10 Sales Tech
10 Sales Tech
10 Sales Tech
com/selling-techniques/
Who couldn’t use an arsenal of effective selling techniques? If you truly want to
improve how you sell, look no further than this research-backed collection of the very
best B2B sales techniques.
One thing that’s clear from our research with B2B DecisionLabs is that the right
answer is often the most counterintuitive. When you choose to follow best practices,
you might be using the most popular method, but not necessarily the approach that
works best.
Best practices also are inherently “lagging practices.” It can take years to identify
something as a best practice, and by that time, it’s a common practice.
Science, on the other hand, is objective and timeless. It’s entirely focused on the buyers
and their behavior. The science doesn’t lie. Even if these sales techniques look
unfamiliar and counterintuitive, each one has been vetted by behavioral research
studies and shown to be the best approach when selling to B2B decision-makers.
So, without further ado, here are ten surprisingly effective and persuasive sales
techniques, backed by science and research.
Studies show that at least 40 percent of deals in the pipeline are lost to “no
decision” rather than to competitors. That’s because of something called Status Quo
Bias—your prospect’s natural aversion to doing something different than what they’re
doing today.
As the outsider, you’re fighting inertia—your buyer’s natural tendency to stay with their
current situation. To persuade them to change and choose you, you need to disrupt
your prospect’s status quo, drive the need for change, and create a buying vision that
differentiates you from your competition.
Keep in mind, however, that you can’t just start touting your solutions’ features and
benefits. Your prospect won’t care about your solution if they don’t first see the need to
change.
Instead, focus on creating the urgency to change by establishing that your prospect’s
status quo prevents them from reaching their most important business goals.
The problem is, your competitors are responding to those same inputs
from their prospects and customers. So, you end up delivering commodity
messages that won’t differentiate you.
When prospects hear and read similar messages from you and your competitors, they
see no contrast between their choices. There’s no compelling reason or urgency to
change, so the buyer opts to stick with the status quo.
Telling your buyer about pain points they already know about doesn’t make you a
trusted advisor—it makes you a tape recorder. To create the urgency to change and
overcome Status Quo Bias, you need to introduce prospects to Unconsidered Needs—
unmet or yet unknown problems or missed opportunities that are holding back their
business.
Research conducted by B2B DecisionLabs found that a provocative message that
begins by introducing an Unconsidered Need enhances your persuasive impact
by 10 percent.
Salespeople fail to articulate value when they commit the three deadly sins of sales
messaging:
It seems logical to show your prospects and customers that you understand their world
by positioning yourself as a member of their tribe. The word “we” implies that the
provider and buyer are “in it together.” But research shows that when you use this type
of we-phrasing, your buyer will be less likely to take action.
So, position your buyer as the hero of their own story by using “you-phrasing.”
According to B2B DecisionLabs research, changing the pronoun from “we” to “you” in
your pitch can add urgency and make your prospect feel more personally responsible
for solving the problem.
You-phrasing compels your prospect to question their status quo, paints an achievable
buying vision, and holds your prospect’s attention in a way that separates your
message from the competition.
When plotted on a graph, this trend forms a hammock shape. This “hammock effect”
persists in all lengths and types of messages, including email, phone calls, virtual sales
meetings, and proposals.
After your meeting, the first thing your buyers recall will naturally be the last thing you
said. But what about all those juicy details in the middle?
To overcome the hammock effect and fight the brain’s natural tendency to tune out,
you have to spike attention in the middle using “grabbers”—that is, specific selling
techniques designed to grab your buyer’s attention and get them re-engaged in the
conversation.
One example of a grabber is a Number Play. In a Number Play, you write down three
numbers before explaining them. Then tell the story behind the numbers, gradually
revealing their meaning. The story should be short, focused on your buyer’s world, and
offer insight into the challenges your solution addresses.
3 = “A three percent error rate, which is the lowest you can get when using
manual processes and multiple systems. This is substantial, and it will never
go away unless you change your systems and processes.
1.5 = “1.5 million, which is the amount that 3 percent error rate is costing
you each year. This means four or five full-time employees are manually
working to correct the errors.
70 = “70,000; this is the amount needed to defend the average wage and
hour lawsuit. In today’s competitive marketplace, this isn’t a good use of
your limited resources.
“To change these numbers, you need to validate your data at the source—which is
what our software can help you do.”
For more on how to keep your audience focused and engaged during virtual
meetings, get our e-book, Virtual is Vital: How to Make Virtual Sales Calls
Engaging and Memorable.
Yet, most sales and marketing leaders (nearly 60 percent) see no need to take a
different approach between customer acquisition and customer expansion . More
than half believe the same provocative messages and sales techniques they use with
new prospects are still applicable in a renewal scenario with customers.
Despite this pervasive belief, B2B DecisionLabs research shows that customer
retention and expansion conversations require entirely different messages and skills. In
fact, using a provocative, challenging message when you’re trying to renew or expand
business with your customers will increase the likelihood that they’ll shop around by at
least 10-16 percent.
The study demonstrated the impact of Loss Aversion, a behavioral concept important
to Prospect Theory. Pioneered by social psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel
Kahneman, Prospect Theory states that humans are two to three times more likely to
make a decision or take a risk to avoid a loss than to do the same to achieve a gain.
When you’re trying to justify the decision and close the deal, frame the status quo as a
risk to be avoided.
Risk is one of the few subjects that doesn’t get delegated down. When you introduce
risk and then create a buying vision for the executive to solve that risk, you light up
their brain to think and act more urgently.
Even at an executive level, people make subconscious, emotional decisions before the
brain’s rational and analytical part takes over to justify the decision. In fact, a B2B
DecisionLabs research study found that executive decision-makers are just as swayed
by emotionally charged factors as anybody else.
In the study, executives chose between two recovery plans after an economic
downturn. The messages were mathematically identical, but they framed the status quo
as either a gain or a loss.
Gain frame message: This plan has a one-third probability of saving all
three plants and all 6,000 jobs but has a two-thirds probability of saving no
plants and no jobs.
Loss frame message: This plan has a two-thirds probability of resulting in
the loss of all three plants and all 6,000 jobs but has a one-third probability
of losing no plants and no jobs.
The results? Executives were 70 percent more likely to choose a risky option when
the status quo was framed as a loss to be avoided.
create price uncertainty during sales
negotiations
Traditional sales negotiation training teaches salespeople to “power up” or seize the
upper hand in a negotiation. But that approach isn’t as effective as it used to be.
Your buyers now have all the power. They approach negotiations armed with the
confidence to demand discounts—and walk away when they don’t get them. So, how
can you leverage your low-power position and protect your value during tough
negotiations?
One way to reframe your buyers’ perception of your value is to introduce Unconsidered
Needs (remember those?). This approach creates price uncertainty by disrupting their
perceived value of your solution. In other words, you increase your value in your
buyer’s mind by bringing to light insights and opportunities that they didn’t know were
important to them.
Creating price uncertainty is the first step. But what happens when buyers start making
demands and asking for discounts as negotiations drag on?
To help you close more deals from a low-power position, consider the concept of Pivotal
Agreements. The five types of Pivotal Agreements are value-based exchanges that you
can use to advance your deals while protecting your margins.
When you’re the outsider, engaging new prospects, it makes sense to use a
provocative, challenging approach that introduces Unconsidered Needs, disrupts their
status quo, and persuades them to choose you.
But when you’re the insider, you are your customer’s status quo. You need to reinforce
their natural Status Quo Bias and defend the reasons why you’re still the safest choice.