An important concept for MSP salespeople and business owners to grasp and understand is that the majority of the sales process should be focused on the prospect.
Once in a while, you can slip into making the process about you and your own company. For example, if you are explaining how great your services are to the prospect, how you can fix or manage technology better than competitors, or explaining how proactive you are, you are making the process about you!
Remember: You’re not selling to prospects (nobody likes being sold to); you’re helping them decide. Foundationally, people buy for their reasons, not for your reasons. Instead of pushing your logic on prospects, find out what makes sense to them.
Listen and understand them
How can you make the sales process about the prospect without valuable information? This is where asking the right questions and taking note of their answers will help you in the long run.
Here are some questions that will be beneficial to find the answers to:
- What assumptions are they making?
- What’s their risk?
- How do they view value in the relationship?
- What outcomes are they expecting?
- Do you understand their business?
- What is their buying criteria?
- How do they justify cost?
Have discussions with your prospects to determine the outcomes they’re expecting and see if they understand the potential cost to their business if they choose to do nothing. When you ask enough questions, you get both sides of the equation.
Put yourself in their shoes
Another tactic is to put yourself in the shoes of your prospect. If you were sitting in their chair, how would the conversation you are having sound? This change in perspective can help you understand their decision making and what they find important in their business.
Ask questions to understand how your prospects think and what matters to them most.
- What if they knew what you knew?
- Would they choose you?
- Why would they?
- Why wouldn’t they?
It’s okay to push back if something they say is contrary to what you know to be true. Instead of selling them, educate them. Believe it or not this actually separates you from other salespeople and provides an immense amount of value.
Salespeople, business owners, and even vCIOs can benefit from this concept. When you begin making the sales process about the prospect, you will feel your conversations and interactions begin to change for the better.
