Sales techniques – We recommend the best ones

SPIN Selling, Challenger Sales, Solution Selling, and Relationship Selling. Yes, there are many sales techniques out there, and several of them you’ve probably heard of before. But which one is the best? And which one is suitable for which customer? In this article, we will go through the mentioned sales techniques – but also contribute an understanding of what sales techniques are and the difference between good and bad.

What are sales techniques?

Sales techniques, or sales techniques, refer to strategies, methods, and skills used to influence and convince potential customers to purchase a product or service. It is a discipline in sales that focuses on improving the sales process and increasing sales.

Sales techniques involve various aspects of the sales process, including prospecting, customer service, presentation techniques, negotiations, and closing of the deal. By applying different techniques, sellers can increase their chances of successfully selling a product or service.

Examples of what sales techniques involve:

1. Prospecting: Identifying potential customers and creating a list of leads through various methods such as cold calling, email marketing, and social media.
2. Customer service: To create a positive first impression by showing interest in the customer’s needs and wishes, as well as building relationships and creating trust.
3. Needs analysis: To conduct a needs analysis where you ask relevant questions and listen actively to understand the customer’s needs and challenges, and then adapt the offer accordingly.
4. Presentation: To communicate the product or service in a way that highlights its benefits and added value to the customer.  This may include the use of visual aids or demonstration tools.
5. Objection handling: To handle the customer’s objections or concerns professionally and provide answers and solutions that help convince the customer to make a purchase.
6. Negotiation: To negotiate the price and terms to reach an agreement that is favorable to both the seller and the customer.
7. Closing: To close the sale by securing the customer’s purchase decision and smoothly completing the transaction.

It is important to note that sales techniques may vary depending on the industry, product, or service, as well as the customer’s needs and preferences. There are also different schools of sales techniques, and salespeople can customize their methods and techniques based on their own strengths and sales goals.

Do you want to become a sharp salesperson and a pro in sales techniques? Book you or your salespeople for sales training with us at Salesonomics. We offer a training called Sales Acceleration Program where we work through the entire sales process, as well as our course where we go through how to create business in the digital sales meeting.

4 useful selling methods

1.   SPIN Selling

The technique SPIN stands for Situation, Problem, Implication, and Need-payoff and represents the four steps in the sales process.

1. Situation (Situation Analysis): In this step, the seller gathers information about the customer’s current situation, including their business, needs, and challenges.
2. Problem identification: The salesperson asks questions to identify and understand the customer’s problems and challenges. It is about finding out what problems or pain points the customer is experiencing in their current situation.
3. Implication: Here, the seller tries to investigate and understand the consequences and effects of the customer’s problems. It is about showing what negative consequences or losses the customer may experience if the problem is not addressed.
4. Need-payoff: The seller focuses on demonstrating the value and benefits of their product or service to address the customer’s problems and solve the consequences. It is about showing how the product or service can meet the customer’s needs and create positive effects.

SPIN Selling is mainly used in sales situations where products or services have high value or where the buying process is longer and involves multiple decision-makers. Technology emphasizes that it is important to listen to the customer and ask relevant questions to understand their specific problems and needs. By using the SPIN Selling method, you can create a deeper understanding of the customer’s situation and effectively communicate the value of a product or service to solve the customer’s problem.

2. The Challenger Sale

Challenger Sales is a sales technique that focuses on challenging the customer’s existing way of thinking and offering insights and solutions that they had not thought of before. According to Challenger Sales, salespeople can be divided into different profiles based on their way of approaching the sales process:

1. The Challenger: This type of salesperson challenges the customer’s current outlook and helps them see new opportunities or problems that they may not have been aware of. The challenger provides customers with unique and insightful ideas that challenge their current mindset and drive them into action.
2. The Relationship Builder: This salesperson focuses on building strong and long-term relationships with the customer. They invest time and energy to build trust and understanding. The relationship creator is adept at listening to the customer’s needs and works to satisfy them.
3. The Hard Worker: The salesperson is goal-oriented and committed to doing more work and connecting with more customers. They strive to be persistent and persistent in achieving their sales goals.
4. The Lone Wolf: The Lone Wolf is an independent salesperson who relies on his intuition and ability to succeed in the deal. They enjoy being independent and rarely follow the company’s standardized sales processes.

According to Challenger Sales, it is the challenging salesperson who usually succeeds best. The method is recommended in sales situations where there are complex purchasing decisions, poor differentiation opportunities between products, and where buyers do not necessarily know their own needs and challenges in detail.

The challenger develops insights and expertise about the customer’s industry and challenges to change perspectives and offer unique solutions. It is about educating and convincing the customer to change their current strategy or process to achieve better results.

The Challenger Sales method emphasizes the importance of offering added value and becoming a trusted advisor for the customer. By challenging and changing the customer’s perspective, the salesperson can increase their efficiency and success in complex sales situations.

