The way customers make purchasing decisions today has completely transformed.

Now, they have shorter attention spans, are more resistant to traditional sales pitches and tactics, and prefer to research the right products and services themselves.

This continuous adaption in consumer shift calls for the sales teams to focus on well, continuous adaption.

There are some timeless strategies sales reps implement to convince a prospect. And, then there are modern sales techniques — giving you an absolute edge in this ever-evolving customer journey.

With the blend of both, you complement to create a winning sales plan.

This article brings an all-inclusive list of 15 strategies to make better sales experiences, close more deals, and attain a stronger bottom line. But before that let’s understand the concept of sales technique.

What is a sales technique?

A sales technique is a strategy or method used to persuade a prospect to purchase a product or service.

These techniques consist of skill, knowledge, and soft skills.

Sales reps or sales teams use certain defined ways to close deals effectively. It focuses on understanding various tactics to understand the customers, overcoming objections, and building relationships.

Communication & Persuasion Sales Techniques

Using Words that Motivate Action

Being specific in your sales pitch using actionable statements can help you propel your sales pipeline moving in the right direction, faster. 

For example, instead of saying “I understand price is a concern. We can offer a discount” come up with something like “To ensure the solution fits your budget, we can tailor a payment plan that spreads the cost over a flexible 6-month term. This way you can leverage the benefits immediately without a large upfront investment.”   

It’s a powerful sales technique as it can directly influence the purchaser’s decision-making process.

Sales Insight: Instead of asking vague questions, ask personalized and specific answers that include clear next steps for the prospect. This reduces decision fatigue and enhances the chances of closing that sale. Create strategies of urgency and scarcity like limited-time offers and highlight the exclusivity of your product.

The Power of Storytelling

Storytelling serves a specific purpose in sales — to make that emotional connection with the client. With today’s consumers’ short attention span, creating stories in your pitch or about your product can fuel your sales journey.

In sales, this technique is about sharing a concept, an experience, or an idea that resonates with the products or services you offer. 

A well-crafted story captures prospects' attention and connects them emotionally, removing the barrier of facts and figures and complex technicalities and communicating value.

Sales Insight: One way to compel an engaging story is to make the customer a “hero”. Instead of making your product the protagonist, frame the narrative of how your offerings let the customers overcome obstacles, and achieve goals. Also, incorporate a brand story into your sales pitch, this connects to a much higher level with the customers and results in better product perception and sales.

Understanding the Pain Point

When a customer is concerned about pricing, you can’t be addressing anything that doesn’t align directly or indirectly with that specific problem.

By having an overview of a prospect’s problem, the focus shifts from merely selling a product or service to offering a solution to their challenges.

Instead of making a standard approach to selling a product, now’s the moment to figure out and address the inconvenience they are facing. Then, you personalize your proposal and advance further.

It builds trust in their eyes before you bring the promotional part to seal the deal.

Sales Insight: Asking open-ended questions, being an active listener, and showing genuine interest will enable you to know what’s stopping them from making a purchase and win the prospect’s trust and credibility, allowing you to set the stage for a meaningful and successful engagement.

Sales Process Optimization

Organized Lead Management

From lead generation to sales conversion, a structured lead management system lets you (and your team) effectively manage the prospect data and create a predictable sales pipeline for streamlining the conversion process.

A proper lead management tool:

• Assuring you have quality leads flowing in the sales pipeline

• Centralizes all the leads data in one place

• Provides valuable insights by tracking key metrics. Like the number of deals won, total touchpoints, etc.

• Eliminates monotonous tasks as the business scales

  
  

Sales Insight: Investing in robust lead management software can streamline the sales conversion process. Additionally, constantly review your current lead management process and optimize it as per your business goals and objectives.

Sales Automation

Who doesn’t love speed in their work?

In sales, there are certain sales processes executed with a manual outlook, causing more time and lesser efficiency.

Sales automation is the process of accelerating and optimizing the sales process using software and technology.

In this modern competitive business world, manually entering prospect data, making important notes, reminders, etc in a sales interaction can be time-consuming, and with an increasing volume of leads, the efficiency of sales reps can take a downhill.

