You May Know How To Sell, But Does Your Prospect Know How To Buy?

by Jeff Ellman
April 23, 2014

 

Anyone who has had the excitement of selling an innovative business-to-business product will describe it as a roller coaster.  There are a lot of highs and many lows, but the ride is definitely worth it in the end.  There are several complexities including costs, multiple decision makers, and longer than expected sales cycles.  At Urbanbound we went from slow measured growth in the early years, to explosive growth overnight. Looking back in time, one of the reasons for this growth now seems obvious to me. My prospects did not know how to buy! We had to teach them in order to win business and grow sales.

 

Urbanbound is selling an innovative new technology to a new market, and I learned that our customers were not seeking a web-based relocation solution because none of them knew that one existed.  In addition, they definitely did not budget for it.  Their perception of the risks involved to engage us far outweighed their desire to leverage the promised benefits of relocation technology.  Their perception of risk simply prevented them from saying yes even though they loved the product. In their minds we were costly and time consuming to implement.  Once I understood this as my road block I began to coach my sales team to integrate selling the ease of implementation into our product demos.  Now our prospects know that from the moment they sign up we can have their account activated within 48 hours, and they have to do absolutely nothing on their end! Realizing that implementation itself is a key part of the selling process quickly jump started our sales.  Too many companies don’t talk about implementation until after a purchase is made.

 

Examining and addressing the potential hesitation your prospects might have is a serious factor in increasing sales. Because we were able to provide clarity in relation to the implementation of our product, we jumped a hurdle and started closing more deals. In my experience, the sooner you can reduce the resistance to buying, the faster your sales cycle will be, and the more big wins you will celebrate with your team!

 

 

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