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According to the US Small Business Administration, only about 50% of businesses survive five years or more. One of the main reasons: they are outclassed. To break that five-year mark, you need to know your competition and differentiate your business from them, especially when you're selling an intangible.
Conduct a competitor analysis
To better understand where you fit in your market, research your competition. It doesn't have to be anything fancy to get started: set up a spreadsheet that includes your company, your competitors, and the areas you want to compare.
General capabilities
target market
How they market and sell
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats ( SWOT )
You can also collect information about your competitors by connecting with them. Join industry associations, attend events, and find ways to socialize. You will learn a lot from each other and will be able to develop valuable professional relationships in your field that can even open doors for future referral business.
Finally, check out your competitors' Glassdoor reviewsyou can learn a lot from employee feedback.
On the contrary, the content creation process is strategic. Writers are paired with topics they are already familiar with, given time to interview experts, and focus on quality rather than quantity.
Develop a niche
One of the main reasons startups fail is because they "get outdone." Being known for a specialty in a field of service immediately sets you apart from the competition. Not only can you market and attract prospects with a niche, but you can also better position your business during the sales process.
Know your buyers
Buyer personas (profiles of your ideal buyers) are particularly important in selling services because they provide information about your potential customers' demographics, priorities, concerns, and common decision factors.
Because you're selling value, not a product they can immediately touch or experience, you need to know what your potential buyers consider most important when searching for the types of services you provide. These are the results produced by your services and they can take different forms.
For example, what goals do your web design services help a small business owner achieve? Does your small online store look like its larger competitors? Does it increase visits and sales? Knowing common buyer goals helps you ask the right questions during the sales process to find out what's important and what's not.
Sometimes the value is less tangible. What feelings do your interior design services evoke in a middle-aged couple? Is that new mid-century living room meant to impress your in-laws? Or is it something more practical like having fewer soft surfaces to clean? Either way, knowing the kinds of things (or feelings) your buyers value will help you target your sales.
Always be helping
Sales doesn't have the best reputation. In fact, only 18% of sellers are viewed as "trusted advisors" by customers. Even more alarming, HubSpot found that marketers are only slightly more trustworthy than politicians.
So how does a seller gain trust when the deck is stacked against them, particularly when selling an intangible?
Putting the needs of the buyer first with an "always helping" philosophy.
This is a 180-degree shift from the traditional mindset of shutting down anyone and everyone, regardless of whether they are a good fit or not. Help always pairs well with selling services because the salesperson becomes the trusted advisor that many customers lack. Here are some ways you can always be helping:
Determine how (and if) you can help the buyer
Discover the problems, pain points or challenges you can solve for them
Set clear expectations
Provide value in all your emails and calls
Do what you say you are going to do every time
Be transparent in every interaction; don't hide anything
Share your experience during the sales process
Development and use of social proof
In his bestselling book on influence, Robert Cialdini explains that people, to determine what is right, look at what other people think is right. He coined this "social proof". We see evidence of social proof all around us, from positive online restaurant reviews to a long line of people waiting to get into a nightclub.
Social proof for service businesses takes many forms: online reviews, testimonials, case studies.
you and references. And this testing is vitally important for service providers because there is no product to "test" or "prove" beforehand. All you have are the results and impressions of your customers.
Case studies
People love stories. In fact, we physically crave stories like we crave coffee, chocolate, or shopping. Research from the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies found that stories trigger a release of oxytocin in listeners, which in turn makes them "more trustworthy, generous, charitable, and compassionate."
A case study is simply the success story of a company with a client. Good case studies, like any good story, help marketers promote services. They are also valuable ways to build trust and demonstrate social proof during the sales process. In the absence of a product demo, service companies need stories to show how their experience created value for a customer.
Once you've created a few case studies, learn how to tell those stories during the sales process. For example, during a discovery call, a timely storyone that matches a similar customer with similar challengesshows that you can solve their problems and earn their trust at the same time.
References
Buyers want to get their hands on your services, and the closest thing to that is talking to someone who has worked with you: a reference.
Make sure you have at least one client that you can use as a reference. Ask them if they would be interested, and if so, use them sparingly. They should only be entered as the last step in the sales process, similar to an employer calling their references at the end of the hiring process. Be sure to reward your referral after they've talked to your buyer. An Amazon gift card or gift basket from Harry & David can go a long way as a thank you. Be sure to match the level of the donation to the size of the sale: a $500 sale won't guarantee a $50 gift card, or you'll be out of business.
