways your customer faces their competitive challenges. You will then distinguish yourself as a resource who can help them increase profits through better salesmanship.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nHere’s what I like about that tip – it is hard to get caught in the features\/benefits loop if you are attempting to understand how your prospect’s<\/em> business model makes money.\u00a0 The secondary effect is the fact that you do not appear to be the stereotypical salesperson…not small secondary effect!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I am not fan of features and benefits selling.\u00a0 I don’t even think that approach belongs in a retail sales environment.\u00a0 The better approach is to qualify the prospect for need – What are they looking for?\u00a0 What is it they need to have\/do?\u00a0 What is their time frame?\u00a0 You get the idea. Unfortunately, many features\/benefits salespeople exist in the marketplace and they seem to be everywhere.\u00a0 This approach leads to the negative stereotype salespeople – pushy, talkative, bad listener, etc. Managesmarter.com provides an excellent tip within an article titled Transcend the Negative Stereotypes of Sales: Tip No. 3: Understand how your customers market services and generate profit. Don’t assume… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[184,267,187,142],"class_list":["post-1729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sales-techniques","tag-qualifying","tag-sales-approach","tag-sales-qualifying","tag-sales-technique"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-rT","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":613,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/01\/a-misguided-sales-ad\/","url_meta":{"origin":1729,"position":0},"title":"A Misguided Sales Ad","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"January 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"From a sales ad for an Account Executive role (emphasis mine): This person will play a critical roll in the sales process to help educate and market product offering to prospective customers. No. Please don't do this. Here is what that one sentence implies - features and benefits selling. That\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Employment Ads"","block_context":{"text":"Employment Ads","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/employment-ads\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2447,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2010\/10\/roe-over-roi\/","url_meta":{"origin":1729,"position":1},"title":"ROE Over ROI","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"October 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is a somewhat ethereal concept I have been encountering in this present economy.\u00a0 It starts with this \u2013 return on investment (ROI).\u00a0 ROI has been the backbone of sales since time immortal.\u00a0 This is the basis of sales in that customers pay the money to receive the solution.\u00a0 As\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Economy"","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1754,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/10\/ask-the-tough-questions\/","url_meta":{"origin":1729,"position":2},"title":"Ask The Tough Questions","author":"Lee Fratzke","date":"October 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In talking with sales managers over the past month or so there is one reoccurring statement that I am hearing - their sales cycle has been extended in this economy.\u00a0 It isn't that they are not closing sales, it is just taking a bit longer.\u00a0 Buyers are certainly more deliberate,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sales Management"","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1274,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/11\/information-is-money\/","url_meta":{"origin":1729,"position":3},"title":"Information Is Money","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"November 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"One thing that consistently stands out in sales is the ability to gather information. I'm not talking about personal information like family, home, education and the rest. That information is important for building rapport, but many salespeople (i.e. schmoozers) never move past that level. The national sales team with whom\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sales Management"","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1970,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/03\/the-enormous-forecast\/","url_meta":{"origin":1729,"position":4},"title":"The Enormous Forecast","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"March 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Shrinking revenue reports are the fear of most sales managers.\u00a0 This fear is further intensified during this economy.\u00a0 There are salespeople who are attempting to leverage this fear by submitting an inflated forecast.\u00a0 These salespeople provide forecasts that are filled with large deals that are welded to the 90 days\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sales Management"","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":56110,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2019\/10\/gathering-giving\/","url_meta":{"origin":1729,"position":5},"title":"Gathering > Giving","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"October 2, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"This statement is going to sound blunt, but gathering information is always more important than giving information in a selling process. \u00a0This truth may sound counterintuitive to the stereotypical sales process. \u00a0However, it is crucial to understand this approach. The stereotypical thought is that good talkers make good salespeople. \u00a0I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sales Techniques"","block_context":{"text":"Sales Techniques","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-techniques\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Listening.png?fit=560%2C315&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Listening.png?fit=560%2C315&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Listening.png?fit=560%2C315&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}