Hence, sales automation is a robust and advanced technology that’s efficient, scalable, saves time, and manages the complete sales cycle of both leads and customers.

Sales Insight: Using software like a CRM lets you identify the bottlenecks in your pipeline. By implementing its automation tools and workflows you can identify the repetitive tasks and integrate automation seamlessly with your current systems and processes.

Sales Enablement

When your sales team knows the right paths to take, they are more likely to avoid any unnecessary routes and are bound to reach the destination smoother and faster.

Sales enablement does the same by including tools, techniques, and resources for the sales teams. 

Sales Insight: The first thing you can do is analyze current sales performance and find areas of improvement. Further, identify knowledge gaps and what your sales teams need to be more effective. Lastly, leverage the right tools to close deals.

Customer Engagement and Experience

Offer Enriching Customer Experience

How often have you heard the phrase “The customer is always right”? This is not just a quote but a tenet in the sales industry.  

As a sales rep, creating bonds with customers is the foundation of success.

There may be times when customers may have a wrong opinion or come up with a clear denial. Instead of correcting them, you need to figure out ways to agree with them.

A positive customer experience can increase the likelihood of customers making a purchase or taking other desired actions.

Sales Insight: To create and maintain strong customer relationships, you need to know their preferences, and past interactions at every touchpoint, and ensure you have a positive answer for their every query.

Like, if a prospect says “Your product will help me with managing tasks but it won’t make a difference to my business” you can counter such a situation by saying something like “You’re absolutely right, just managing tasks is not enough. Hence, our task management software makes your employees more productive. Here’s how”.

Social Proof

Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people decide their purchase if they see others have done it before. It’s a popular and well-regarded strategy often used by sales and marketing.

To build stronger trust with your prospects and clients, leverage testimonials from satisfied customers. 

When prospects view your website, company profile, or portfolio, they get a positive impression seeing genuine feedback from different customers. 

95 percent of customers say that reviews influence purchasing decisions, both positive and negative.

Highlighting the positive “earned media” can provide more trust and make your sales pitch easier and less objections.

Sales Insight: If you have an existing customer base, ask directly to them directly after a positive interaction. You can also make it easy for them by providing customized templates to fill out.

Social Selling

As a sales team, it’s obvious to focus on a channel with more than 5 billion active users. Selling on social media demands more attention now than ever. 

Social selling is a strategic approach for businesses and sellers to connect with their prospects and build relationships via social media to empower purchasing decisions.

Making your team reach out through social networks facilitates targeted outreach and prospect engagement.

While you don’t really need to be directly involved in the social media marketing process, consider coordinating with the marketing team to make the process smoother.

Sales Insight: Optimize your social media platforms and leverage the benefits of testimonials. Create content to build reliability and smoothly lead them through the buying process.

Sales Methodologies

RAIN Selling

RAIN selling is a sales methodology or technique that focuses on rapport, aspirations & afflictions, impact, and new reality.

Rapport - It is all about building trust by showing interest, empathy, and active listening. Create comfort for prospects so they can share better and you can provide specific assistance.

Aspirations & Afflictions - The next step is understanding your target audience in detail, like goals, desires, and challenges, and pinpointing the exact issues they are currently facing.

Impact - Highlighting the potential hazards of not addressing the pain points can bring perspective to a prospect’s mind towards a solution where you can show your product or service can solve problems and deliver results.

New Reality - People love to envision positive outcomes. This part of the RAIN sales technique focuses on the same by communicating tailored solutions and pictures of the future success customers can achieve.

SPIN Selling

SPIN selling is a question-based sales technique that emphasizes the right questions to uncover a customer’s needs and pain points. It stands for situation, problem, implication, and need-payoff.

Situation - Understanding the current situation of customers. Try asking questions like “What’s your experience with current [product or service]?” and “What’s the biggest challenge you are facing in [niche or industry]?”

Problem - Aim to understand the exact problem your customers are facing. Ask questions like “What’s the biggest problem/obstacle you face while doing [a certain task]?” or “How is this [problem] impacting your [life or business]?”

