At some point you will sell a new product. You will have different challenges than selling an existing product. Instead of making it more challenging, here’s what you can do to make your selling a lot easier.
Why should prospects buy your product?
You must know why a customer would want or need your product. One would hope that the people who developed your new product understood that. They identified the need, problem or want and then developed the product. You as a sales professional need to know what problem or need the new product is designed to meet.
Your questioning strategy will be developed based on the problem or need you hope to identify. During your sales call you will confirm that your prospect has this want or need and it is important to him. You will only make a sale when your prospect has a reason to buy.
Who is your customer?
You can develop an effective sales process only when you know who your customer is. Some salespeople think that everyone is their prospect. That’s wrong.
Unfortunately, I have to advise too many of my clients this as they begin to sell a new product. You don’t have the time to sell to everyone. What you want to do is define your ideal customer. Selling to an ideal customer is a lot easier and more effective than trying to sell to everyone.
Consider who would need your product. Determine both demographics and psychographics of your ideal customer. Demographics are statistical data and psychographics are how people think. Some demographics to consider are age, gender, income, job title, location, years of experience or other data that you can use.
Now consider the psychographics of your prospects. How do your prospects think? Are they risk takers or are they risk averse? Are they big spenders or are they frugal? Is quality important to them? Is their appearance important to them? You can begin to connect your product to your prospect once you know how they think.
What you will be doing with the data and psychographics is looking for prospects who match those demographics and psychographics. It’s not that you won’t consider anyone who isn’t a 100% match, but you will know that they will be harder to sell to when they are a mismatch.
How can I reach them?
Just as you can’t sell to everyone, you don’t have unlimited money to spend to reach your prospects. Your choice of how you contact a prospect depends on who your prospect is. Think about the different ways you might contact a 70-year-old prospect versus a 20-something prospect. While many 70-year-olds are on the internet today, you might wonder how effective a purchasing strategy based on the internet would be if they aren’t online shoppers. An internet strategy makes perfect sense for 20-somethings who routinely shop online.
Of course, you have other options to evaluate including face-to-face sales, bulk mail letters and telemarketing. Evaluate the cost versus effectiveness of each method and make your choice.
Selling an existing product is easier because you know the answers to these questions. After all, you have the results to prove it. It’s only a matter of time before you will have the data with your new product. Just be sure to answer these questions before you start to sell your new product.