Many businesses are grappling with the challenge of selling goods or services to their customers. Here are the top 4 reasons why you may be struggling:
1. Selling the wrong thing
One of the biggest challenges when selling is accurately understanding customer needs. It’s all too easy to define your goods and services and try and flog these to your customers without any research to understand whether they actually need them. The easiest way to up sell to your customers is to help them buy something they really, really need. If you don’t understand their world, their challenges, and their pain points, how can you put together an irresistible solution that your customers really want to buy?
Here’s a tip: Do your research and really listen to your customers to understand what their problem is. Sometimes they think they know what they already want, but there could be something actually better for them that they don’t know about.
2. Not defining the value for the customer
Your customers choose your products over others based on the value they place on it. If your product is valued for factors other than just price and features alone, this gives you a powerful way to attract and keep customers. To establish the value in your product, think about what you are really selling? Are you better priced, offer better service, saving the customer time, or do you stand for something inspirational? Think beyond the functions and ask what benefits your product or service delivers to your customer. The first thing to do is to understand the customer’s needs and tailor the pitch around value you offer, to meet that need.
3. Poor sales skills
In many ways, you can be a glorified order taker when you sell goods and services to your customers. Your challenge is to convince customers that you are the right person to help them really understand what it is they need. For goods or services that are high value, you must not only convince them that you are the right person to help them, but also that they have a deep, urgent and pressing need for them to purchase the goods and services. Without good sales skills, you will struggle to make the sale. Not everyone was born to be great at sales, however, you can radically improve your ability to sell to your customers if you ask the right questions along the way and listen to what the customer is (or isn’t) saying.
4. Selling to the wrong customer
Stating the obvious, but not all your customers will need the goods and services that you sell. Consequently, you need to spend time upfront to analyse which types of customers are correctly positioned to need what you are selling. For example, trying to sell gardening and landscaping services to people living in a suburb where there are predominantly young people who are renting and do not own the property.
To successfully sell goods and services to your customers you need first to be selling them services they want to buy. But equally important, ensure you listen to the heart of the matter and be curious in your conversations when talking to them. The more you let your customers talk, the easier it will be to understand, analyse their needs and provide solutions!