Implication - Make the prospect think about the consequences when they don’t solve the problem. Do this by asking "If you don't address this issue, how might it affect your [business goal]?"

"What are the potential costs or risks associated with [problem]?"

"How does this problem impact your team's morale or productivity?"

Need-Payoff - It’s an important aspect of the SPIN sales technique as now you’ve made the prospect realize the problem, the only step left is using questions to increase the customer’s motivation to purchase.

Like "How much time or money could you save with [solution]?"

How would [solution] improve your team's efficiency or productivity?"

"How would [solution] give you a competitive edge in your market?"

SNAP Selling

SNAP selling is a sales technique or methodology that stands for simple, iNvaluable, always align, and raise priorities. This technique emphasizes the importance of building trust, providing value, and understanding your customers' perspectives.

Simple - This means you have to keep your message clear, concise, and easy to understand.

Today’s consumers are bombarded with information and don’t have time for complex sales pitches as their attention span is short.

Hence, aim for impactful statements and avoid unnecessary jargon or technical terms.

iNvaluable - Demonstrating the value of your products and services to your customers is key as buyers today are skeptical and focus on being “invaluable” rather than showing quantifiable benefits.

Use data, case studies, and testimonials to back your sales pitch.

Always Align - Your offerings and customer’s goals must be on the same page. Generic sales pitches don’t work anymore as customer preferences, choices, and decision-making are evolving.

Take the time to understand the needs and tailor the pitch according to them.

Raise Priorities - At times even the customers don’t know the exact problem. This is highly seen with busy buyers who have limited resources. Prioritizing their need that resonates with your product becomes very important. 

Help your customers identify their most urgent problems and demonstrate how your product or service can address them.

Baseline Selling

In baseball, the goal is to reach home plate, but you need to go through the bases first.

Similarly in sales, the goal is to close the deal by passing three bases (appointment, prospect, and qualified opportunity) to reach the home plate (closed deal). This sales technique is founded by well-known sales expert Dave Kurlan.

Appointment - This is the first base of this methodology that involves starting the sales process with a prospect or potential customer by securing a meeting.

Prospect - The second base or prospecting is done when you’ve met the customer, you now need to qualify them as a good fit.

Qualified Opportunity - In third base, you’re in a scoring position. When the customer is a good fit, they become a qualified opportunity.

Closed Deal - This final stage is like hitting the home run. Secure the sale and make the customer purchase your product.

Advanced Sales Techniques

Overcoming Major Objections

Sales is not about calling, meeting, or engaging with prospects, it’s about addressing their concerns. It’s pure human psychology and relationship building.

It involves certain specific common reasons to deny the purchase, known as objections.

If you’ve been in a particular industry for a long time or have a product specialization of what you are selling, you can certainly outline the major objections your prospects are dealing with. 

To tackle this situation, crafting a narrative early on is important for all the major roadblocks your prospect might propose.

Sales Insight: Draft or note all the objections you’ve faced and also brainstorm the ones you feel could be an objection. Come up with suitable answers beforehand, so that you are well-prepared at the touchpoint.

Selling an Enhanced Solution

At times, customers won’t be aware of a solution that goes beyond their basic expectations.

In such cases, you’ll face double challenges — first, the competition, and second, the prospect itself.

Educating your prospect in the right manner is key.

Suppose, you’re selling CRM services and your lead is currently using Excel and spreadsheets to run their workflow. In these cases, you need to highlight the benefits of your services and showcase why they need to break free from outdated methods.

You must come out at the top despite several objections like the client’s familiarity with the old model, challenges in adopting a new solution, and others.

Sales Insight: Framing your pitch around the challenges and opportunities with the client’s current approach, highlighting the limitations of the status quo, and illustrating solutions should be at the top of your sales process.

Boost Your Sales Game Using These Pro Tips!

As you can see in this article, sales techniques follow a more tailored approach, where the dynamic is buyer-centric as consumers look to lead their buying choices.

This compilation of sales strategies along with pro tips and the “sales insight” will help you to move your selling process forward.

But remember, closing a deal is only a part of the sale. The game is more than creating a relationship, it’s about making everlasting connections so that they become repeat buyers and bring in more customers.