Closing Sales During Tough Times: 8 Steps to Becoming an Expert Advisor By Michael Ortner, Capterra, Inc.	<< Back
2002 has certainly been one of the toughest years for selling software solutions to enterprises. The reason appears to be two-fold: the tightening of purse strings and the high rate of software purchase failures. You can help resolve both of these issues by filling the huge gap that exists between the software product and the needs of your prospect. That is, you must become an expert advisor early in the selection process. Only as an advisor will you be able to bring true value to the transaction and ensure that the customer is satisfied. Why? By the time the software implementation starts, it is simply too late for the customer to receive advice that was necessary earlier in the process. The software package, for better or for worse, has already been chosen, and the extent to which business processes will be changed has already been determined. How does becoming an advisor help loosen purse strings or prevent failure? Knowledge, pure and simple. Here are 8 pieces of knowledge essential to closing a deal: 1. Know your product. More importantly, know it from the perspective of the end user. This means you need to become a user yourself. Know all of its strengths and know all of its deficiencies. This will help you to effectively convey all of the benefits while managing expectations from the start. 2. Know your customer. Learn exactly what your customer’s problem is that you are trying to solve. If you think they are having multiple problems, reduce it to just one. Learn what their competitors are doing in order to deal with this problem. Hopefully, their competitors have bought your product. 3. Know your competition and be ready to offer their names to your prospects. This will shorten the sales cycles by expediting the process of finding potential vendors. Wouldn’t you rather they rely on you as their advisor than let them do the research on their own? This means that you need to be honest and forthcoming. Do not speak negatively of your competition or you will appear less objective. And if you are afraid to mention them, then maybe you are working for the wrong company. 4. Know the importance of getting actual users to approve the purchase. In fact, the users can be your greatest ally or your worst enemy. Make the process of viewing demonstrations and learning your software as easy and painless as possible. 5. Know that when the prospect buys your software product that they will have to change their business processes. Know that this is often the most overlooked and frustrating aspect of a software purchase. This is what leads to software failures. Be able to help them outline process improvements before they make the purchase. 6. Know how your software cuts costs or opens up new sales opportunities. Know how your prospect’s finance department measures the return on investment. Be able to translate the financial benefits that your software generates into the metrics that your prospect uses to measure results. 7. Know your customers that are currently using your software. Know what they like and dislike about your software. Be able to guide your prospects around the pitfalls that your customers have experienced. 8. Know that buying software is a process. Understand the process well enough to guide your prospects through it. If they don’t appear to have a process, develop one for them. Despite the downturn in corporate investment, software sales opportunities abound. Knowledge empowers you to be the ultimate salesperson – both for your company and your clients. About Capterra Capterra’s mission is to provide a centralized arena that brings together buyers and sellers of enterprise software more efficiently. We accomplish this by guiding customers through the entire process of software selection and roviding vendors a forum to reach prospects when they want to be reached. Capterra’s software selection methodology and software product directories are the ideal resources to help software salespeople gain much of the knowledge necessary to be expert advisors to their customers.
<< Back

Interested in a Software Sales job or career? The article you've just read was brought to you by SoftwareSalesJobs.com, the industry's # 1 hiring tool for software sales professionals. You can post your resume for free!

Closing Sales During Tough Times: 8 Steps to Becoming an Expert Advisor