It doesn’t matter if you sell in person or online, making a sale all boils down to a single basic process. Convincing the person you are selling to that their life will somehow be improved if they buy your product or service.
Considering the above, it makes sense then that the same set of core principles of how to sell will always apply, no matter what you sell or who you sell to.
Below are 4 key principles on how to sell anything to anyone, written in a digestible format and in enough detail for you to easily apply them to your business model.
1. Know your target audience
Selling requires you to know what motivates people, and if your goal is to sell to anyone, don’t try to sell to everyone. Rather focus on an audience that’s specific to your product or service.
Before you connect with any potential customers, list all the features and benefits of your product or service. Be specific and describe exactly how each feature will help make someone’s life easier. Then identify the type of people who you think would have that need.
For example, if you sell expensive bicycles, your product offers a way for people to stay fit, healthy and socialise. So the people who are interested in getting fit through cycling would be your target market. These people are most likely male professionals in their 30’s and 40’s who sit in an office all day. They want lightweight, sturdy bicycles made of quality materials to exercise. So they are willing to pay a premium.
Now that you have a general idea of who your target audience is, the next step is to create a buyer persona. Buyer personas help you to get really clear and specific about your target audience by narrowing it down to measurable, factual descriptors that sort people into groups.
For example:
- Age
- Gender
- Ethnicity
- Marital and family status
- Occupation
- Income level
Use these demographics to describe your target audience in as much detail as possible. The more specific you can get, the better.
Next, identify the psychographic features of your audience. These features are mental and emotional characteristics. They consist of values, lifestyle choices, personal interests and attitudes. Knowing these characteristics will help to improve your understanding of the buyer.
For each characteristic identified, consider the selling points of your product or service to match it. Once this has been done, put all the information together to form a buyer persona. Then keep your buyer persona in mind when crafting marketing messages that speak to your target audience. Doing this will increase the likelihood of them resonating with your message and responding.
Finally, have a look at your existing customers. If you’re already selling to people, ask yourself what your current customers have in common. Look at which products and services are the most popular and take note of when they sell. Explore your online analytics to get answers to these questions and to get a better general understanding of who your current customers are and what they like.
2. Do research
People only buy something if they believe that they want or need it. So if you want to be able to sell to any audience, you first need to learn what that audience values and then adjust your messaging to match.
How do you do this? By doing consumer research using tools such as social media analytics, for example. These platforms are so useful because they collect insightful data on your visitors like age and location, and can help you to find information about who’s interested in your products and services.
They also enable you to learn about how people interact with your social posts. You can see whether they click on them or not and what they do before they buy.
If you have a B2B business, selling to people will be a bit different because it will involve understanding their professional motivations and needs. As you go about this, you will need to focus on two things, the decision maker’s professional objectives and the business’s financial and operational goals.
Before you engage in a sales conversation with a B2B buyer, it’s best to do some research beforehand to find out how the potential client will contribute to those goals and how your product or service can help them.
You can go online to look for:
- Trade publications where people in your industry discuss marketing
- Other businesses that sell to your target market and how they do it
- Reviews of your competitors’ products and services
3. Connect with your potential customers on a personal level
When it comes down to it, every sale is about one person being able to meet a need for another. And knowing how to sell means learning to understand what that need is.
People also typically don’t like being sold to, they prefer to connect. So start by connecting on a personal level, especially at first. If you jump right in and start talking about your product or service, they may feel pressured. So ask questions that allow you to get to know the person a little bit better. This will help to ease the tension and create some level of trust.
People’s answers will tell you a lot with regards to what they care about and will give you an indication as to how they think. When you move on to what you are selling, you can use those answers to direct the conversation and emphasize your product or services’ specific selling points that are relevant to them.
You can do the same for your marketing messages. Start on a personal note and then transition into the sale.
Use social media to build connections. It’s great for having real, two-way conversations because people can leave comments on your posts and message you whenever they have something to say. You can also encourage conversations by sharing a link to your latest blog featuring a headline like “Looking for a better return on your marketing investment?” or “5 ways to get your kids to eat vegetables”. Posts like these tell potential clients and customers that you care about their lives and that you can help them to solve a particular problem.
4. Ask them lots of questions
When you have a one on one meeting with your potential client or customer, focus the discussion on finding out what it is they need. And learn as much as you can about the problem you intend to solve. The more you learn, the more you can adjust your sales conversation to suit their needs. You can do this by asking lots of open-ended questions, designed to elicit more than a simple yes or no answer. These offer valuable information and build the relationship. Just don’t overdo it because you don’t want the conversation to come across as an interrogation.
And remember, the best questions spark a conversation between you and your potential client or customer, instead of just generating thoughts on their end.
