Introduction

A sales representative is not someone people will meet readily. Only 32% of customers will trust a sales representative, on the other 88% will listen to a trusted advisor. So how does one convert the former into the latter? The answer lies in sales enablement done right.

Customers are more empowered than they have ever been. They have access to information beyond the sales collateral that sales representatives present. They can now research what they want to buy through online reviews, articles and social media updates. For B2B products or high-involvement B2C products like cars and insurance, the information available to them is even more. They have more queries and more objections, and have less patience and less attention to sales talk. The slightest hint that your market reputation is more negative than positive will turn them away.

Winning the trust of customers is thus the most important aspect of a modern sales conversation. This is even more so for remote selling, when their attention span is smaller and discomfort is higher. However, the mountain of distrust can be climbed by empowering sales representatives to become subject matter experts, a stepping stone to becoming trusted advisors.

What a Trusted Advisor Does

Here are a few pointers, gleaned from shadowing hundreds of sales representatives and understanding their pain points – and their customers’.

Solve the customer’s problem

The inexperienced representative learns the product features, memorizes a script and hammers away. The seasoned representative tries to find the customer’s pain points – and shows them how a particular feature of the product overcomes that pain. For example, an insurance policy that extends cover to a customer’s parents might be attractive to them. Rather than pressurizing the customer to buy, the trusted advisor aims to find their problem and suggests what they can buy.

Let the customer sell themselves the product

A customer may talk of buying an off-roader, but all they really want is to impress their colleagues. They are looking for someone who can validate their choice, by providing the information about the product, its benefits and its value – both in terms of ROI and social capital. The trusted advisor makes them feel like they are making an informed choice.

Don’t let customers develop buyer’s regret

Upselling is often a sales representative’s KRA for existing customers. However, if the customer perceives that they have been sold a product when they could have done with something cheaper, buyer’s regret sets in. A trusted advisor will avoid that, by showing them options and explaining the benefits, but will not oversell a specific product.

Training Representatives to become Advisors

The sales enablement team can help representatives achieve this goal by developing a training architecture that includes the following steps:

Know the customer’s psychology

This is particularly relevant for sectors like B2B, automobiles, real estate and financial products where the customer needs a lot of information before buying, and the sales cycle involves more than one meeting. Train the sales representative to understand their customer first – their problems, expectations, industry background – before deciding which product to talk about. Customers, especially B2B, appreciate when they know the sales representative did their homework on them. Detailed entries on the lead management system connected to the sales enablement platform assist with this.

Become a subject matter expert

Enable the sales representative to go beyond knowing the product features to understand the whole industry, the chief competitors and their products, and use cases. For example, a trusted advisor in insurance knows not only the policy details but also all the developments in the insurance industry. Secondly, they must find a fit between the product and the customer’s specific needs to see how it solves a problem. So when the customer has a specific query, they pick the phone on the representative first. Video-based lessons to master collateral, byte-sized training modules that don’t lead to information overload – these are some desirable features in a sales enablement platform that enable gaining expert knowledge.

Show genuine interest

We trust an advisor more when they really care about our problem. For a sales representative, that means perfecting the skill of asking questions that truly pinpoint the customer’s pain points. And then to highlight products that can solve the problem, with detailed explanations on how that can be achieved. Customizable product presentations and instantly retrievable battlecards are helpful in enabling problem-solving.

Demonstrate integrity

It can be tempting to let the customer buy something expensive that they don’t need — it makes it easier to achieve a short-term target. For example, more insurance cover than they realistically need. However, it pays better in the long run to be transparent and to de-sell something unnecessary.

Be likable

Tone of voice is important – especially for remote selling. For a customer, talking to an expert can feel overwhelming. They need to have their queries answered without feeling judged. The sales enablement team can help representatives achieve this with the help of AI-powered role-play exercises.

Follow up after the sale

Disappearing after the sale is the best way to lose trust. A trusted advisor is always around for the customer for helping with repairs and upgrades and for solving new problems. They are there when the product’s life cycle is over and a new solution is needed. This also enables the customer to become a product evangelist.

sharpsell equips sales reps with personalized content to engage with customers and customized presentations to share with customers as per their needs. All the content is accessible through a single source - the sharpsell platform. Companies using sharpsell have seen an increase in sales productivity with higher number of products sold, higher ticket size, increased visibility on prospecting, reduced content creation cost, reduced time to first sale, reduced costs of training, and uncovering insights on product feedback.

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