Selling a product quickly so that the customer is satisfied at the same time is a whole art. There is a whole set of different techniques and b2b marketing tools that allow you to make successful transactions with minimum costs. However, if you are on the way to a successful b2b lead generation company there is no one true rule. In some cases, a certain sales technique justifies itself one hundred percent, in others it fails miserably. Why is this happening?
The answer lies on the surface: with different goods, with different customers (in this article we will reveal what is cold lead, as well as warm and hot ones), what the company is focused on, what prices it can offer, depends on which method is better to choose. The manager (or b2b lead generation specialist) must have a subtle sense of what kind of sales technique is appropriate in a particular situation. But to do this, he must own the entire set of tools to quickly navigate the situation and choose the right tactics. Do not be afraid to combine several techniques into one or use additional persuasion tools when creating a business leads list.
General rules for all techniques
People like it when they are treated with respect, do not fawn, do not try to sell goods at any price, and do not impose their opinion. They want to get answers to all the questions and at the same time be sure that they have made the decision themselves. Here are the five main rules for all sales techniques:
Respectfully and attentively treat the client. Do not get distracted during the conversation, choose a calm and friendly tone.
- Study all the information about the product or products so that you can answer any question.
- Offer something unique — discounts, bonuses, promotions, but not immediately, but at the final stage of the conversation.
- Justify the price of the product. If it is too cheap, it does not mean that it is of poor quality. If it is too expensive — give arguments why it is better to pay more.
- Don’t push. Allow the client to decide for himself. Your task is to push him to this step, but he must do it on his own.
To raise the grade of the potential clients’ involvement you can always use the b2b lead generation services like Belkins or special lead generator programs but at the very beginning let’s find out what’s the main difference between the three main types of clients and how to deal with them.
Cold customers
Do you know what sellers especially dislike? Call, constantly check email deliverability to be sure that all the letters reached the final address, go to meetings, and make reports. And what do they like? Work in the office, drink coffee all day and at the same time close sales. A paradox. An important place in this list is occupied by cold calls on the database. Here are the most frequent “excuses”:
- I didn’t have time, because there were more serious matters with current orders.
- Why waste time on calls, knowing in advance that they will refuse? Useless occupation.
- Everyone asks to send commercial offers and sends them to spam without reading them.
From a business point of view, a cold base is a good opportunity for development, limited only by the number of customers in a niche market. Its potential provides for direct active prospecting and sales. And attracting customers looks something like this: finding them, initiating communications, identifying needs, after-sales service.
The salesman’s working tools are telephone, Internet access and approximate segmentation of the customer base by factors of an expanded assessment of the consumer audience using a general distribution methodology. To reduce costs, the business began to modify the functionality. He creates call centers for cold calling and attracting leads, introduces the position of a manager for finding new customers, invites development specialists to retain and serve customers.
Warm sales
Consider what a warm customer base means. These are buyers with a ready-made list of needs or those who are just forming their needs. In other words, there is a demand, and you only need to choose how to satisfy it. Corporate trade, retail and the service sector are built on the elaboration of a heated target audience. Here active sales are equivalent to passive ones, and sellers have a chance to choose tactics:
- promote and implement new products among consumers from the existing database;
- to help the client with consultations, providing information and the optimal choice of goods, where the purchase is initiated by the consumer himself.
In this case, the transaction period is determined by two conditions: the speed of the buyer’s decision and the efficiency of the seller’s actions.
The key stages of sales, where a warm customer base is used, are presentation and working out objections. At these touch points, the salesperson has a chance to influence the interlocutor using the characteristics and advantages of the goods.
Hot customers
Leads at this stage are a gift to the manager. This confirms the importance of marketing not only as a classical theory of sales but also as an organized set of instructions. The scenario of a conversation with a heated consumer provides the seller:
- excellent conditions for the transaction;
- the minimum cost of advertising, after which a warm sale turns into a contract;
- creating partnerships between the parties and a mutual desire to strengthen them.
So, demand meets supply, the client has made a mature decision and chose in favor of the seller. Hot cases are popular in retail sales of goods and services to ordinary consumers. There are a lot fewer of them in the B2B sphere, where they are considered cross-selling. And with a large number of similar transactions or frequent purchases, these cases are not isolated into a separate type of sales and qualify as support for previously purchased goods.
It is important to understand that there are different rules in working with hot, warm and cold clients. Hot ones need to be served quickly and brought to the final point, i.e. cash immediately, warm ones need to be touched correctly and regularly and you have to stir up interest, among the cold ones – your task is to identify those who are ready for dialogue. Accordingly, at this moment it is necessary to create criteria by which you will clearly understand which category of client you are currently communicating with and then work with the client on one of the three main options.
