High-tech sales: Is it really that difficult?

24 December 2020

Views: 45

Selling high-tech products and services is much more difficult than selling most other products and services - right or just a popular myth?

It can be difficult to sell everything that is not known. However, most of the difficulty is created by the sellers themselves. These are some of the reasons why high-tech sales seem so difficult and how the typical sales process just reinforces that myth.

Most salespeople cannot describe their product or service clearly and concisely.

Most people take 20-30 seconds to decide if they want what the seller is selling. The prospect is frustrated and annoyed at the seller not communicating with immediate clarity.

Ideally, an effective investigation offer should be around 45 words. Many of the best sellers take approx. 2 hours to put together an effective and concise investigation offer. Most salespeople do not even know where to start.

2. Pressing the prospect to a date before they are ready to buy reduces the likelihood of sale.

Most marketers believe that they need to convince any potential customer who has an obvious need to buy their products and services. However, most prospects are not ready to buy the first time the seller calls. Driven by the erroneous belief that he should be able to convince the potential customer, the seller pushes to make a deal.

The best way to ultimate success is to call each prospect every 3-4 weeks until they are ready to specify or purchase your type of product or service, limiting each prospect call to a maximum of 45 seconds.

Premature sales efforts leave a lasting negative impression and drastically reduce the chances of doing business with the potential customer.

'Forced' agreements and communication result in closed sales less than 14 percent of the time. When under pressure, potential customers who do not commit to doing business on the first visit are even less likely to buy; then the probability of getting sales drops to 5 percent.

4. Most high-tech salespeople first target a potential end-user customer in the organizations they sell to.

Most line managers do not have the authority to buy, they are 'influencers' they recommend. They also generally do not have access to the funds.

The top 1% of salespeople we study typically start their sales process at the vice presidential level. It requires a specifically designed approach.

5. High-tech salespeople are fascinated by the features and benefits of their products and services.

Most potential customers just want to know what your products and services can do for them. If they find that what you have is what they want, they want to know exactly how your product works: the features. Most salespeople honestly and erroneously believe that prospects need to be educated before they can make a smart decision.

6. Most high-tech salespeople focus on specific product specifications and ignore the two main motivators for their prospects: trust and respect.

In high-tech sales, a common mistake is to deal with potential customers on the basis of specifications, good presentations, logical arguments, convincing documentation and actual financial justifications. Most leads, including engineers and senior executives, have different motives. Your first priority is to deal with a salesperson that you fully trust and respect.

Only the top 1% of salespeople know how to build that kind of relationship in the first half hour after meeting their prospects and how to continually strengthen it, https://www.8techstore.com/.

Share