Once you have a product or service to offer to the public and invested countless hours of work, you face the biggest challenge for any business owner โ actually selling your product. As a startup, you may not have a sales team to rely on, which may result in unimpressive sales. However, this does not have to be true.
As a startup, one thing that you should understand about sales is that it is not necessary to push your products on consumers. Rather, you want solve an existing problem. Put simply, you are working to improve a customerโs current condition. If you need help in this area, here are some tips to get you started with sales.
Change Your Thought Process
You need to stop focusing on closing a deal and instead focus on how you can solve a problem in order to close the deal. Prior to listing the features of a product, you should find out from your prospects the type of issues they need resolved. If you are unable to find a problem your product or service will resolve, then you are focusing in the wrong market, or you need to change your sales pitch in order solve a problem that does exist.
No matter what sales pitch you develop, you need to ensure that you connect the product or service you are offering to the customer that you are targeting.
Consistently Add Value
You should never hold the belief that once your customer pays for the product or service, the entire selling process is complete. In too many cases, a sales person will only interact with the customer while conducting the actual sale, and then hand the person to the service team. This is a missed opportunity.
Instead, you should check with your clients on a regular basis to find ways that you can continue to support them. This is especially important for a startup business. You need to listen to the evolving issues your customers are having and be ready to have an answer prior to the problem actually coming up. When you are in contact with these people, you do not always have to be in โsellโ mode. What you want is to keep the communication open. Additionally, this will provide you with the opportunity to see if your solution is meeting their expectations, and if it is not, what you can do to improve the situation.
Show Empathy
Sales people are calling your prospects likely all the time and they can genuinely tell the difference in someone that is just trying to make a sale, and someone who truly wants to offer a solution for their problems. Be a problem solver for these people by listening to the customerโs issues and addressing their specific problems.
Deliver the Right Solution
If you are just trying to make a sale, the customer will know it. Instead, you should focus on offering a solution that the person really needs, based on their unique set of circumstances.
In many cases, a startup business is based on idealism โ you are working to do something faster, better, or more efficiently. You have the desire to offer an innovative product or service. You should take this