How to Shape Sales to Spark Business Growth

Long gone are the days of the “used car sales” approach (with apologies to any colleagues selling cars). Today’s buyer is a different breed.

Thanks to the digital explosion, the sales process is now in the hands of the consumer—no matter what you may think. This new “consumer in charge” phenom begs the question—are you selling in the manner in which your consumer wants to buy?

I’m confused…

I said to myself on more than one occasion while recently upgrading my phone.

I was ready to buy. I knew what I wanted to buy. There was no sales funnel to pass through. It was relatively straightforward…until the sales rep (excuse me, I mean “consultant”) poked around my account.

The simple in-and-out, 15-minute process quickly turned into 2 hours of a crazy roller coaster ride. (Thank goodness I didn’t have a load of laundry waiting for me.)

The sales “consultant” was very pleasant, although I had trouble making a connection with him. His eyes darted left and right. He checked his phone numerous times. (Waiting for a text from his BFF, perhaps?) And, periodically, he engaged in a side conversation with a colleague. He was all over the map. Too much coffee? FOCUS, BUDDY!

His presentation of my account upgrade options was just as chaotic. I could do this…no, wait! Here’s an even better plan. Waaaiiiiiittttt…we have another that gives an even better deal.

WHAT?! Seriously! What ever happened to giving the consumer three simple solutions. Guess that went by way of the 80’s. (Read Are You Losing Sales By Giving Customers Too Many Choices?)

Ask any of my colleagues and they would describe me as someone with a lot of energy who’s capable of rapid thinking. I’m decisiveness…except this particular day. I lost my mojo. The “consultant” downloaded information in a way that didn’t mesh with my internal CPU. We were on two different operating systems. Like iOS and Windows. It was punishing to process. I felt discomboobled!

BOING! It struck me. His selling style was not matching my buying style.

Are you connecting the dots?

Consumers tell us what they want—and how they want to buy. For instance, consumers engaged in purchasing an automobile expressed that, at the most, they want a 2-hour in-showroom buying experience. In actuality, the process is 4 hours.

What would your potential customers say about your buying process? Are you connecting the dots between your sales process and consumers buying behavior?

Over time, we develop “habits” and “patterns” of behaviors that we carry from one experience to another.

Recently, Hubspot asked for feedback on their newly launched support inbox. I used it to initially ask my questions, then reverted to email for further communication. During the call, and with some good probing questions by the facilitator, we uncovered a few key points of importance.

By understanding their consumer’s behavior, Hubspot redesigned the support inbox for greater consumer effectiveness and use. Here are just two of the insights gleaned through the process that changed by use of the inbox:

1. The support inbox was buried in the help section of the platform. This deterred me from “digging” for it. Hence, the reason for responding by email. (They brought it the forefront, making it much prominent.)
2. The “reply” button wasn’t intuitive. Being a long-term gmail user, I’ve grown accustomed to the location of the “reply” button. I’ve carried this “habit” into other programs. Therefore, if the “reply” button is not in my expected location, I look for other locations. If it’s not immediately apparent, however, I click out of the program and use programs that don’t cause me to lose valuable time hunting for what I need. (A “reply” button was added similar to that in gmail.)

Align Your Sales Process With Buying Behaviors

You don’t have to be Hubspot to understand your consumers buying behaviors. All it takes are a few simple steps to adjust your sales process to your clients purchasing patterns to spark business growth.

1. Understand your buyer persona. If you’ve not yet defined your buyer persona(s), don’t go any further. Make sure the sales course you chart meshes with the right buyer. Download a free buyer persona worksheet now.
2. Identify 3-5 current or former clients that match your buyer persona.
3. Schedule 30-minute intellegince seeking appointments with each client.
4. Ask probing questions to understand their buying habit for services and/or products like yours.
5. Hack your sales process to correspond with your clients buying behaviors.

Voila! It’s a match made in heaven that fosters trust, builds credibility, and promotes business growth. You can take that all the way to your shopping cart!

Ready to rock your sales and light a fire under your business growth? Let us coach you to create probing questions, interpret your clients buying habits, and set up your sales process.

Schedule Your Free Consultation with Synnovatia