How do you sell successfully in a marketplace where no sales professional has been before? I don’t have to tell you we are living in unprecedented times, and as sales professionals we are trying to find our way through unchartered waters.
To succeed, to sell effectively we need a new plan, a new strategy and a new sales playbook. One of the biggest mistakes many of us are making is we are using the same sales strategies, the same approach to client engagement that we used pre-COVID. We are making sales so much harder than it has to be.
Everything about our marketplace has changed – the economy, healthcare, our customers, our competition and the list goes on. Never in our lifetime have we had this level of disruption. So, in a marketplace that has changed this much, wouldn’t it make sense that we need a new strategy and a new sales playbook?
For anyone in sales, it begs the questions, how do we sell in times like these ? Where should our focus be? How do we engage customers? Contact our prospects? And what does it take now to close a deal? How does our sales playbook need to transform?
Now we all know the fundamentals of a good sales playbook. We need strong buyer personas, we need a detailed outline of our sales process, layout negotiation strategies, our demos etc. But for selling in a crisis, you need to go deeper than the traditional sales playbook, and you need to challenge your sales acumen even more.
5 Strategies To include Into Your NEW Sales Playbook
- View This As Opportunity – If you want to find sales success in an uncertain marketplace you need to begin with your mindset. If you don’t believe there is opportunity in the market, if you don’t believe your customers should be investing in you and spending money, then your customers are never going to believe it either.
Understand that down through history, no matter the challenges in the marketplace, there have always been organizations and sales professionals who have succeeded. However big the obstacle or insurmountable it may seem, there are always products people need, services they will buy and money they will spend.
You need to condition your sales mindset to believe there is opportunity in the marketplace.
- Get Visible – When uncertainty hits people, your customers start to look for answers, resources and people they can turn to get them through these challenges. You may be that sales professionals, but customers and prospects are never going to find you unless you get visible. Find a way to get above the white noise, stand out from the competition and be the one that pops up every time someone googles.
Sales in a challenging environment takes more that just sales it takes a strong blend of sales and marketing working together to position you as the expert in the space.
It is time to start writing blogs, publishing articles and get very comfortable being on video. Increase your image on LinkedIn, start a YouTube channel, and keep a log of questions or issues your customers are having. That log will serve as the perfect resource to use to make videos or write articles. Chances are if one customer had that challenge, so do all of your prospects.
Get visible and own your space.
- Secure Your Base – and speaking of existing customers your playbook needs to address what you are doing to hold on to yours. In challenging times, it can be so tempting to go out and chase new business – grab any busines you can. But in a challenging environment growth happens from the inside out. You need to secure your base before you move on to new customers.
Engage with your existing customers, ask them questions, and listen. When you do this, two things will result – one they will increase their loyalty to you at a time when you really need them. And two, they will share their deepest fears, their biggest opportunities, and the language you need to address them both. It’s the gift you get just for asking the questions.
- Redefine Your Value – then using what you are learning from securing your base you can redefine your value in the marketplace. The products and services you sell need to be more relevant in challenging times. They need to solve the new problems and new challenges that your customers are having.
By securing your base you discovered what your customers need, now address that need by updating your value proposition to exceed expectations.
- Predict The Future – and last but not least, stop waiting for change to happen and predict your sales future by creating it. A big part of your sales playbook needs to be focused on being one step ahead of the changes happening in the marketplace. Work into your sales playbook time to think about trends, changes happening and what you can do as a sales professional to meet your customers needs before they realize they even have them.
Selling in today’s marketplace may be challenging, but it’s one of the most exciting times to be in sales. Our customers need the solutions and ideas we can bring to the table. It’s time to update your playbook and update your sales strategy to ensure you emerge successful.