Transactional selling, or product-focused selling, puts the product at the center of the sales process. When using this method, sales reps will push a product’s features and benefits with little to no concern for how these align with or can help address, the customer’s needs.
Have a profound understanding of your customer. Have an intense account relationship management with your top 20% existing/potential customers. Think if you can customize any product/service you offer to your top 20% of customers?. If you have lost your ability to offer something special to your customers, you will be just another vendor.
Perception is all there is. There is no reality, only perceived reality. We assume people are listening to us; but maybe customers are tired, they are sick of being marketed to. There’s too much competition. They are bombarded by information and as a result they are closing their eyes and ears. Playing safe is extremely risky. You will need to constantly adapt the way in which you deliver to the changing needs of your top customers.
Great sales engineers focus on the customer’s needs and experiences rather than on a product or service. Needs-based selling makes individual customers’ specific interests the focal point of the sales process. Needs-based selling often helps salespeople establish productive, long-term relationships with customers.
Consultative selling is a type of need-based selling established on the development of personal relationships and open dialogue between buyers and sellers. Another positive aspect of consultative selling is that it lends itself to “value-added selling.” Sales reps that approach prospects with a consultative selling mindset will naturally know more about what the customer is looking for; therefore, the customer will never be indifferent to them.