Winning a buyer’s heart is no easy feat. In today’s age, competition is fierce and mistrust abounds. As with most modern relationships, achieving lasting customer love requires both time and effort from sellers. Use the tips below to ensure that your buyers are feeling the love right from the start.
Bring Value to the Table
Would you ever show up to a dinner date without your wallet? Unlikely (unless you forgot it — we’ve all been there). Similarly, as a seller, you should always bring value to the table, especially since 74% of buyers choose the sales rep who was first to add value and insight.
In order to come prepared with insightful content, sellers must be able to find relevant assets. After all, you wouldn’t show your date photos of your dog if he or she is a cat lover, but if they’re all you have in a pinch, who knows what you might resort to doing in a nervous moment?
Modern sellers can avoid this type of awkward interaction by using sales enablement technology to manage all content in a single repository, making it easy to locate the perfect asset for every scenario. For example, before implementing Highspot as their sales enablement solution, Dun & Bradstreet had over 6,000 sales assets stored across 12 different locations, and reps were struggling to find assets that truly spoke to their buyers’ needs.
With Highspot’s approach to content management, Dun & Bradstreet was able to simplify, update, and organize their assets, enabling reps to find what they needed when they needed it. According to Marketing Manager Michelle Cox, “Less is more. Having 6,000 assets isn’t doing anybody any good. Really having content that sellers are using and engaging with — that was useful.”
Get to Know Buyers with Detailed Analytics
Small talk is great, but two people can only chat about the weather and baseball for so long before losing interest. Meaningful relationships dive beneath the surface to reach a deeper understanding of the other person, and buyer-seller relationships are no exception.
Customers come with preferred communication styles, a history of various vendors, and from diverse backgrounds. How can sellers get a pulse on what is resonating, how to follow up, and when to give their buyer space? The answer is analytics.
Payscale Customer Success Manager Bailey Woods understands the value of analytics. Payscale pulled data-based insights from their sales enablement platform to make more strategic decisions about how and when to use content. Bailey explained, “I’ve utilized Highspot as both a sales rep and a customer success manager and find it an invaluable way to track engagement for new business prospects and current clients. The most valuable function to me is the ability to see what content is successful with our customers, in real time. Not only can I easily locate collateral to share — but I can also easily track whether or not that collateral is valuable to my clients.”
Mix Up Your Outreach
While not everybody loves surprises, most people enjoy novelty. Rather than bombarding buyers with endless emails, consider fresh ways to connect. Possible opportunities to engage your prospects include:
- Industry events
- In-person meetings
- Targeted ad campaigns
- Comments on social media
- Brief emails sharing relevant third-party material
The above image from Exentrics spotlights how to stay top-of-mind with buyers by engaging them in creative, relevant ways throughout their journey. Incorporate multiple techniques into your approach for maximum impact, and be mindful of matching each technique to the right stage of the buyer’s journey (flowers on the first meeting, anyone?)
Healthy Perspective, Healthy Relationship
“Relationships are easy” — said no one ever. They involve risk and potential disappointment, but also great reward for those brave enough to take a leap of faith. Remember, behind every sale is a customer who put their job and reputation on the line to support your product. Approaching buyer interactions with this mindset reframes the purpose of sales. Your job isn’t just to sell a product, but to help a buyer buy, succeed, and live happily ever after.
Ethan Zoubek, Chief Revenue Officer at Campaign Monitor, summarizes this nicely in stating, “As stewards of our company, our industry, and our profession, it is our responsibility to help our customers through this process — independent of whether or not the end result is a sale or order that benefits us. That’s what professional salespeople do.”
With this in mind, evaluate how your engagement strategy truly serves your customers. Effective sales engagement results in prospects turning into champions, and business interactions transforming into trusting, long-lasting relationships.
All worthwhile things in life take time and energy — great customer relationships included. Incorporate the above elements into your strategy and read our guide on Winning Over the Modern Buyer, and you’ll be on your way to new levels of sales success and genuine customer love.
