What’s the quick one-word answer you come up with to that question? Many of you named your product or service, others may have said quality, my expertise or me. I believe what every prospect buys is confidence. Both yours and theirs.
If prospects don’t have confidence in you, your products, or your service, they won’t have the confidence to write you a check or a purchase order. They need to have a ‘peer to peer’ relationship with you - one where they believe that you are more than a vendor or solution provider and more of a consultant, advisor, and partner.
We all sell good products and services, but buyers may see one product as much the same as its competitor. You have to differentiate yourself if you want to avoid the decision coming down to price. You need to find a better way to instill confidence in the buyer that the choice to buy your product or service is the best decision. How do you do that now?
Buyers need to trust you. You need the ability to communicate clearly and to craft compelling questions that allow the prospect to expand and give you better insight into his/her situation. This will grow the relationship and help you define what it will take to do business. Buyers need to see you as credible.
How do you gain credibility with prospects? Make the conversation about them – their issues, their needs, their world. What are the problems they have that you could solve? How long have they been experiencing these issues? How motivated are they to fix them? How much is it costing them?
The level of understanding of the client’s issues and helping them discover the importance of those issues is paramount to developing confidence in the buyer-seller relationship. Focus on the things that will create confidence. It’s got to be less about features and benefits and more about how you develop client’s needs and your mutual understanding of each other’s ability to work together to get the right solution.