3. Solution Selling

Solution Selling is a sales technique that focuses on identifying and delivering tailored solutions for the customer’s specific needs and challenges. Instead of just selling a product or service, Solution Selling emphasizes that the seller should act as a problem solver and advisor for the customer.

The method usually involves the following steps:

1. Understanding the customer’s needs: The salesperson engages in in-depth discussions with the customer to understand their current situation, challenges, and goals. It’s about actively listening and asking relevant questions to get a clear picture of what the customer needs.
2. Create a tailored solution: Based on insights into the customer’s needs and challenges, the salesperson develops a tailored solution that addresses and solves these problems. The solution may include products, services, integrations, or other customizations to meet the customer’s specific requirements.
3. Communicate value and benefits: The seller communicates the value and benefits of the proposed solution to convince the customer of its importance and effectiveness. It’s about showing how the solution can improve the customer’s business, increase their efficiency or solve problems.
4. Handle objections: The seller is prepared to handle any objections or concerns from the customer. It is about providing convincing answers and explanations to build trust and show that the solution is the best option.

Solution selling is especially useful in sales situations where products or services require careful adaptation to the customer’s needs. It is usually relevant when the customer has specific and unique challenges that cannot be easily solved with a standard product or a general solution.

By using the Solution Selling method, the seller can build strong relationships with customers by offering tailored and effective solutions. The technology helps to create a differentiated position in the market and added value for customers.

4. Relationship selling

Relationship selling, also known as relationship-based selling or consultative selling, is a sales technique that focuses on building strong and long-term relationships with customers. The goal is to create trust and understanding between the seller and the customer to increase the likelihood of repeat sales and loyalty.

Relationship selling emphasizes the following principles and strategies:

1. Customer centricity: The salesperson focuses on understanding the customer’s needs, goals, and challenges. By listening actively and asking questions, a deeper understanding of the customer’s situation and preferences is created.
2. Long-term relationships: Instead of focusing on single sales transactions, the seller strives to build and maintain long-term relationships with customers. It’s about being available, reliable, and committed to building trust over time.
3. Consultative sales relationship: The seller assumes the role of an advisor or consultant. This is to help customers identify and understand their problems, offer appropriate solutions, and provide continuous support and after-sales service.
4. Follow-up and follow-up: After the sale, relationship selling is focused on continuing to nurture the relationship with the customer. It includes regular communication, support, training, and follow-up to ensure customer satisfaction and discover new business opportunities.

Relationship selling is especially useful in situations where there is a high degree of customer interaction. It is relevant when sales mean longer relationships with repeat sales and when the customer’s needs are more unique and tailored.

By using relationship selling, the salesperson can build loyalty, create added value for customers and differentiate themselves from the competition. It emphasizes that sales are not only about selling products or services but also about building trust and being a reliable partner for the customer.

Insight-driven question methodology in 5 easy steps

Insight-driven question methodology is about asking questions based on the customer’s goals, in both the short and long term, and daring to dream of achieving the real goals. We humans often tend to reduce our goals in cases where we first talk about the current situation and then get into our goals. We would like to suggest changing the position of the current situation and desired situation and try to start the needs issues with the counterparty’s overall goals, based on the structure below:

1.    Desired mode

• What do you want it to look like?
• What do you want to achieve?
• What is your goal?

By asking these questions, you can get the customer to describe as clearly as possible what they want to happen. This insight is as important to you as it is to the customer. The customer may never have taken the time to think about this, and you get important information about what your product or service should accomplish to make the customer happy.

2. Current situation

• How are you doing today?
• And how does it work?
• How many people work there?
• What system do you have now?

These questions are important to get an overall picture of the customer’s background and conditions. With the help of these, you can better understand the customer and their perspective.

3. Obstacles

• What does it take for you to reach your goal?
• What is stopping you?

These questions help you identify the challenges your solution will face. Remember to always have a positive perspective when identifying obstacles. The aim is to find a good solution and overcome these obstacles, not the obstacle itself. Choose to refer to obstacles as challenges, not problems.

Now that you’ve clarified your customer’s background, goals, and obstacles, it’s also easier to start looking at solutions. But also, on what it takes to reach them, and how important it is to overcome them. Now you can put the plans into practice together.

4. Resources

• What is the budget?
• What internal resources are available?
• What is the timetable?

Now you set the framework for what you can achieve. Many salespeople do not like to get into these issues because they are afraid of scaring away customers. For you to be able to give a relevant proposal to the customer, these questions are required.

5. Action

• What is our next step?
• What do you want to do now?
• What do you need now?

With these questions, you encourage the customer to act. The purpose is to let the customer formulate their solution and what is required for you to get a “yes”. The customer must link the solution to action, otherwise, previous steps will not matter. Help the customer create some type of action plan or at least a next step.