The business world is filled with managed service providers competing against each other for clients, so it is critical to understand IT marketing techniques that can help you gain an advantage over your competitors. As you know, salespeople often struggle with closing a sale because they are unable to develop a sense of urgency during the conversation. Without urgency, potential clients can delay using your services and waste valuable time and resources. Fortunately, there are a few ways to move the discussion along without getting stalled over long periods of time. Here are four tips on how to create urgency and effectively close a sale:
Help Prospects Identify Their Needs
The first step in helping a sales conversation continue to progress is the ability to identify the needs of your clients. The sooner you recognize their needs, the easier it will be to maintain the conversation without getting stalled. For example, do they need cloud technology or virus protection? Finding these needs will allow you to focus on the many benefits of partnering with an IT provider and the ways in which it can help fill these needs within their company. It is also critical to do prior research about a company before you contact them, since it will make the sales conversation much smoother. You will also be well-prepared to handle any situation.
Listen More & Talk Less
A key step in preventing sales talks from stalling is to take the extra time to listen to a contact and avoid delivering a sales pitch the whole time. For example, the less you pitch, the more attention you will gain from the contact because they understand that you are not just wasting words. Focusing the conversation primarily on them will keep the prospect engaged and is a great way to help them come to their conclusions about your services without you having to deliver a full-blown marketing sales pitch. Over time, you will become more efficient in this tactic and will be able to listen to potential clients, while still delivering a compelling sales message.
Look for Solutions to Problems
Another key IT marketing technique is to be a problem solver. In other words, always look for a solution to a problem, and you will become a valued asset to each potential client. Sharing ideas on how to resolve issues will help them understand that you are an IT professional who understands the challenges companies face in today’s workplace. A problem solver will compel a contact to use your IT services, since they will realize that you can help their business reach higher levels of success through your expertise and technical knowledge.
Focus on Value
Failure to bring value to a conversation will lead you to nowhere and can be a stumbling block. Always keep potential clients engaged, whether it is sending an email, forwarding an eBook or using any other methods of communication. While these small gestures only take a few minutes, they can mean a lot to a contact and will help them understand that you are an IT provider who can be a valuable resource to their organization. Of course, it is never good to send them multiple messages each day. Instead, send a message once per week, which is a good balance that will ensure that you will always remain on their radar and that they will not forget about your company.
Focusing on overcoming stalled sales talks is an excellent IT marketing technique that can help you gain new clients and continue to experience substantial amounts of growth. These simple tasks can make a big difference in advancing the conversation that will ultimately lead them to choose you as their managed service provider. Each of these suggestions can be modified to fit a specific situation better and is an excellent resource to expand upon that can help you attain hard-to-reach clients. Incorporating these steps into each sales conversation will create a sense of urgency that will help potential clients decide that the use of your IT resources is a valuable addition to their organization.
