How to sell and engage buyers in the digital, remote, and noisy world is definitely a challenge we all face. Without a learning pathway, very few of us salespeople will ever get to master the sales skills to be truly successful. The spray and pray days of contacting buyers with little more than a sales pitch to hit our sales targets have long since passed. The modern buyer demands more and expects a more personalized, tailored experience. So, we need to be experts in our market, an advisor, a trusted source of data, a credible resource, and a consultant all in one. We are no longer just selling; we are a sharer of information. And we need to be bring more value and insights than the information the buyer can read freely on the web without us!! How to sell and engage buyers Buyers whether B2B or a consumer are re-evaluating how they buy, how they want to be dealt with, the experience they want when purchasing and the values of the salespeople they communicate with. To sell successfully, we need to do level up to meet these changing needs. In the digital business world, we need to see ourselves as experts and professionals that reflect the values of the customers we interact with. As it becomes harder for companies to differentiate themselves in a crowded market, we as salespeople need to be the signal not the noise. In fact, when it comes to customer interactions, we may be the last competitive advantage a company has. Yes, salespeople. Social media and digital marketing is causing information overload across the buyers journey. They are bombarded with product options, pricing models, innovations, channels and offers. How to sell and engage buyers on a human level that puts their needs first is the only sales game in town. The paradox in selling is that while it has been never easier to identify a set of customers it has become increasingly difficult to talk and engage with them on a human level. It’s time for a new approach to how we sell: to blend multi-channel and highly personalized selling to address this rapid change in buying behavior. We need to upskill in how we go about selecting, attracting, and bringing value to buyers across multiple channels including social media, video, etc. We need help and assistance on how to broaden our skillset, how we provide appropriate insights on and being relevance to customers. How do we win their trust and, ultimately, increase revenue and reduce sales stress for both the salesperson and the buyer. The future of selling for us is to be someone who is data driven, we can turn information into usable insights, and we research our customers to ensure we deliver value beyond the sale. We can strategize with our customers and collaborate on the expected future outcome. We can bring unconsidered needs and identify problems that our customers may be unaware of. Research Our Prospects or Customers We here at The Digital Sales Institute have written about this numerous times. Separate out our sales skills from the people we really want to sell to. We can’t build a sales process or sales playbook until we can identify who is likely to have the problems our solutions solves. Who will be receptive to our approach and why?  What unique or compelling need does our product or service solve. Why would this customer set listen to what we have to say. What is going on inside their business that they would care enough to talk or meet with us. How do they like to engage with businesses like ours? Customer target selection solves who are our target customers, which will serve as a focus for our sales activities, decision making, and other sales tactics. Sales success is more likely to come from figuring out which businesses would understand our product or service and recognize the most value in using it. We Research Their World This is where we become market experts. What is the life, work, and environment our customers operate in. What news, regulations, compliance, or other impacts are we aware of. Do we have trends, statistics, neutral information on their market or needs? What is shaping their world and what issues keep them awake at night. If we truly understand who the target customers market, then we can: Differentiate our value proposition to the customers’ needs Supercharge & align go-to-market tactics to them Customize every facet of our sales activity to the target customers Ultimately, drive better customer value than competitors We Focus on the Buyer We know that buying, in fact most purchases can be classified as a change management project. In how to sell and engage buyers we need to focus on the subject of change, because it’s central to understanding the buyer. People or businesses rarely innovate for innovation’s sake. The decision to buy a new accounting system is driven by something such as: growth in revenues that an old system can’t keep up with, a lack of features that are adequate to the demands of public reporting prior to an IPO, or changes in technology that allow more flexible mobile reporting. Whatever the situation is, something has happened that makes this urgent or important enough to focus resources on now. A good suggestion is for us to ask the following questions to help understand what’s changing: What’s important to them and what’s driving the change? What’s impeding or speeding their need to change? How do they go about change? What do they need to know to embrace change? Who do they turn to for advice or information? What’s the value they visualize once they make a decision? Who do they have to sell change to in order to get it? What could cause the need for this change to lose priority? Create our Unique Selling Points We need to really understand our points of difference and what are our unique selling points. Begin by makingHow to Sell and Engage Buyers