If you're at the end of the process and references have been requested, ask the buyer what they most want to learn so you can match them with the right person. Then email your reference and ask them again if they'd be interested, introduce them both via email and allow them to connect.
Understand your customer through discovery
The discovery call or meeting helps you determine if you are a good fit for the client and vice versa. Through a series of questions, you'll uncover insights into the client's current situation, including their challenges, goals, budget, and timeline.
The buyer's responses will help you determine if you can help them, how you can help them, and if you want to help them (ie, do they seem like someone you'd like to work with?). In general, discovery for B2C services is less complicated than for B2B because they generally involve a much less complex and lower cost solution. However, since few B2C service providers ask good questions, doing so will immediately make you stand out.
Ask your questions
The questions you ask, and the answers you receive, will help determine if you are a good fit for each other. In other words, do they have a problem that can be solved by your services? Do they have the right budget? Is this a pressing concern? Who are the decision makers?
Spend most of your time focusing on the buyer's challenges and goals. A study by Gong.io of 519,000 recorded discovery calls found that the most successful sellers "discovered three to four business problems." And the same study said that the ideal number of questions should be between 11 and 14.
Here is a list of questions to consider for B2B:
Tell me about your company
What is your role in the day-to-day running of the company?
What are your goals? General business goals?
What metrics are you responsible for?
What problems are you trying to solve?
What do you think caused these problems?
Why are you addressing these issues now?
What will happen if you don't address these issues now?
What is your timeline to get started?
Is there a budget allocated for this topic?
Who else is involved in the decision-making process?
And here are questions to consider for B2C, which you can tailor to your type of services:
What motivated you to approach us?
What problems/goals/challenges are you trying to solve?
Have you ever used a service like this before? If yes, when and how was your experience?
What would you like to see from your service providers? what is import
in view of?
Are you considering someone else for this service/project?
What budget range did you have in mind for this?
What is your timeline to get started?
Is there anything that can delay this?
Is there anything else I should know that we don't cover?
Don't forget that you are trying to get to the heart of their problems. That means digging below the surface for answers until you get the gold you're looking for. Below is an example scenario for an agency selling their marketing services:
Q: What is the most pressing challenge for you? A: We need to produce more qualified leads from our website. Q: How important are these leads to your overall $10 million revenue goal? A: They are supposed to represent 50% of our total sales and they were until last year, but currently they represent only 35%. Q: What do you think caused this drop?
You've figured out the biggest challenge and why (with data) it's so important. Now you can move on to the causes and drill down into areas like what makes a lead qualified, how do you attract leads, etc.
Complete your pre-discovery preparation
If you're selling services to a consumer, your preparation for discovery can be as simple as scheduling a call or a time to meet in person. Preparing for a B2B buyer will be more complicated. To do that, email your buyer an agenda for the general areas you'd like to cover. These will include information about the company, the market, their role in the company, and the problems they are trying to solve. If you need specific information about their business, let them know in the agenda so they have it for the call.
Then spend about 30 minutes learning more about the buyer and the business using their website, social media, and a Google search. Understand at a high level what they sell and who their customers are. Start with the "About Us" page, then products/services, and then review any case studies or customer pages.
The more you know, the more prepared you will be to ask relevant and intelligent questions.
Run a discovery call
The first minute of the call sets the stage for their time together. Here are four quick areas to cover in the opening minute (B2Cs are more likely to meet in person, but these same steps still apply to most businesses):
Purpose of the call: "Understand if and how we can help you with your challenge."
Call duration: "We have 1 hour scheduled. Does that still work for you?"
Agenda: Repeat (from your email) the areas you want to cover. "Does this sound good?"
Buyer Objectives: "What do you expect to get out of today's call?"
Before you start with your questions, ask if it would be okay to record the call (B2Cs probably don't need to). This will ensure accuracy and allow you to listen better instead of trying to write down every word you say.
One thing you want to avoid is making the discovery call an interrogation where you simply recite questions from a prepared list. It's a conversation. The more the two speak equally, the better.
Be curious and remember to always be helping.
