How to sell a product without sounding like a salesman?

Your sales performance depends a lot on your communication style and has an immediate impact on the customers. So when you are learning how to sell or pitch products or services, you mustn't sound like a salesperson. Try being helpful to the customers and try to figure out what they are looking for instead of pushing them to buy certain products that they might not need only to drive your commissions. Only with a personal touch, you would be able to persuade your customers to avail of your services or buy your products.

After all, customers are always being bombarded with sales calls and pitches making them quite irksome. If you are able to position yourself and your brand properly, you should be able to avoid the time-wasting salesman notion. This article will provide you with certain tips and tricks to help you pitch your products without sounding like a salesman.

1. Be a business consultant or advisor instead of a salesperson:

To be clear, we are not encouraging misrepresentation or manipulation of the customers in any way in your attempts of how to sell your products. However there is a huge difference between an individual representing a business and a salesperson who is pushy and wants to meet their monthly sales target.

Represent yourself as a subject matter expert to the client and provide your prospective clients with a bird eye view of the recent developments in their associated industries to give them a bigger picture. Use your knowledge to provide insight and recommendations on how they can improve their business.

2. Stop rambling about your product or brand:

Though, you want to make clear what you represent. Incessant and relentlessly rambling on about the benefits of your product or the benefits of choosing your business will only represent you as a pushy salesman who looking for a means of how to sell.

If you are sending emails to prospective customers, ensure to have a subject line which piques their interest instead of using generic sales pitches. With a customized message and subject, prospective clients would come to appreciate the time and effort you spent on reaching out to them. Some of them might even convert!

3. Focus on the prospect:

If you are looking for efficient ways on how to sell, you will need to steer the conversation away from your product and brand and focus on the prospect and the needs of your customers. If you are not sure of their requirements, make sure to ask them lots of questions. This gives out the impression that each of their unique request and requirements would be met and taken care of. Not only will this encourage them to open up to facilitate a balanced dialogue, but, you too, will gain several helpful insights that will help you serve them better and more satisfactorily.

Firstly, help the prospect realize the challenges your product will help them overcome. Highlight each point. For each challenge you highlight, ask them a couple of questions regarding it to understand their degree of concern for the particular challenge.

4. Shortlist prospects:

A salesman always has to figure out how to sell his next product and tries to convince people to buy their products. if you want to avoid sounding like them, shortlist your prospects and try to find out their requirements. Once you are clear of their needs, proceed to create a sales pitch target to the specific points. This allows you to know that you are targeting the right buyers. A great way of sieving prospects is by asking them few pre-qualifying questions before you get started. Potential clients stem from the challenges you are able to resolve for them.

Another great method of shortlisting prospects is by relying on buyer personas. Look up successful campaigns and deals that attracted a lot of attention and try to recreate the spark in the hope of bringing more interested customers. When you have a better understanding of who needs your product/service, you can better persuade the customers and in turn, getting your sale.

5. Mention benefits, not features:

Discuss the several benefits your product/service would be able to provide to the customer. It is quite easy to list out features, however, coming up with how the features are able to benefit the customer is quite challenging. Focus on the value it is able to provide. Does your product help them increase work efficiency? Does it help save time or costs? Answer how your products can benefit the customers to increase your chances of a successful sale.

6. Engage your prospective customers:

A salesman will do most of the talking in hopes of persuading the customers. If you want to avoid sounding like them, encourage conversations rather than statements. Engage your prospects with relevant questions as we mentioned in the previous sections. With open-ended questions, you will be better able to understand their needs, while making the prospect much more interested in what you have to say in response.

7. Using sales takeaway:

Express doubt when prospects are skeptical. For example, 'Our product has helped many businesses increase their revenue twofold, however, I cannot be sure it would be the same in your case'.

This strategy can be used even when the prospect is indifferent about moving forward. A salesperson would not say these things since they have to close the deal at any cost. Your sales takeaway will set you apart from the salesperson category and place you as a consultant or advisor before the prospect which would decrease guardedness and improve trust.

8. Let them decide what to do next:

Instead of pushing them to buy your product, give them more autonomy to make the decision. Ask about what would they like to do next or what do they have planned? Offer suggestions but do not pressurize them to make a favoring decision. This helps you to be reflected as an advisor or a consultant rather than a pesky salesperson looking to make a sale and achieve their monthly target for a hefty incentive.

These are the small tweaks that can help you kick off meaningful conversations with the prospects and enable deeper relationships, offering better insights on how to sell more efficiently without being overbearing. Follow the above-mentioned steps and avoid sounding like a pushy salesman. Good luck with your endeavor!

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