How to Sell Software to Businesses

Summary

This video outlines an effective strategy for selling software to businesses, emphasizing a consultative approach over traditional product selling. Rather than focusing on pushing the product, the strategy encourages understanding prospects' needs, identifying pain points, and offering solutions that highlight the benefits of the software. Key steps include defining the product's value, targeting the right audience, and asking insightful questions. The video also discusses the importance of creating tailored sales messages and using tools like sales scripts and a sales playbook to optimize outreach. The next video will cover finding prospects and reaching out effectively.

Takeaways

• 😀 Product selling often leads to rejection and wasted time, as it focuses on pushing the product to as many prospects as possible, regardless of their needs.
• 😀 A more effective strategy is consultative selling, where the focus shifts from talking about your product to understanding the prospect's needs and offering tailored solutions.
• 😀 Consultative selling involves asking good questions to uncover pain points and problems that your product or service can address.
• 😀 By adopting a consultative selling approach, you decrease the chances of sounding like a typical salesperson, which reduces objections and rejection from prospects.
• 😀 When selling software, focus on understanding the benefits your product can deliver, not just the features or product details.
• 😀 To develop a solid sales strategy, start by clearly defining your product’s features, differentiators, and the types of businesses or individuals that would benefit most from it.
• 😀 For more targeted outreach, consider the size of the organization, their industry, and the decision-making level of the person you're engaging with.
• 😀 A broad sales message works best when starting out, targeting a wide audience. Later, you can tailor the message to specific industries or decision-makers.
• 😀 The value your software offers can be categorized into three levels: technical value (process/system improvements), business value (cost reductions/revenue increases), and personal value (benefits for the individual decision-maker).
• 😀 Breaking down pain points into technical, business, and personal levels helps ensure that you’re addressing all areas of concern for the prospect.
• 😀 Crafting a consultative sales message involves understanding pain points, asking insightful questions, and presenting your product as a solution—thus, ensuring a higher chance of success.

Q & A

What is the main difference between product selling and consultative selling?

Product selling focuses on promoting the features of the software itself, while consultative selling focuses on understanding the prospect's problems and presenting the software as a solution to those needs.

Why does consultative selling trigger fewer objections from prospects?

Because it focuses on the prospect's needs rather than pushing a product, prospects feel less like they are being sold to and are therefore less guarded.

What are the three levels of value that software can provide according to the script?

Technical improvements (e.g., automating tasks), business improvements (e.g., reducing costs or increasing revenue), and personal improvements (e.g., career advancement, improved work-life balance).

How can breaking value into technical, business, and personal improvements help sales messaging?

It ensures no important benefits are overlooked and allows sales messaging to be tailored to the prospect’s role and priorities within the organization.

What steps should be taken to identify target prospects for software sales?

Consider industry verticals, organization size, departments, and job levels, then start with a broad target audience before narrowing down with more specific messaging.

How should pain points be categorized in consultative selling?

Pain points should be divided into technical pain (processes or systems), business pain (cost, revenue, risk), and personal pain (impact on the individual prospect's career or work environment).

What types of questions are recommended to ask during consultative selling?

Pain questions to identify challenges, and current state questions to understand the prospect's existing systems, processes, and vendors.

How can customer examples be used effectively in sales messaging?

Customer examples should illustrate a problem the customer had, the solution provided by the software, and at least two improvements achieved, which can then be used across scripts, emails, and calls.

What are the benefits of using building blocks in sales scripts?

Building blocks allow for easy creation of cold call scripts, emails, voicemails, and objection responses, saving time while maintaining consistency and effectiveness in messaging.

How does the Sales Scripter software simplify the process of creating sales messages?

It provides a Sales Playbook with pre-built documents and a Sales Message Builder that guides users step-by-step through brainstorming product features, target audiences, pain points, and questions, streamlining the consultative selling process.

Why might consultative selling initially require more planning than product selling?

Because it involves understanding the prospect’s needs, identifying pain points, tailoring messaging, and asking effective questions, which requires more thought and preparation compared to simply presenting product features.

What is the recommended approach when starting to create sales messages for different audiences?

Start with a single, broad sales message for all prospects (crawl), and then refine or create additional messages for specific industries, departments, or job levels as you gain experience (walk/run).