Presentation and Closing
Because the buyer hasn't been able to try, touch or demonstrate your service, how you've presented yourself and the value you can bring relative to the competition is crucial. If you effectively uncovered a buyer's challenges and demonstrated your expertise and ability to solve the challenge, you have positioned yourself well to win a customer.
These include all the things (differentiation, always-helping philosophy, social proof, great discovery questions) needed to win service business. Now is the time to put what you've learned into a presentation that wins the sale.
Create a powerful proposal
Many companies lead their proposals with who they are, their accomplishments, and a list of their multiple offices. Don't do this, not yet, anyway. The buyer doesn't care. They only care about themselves and how you can help them.
To get started, and this is key, use the information gathered from the discovery to address the buyer's challenges and goals. Then move on to your solution showing how you will solve their problems and help them achieve their goals. Use data if possible to support this. Include a case study or testimonial page followed by your price.
The pricing page should include good, better, and best options. That's called version control, and it's been practiced by companies selling products and services for years. All three options give the buyer a sense of control and allow you to provide different levels of service value depending on the buyer's needs.
Finally, add a time frame (if necessary) and a company page. Here is an outline to follow for a complete proposal.
Executive summary with challenges/goals/solution and summary of values
your services
Case study / similar customer testimonials
Three service pricing options with one recommended option
Deadline if applicable
Information about your company, awards, etc.
As you present your proposal, periodically ask, "Does it make sense?" or "Do you have any questions about XYZ?" Pause and give them time to respond. If you have questions or concerns, this is the time to address them.
Up to this point, you've shown that your team is better equipped to solve buyer challenges and help them achieve their goals. You have asked pertinent questions. And their proposed services show how they solve those challenges within a competitive budget. If you've done all of these things, you've positioned your company to have a better chance of closing.
At the end of your proposal review meeting, ask:
"Is there anything we haven't addressed that was important to you?"
If the answer is no, ask for the sale.
"Are you ready to go ahead/sign the contract?"
Follow-up, Post-Mortem and Staying Connected
You won't always get a yes when you ask for the sale: buyers often review multiple proposals or quotes. Ask them about their review process (if you didn't cover this in discovery) and when you can expect them to get back to you. If you lose the sale, try to figure out what went wrong.
If a buyer just drops out of the process altogether, knowing how long to keep chasing and when to drop will improve your chances of closing and save you time to spend on other, more promising opportunities.
Track and know when to finish
A buyer misses their next scheduled call or appointment. They no longer respond to emails. Potential buyers can go "dark" anywhere along the way for a variety of reasons, whether you've just received a single call or almost crossed the finish line with your proposal. You would like to know why they are not responding, but you need to try to contact them first, and there is a correct number of contact attempts.
Research suggests that the majority of sellers (66%) give up after making just two contact attempts. This means that if you make three attempts, you are already in the top third. But to give yourself the best chance of closing, you need to follow up at least five times. Around 80% of sales occur only after at least five contact attempts.
If after these attempts, you still haven't heard from the buyer, it's time to send a breakup email. Keep it short and sweet, letting them know you're there to help if they still need it, but you won't be contacting them anymore.
Do an autopsy of lost sales
If the buyer decided to go with another company, ask why. You won't always get an answer (or even an answer!), but knowing the reasons why you missed a sale can help you down the road. Common reasons for lost sales are:
The competitor has lower prices
The competitor has a more service-related experience
The competitor has more internal resources
They "felt" more confident that the competitor could solve their problem
The competitor's business culture was a better fit
Some reasons, such as cultural fit, will be mostly out of your control. Others, like pricing, could have been addressed in the discovery process with deeper budget questions. Go back to your discovery notes or recording and listen to the budget conversation. Most likely, there are red flags for buyers and this area has not been researched enough, or not covered at all.
Determine what happened and make corrections for next time.
Connect and stay in touch
For B2B sales, always send a LinkedIn connection request to those you have conversations with during the sales process. It doesn't hurt to do this early on, once you've had at least one conversation. Be sure to check out their profile to understand their responsibilities, background, and who they're connected to (maybe some of your competitors!). Jobs and emails change, but you can usually contact someone through LinkedIn.
For B2C sales, send regular emails or mailings letting them know you'd still love to earn their business. Incentives like discounts help. Even if you lose business with a competitor, you never know when that person will be dissatisfied and want a change.
Source:
zapier
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