Consultative Selling: How Retail POS VARs can Implement this Approach in 2019
A VAR has a multi-faceted job. You are an expert consultant, trusted advisor, hardworking servicer, and sometimes, even a personal therapist. Selling your solutions also means selling your skills, and to accomplish this, you need to take a consultative selling approach.
Here is how you can do this:
Show Commitment
The process of “solutions selling” requires you to spend more time getting to know and understand your customer and their needs than discussing your products. Before you even discuss a single feature or recommend a product, you first need to listen.
When your customers feel that you truly understand what their needs are, you send a powerful message that you are willing to go above and beyond what your competitors can do. Take a consultative selling approach, and make it a priority to answer any questions your prospect has about your solutions.
The days of finding success by going punch for punch with features are over – technology is advancing too quickly. Features that have competitive advantages today could lose those advantages tomorrow once other providers develop the same tool.
Develop a Superior Understanding of Your Vertical
How well do you really know your prospects and their needs? If you aren’t as familiar with their verticals as you are with others, you could be losing out. Consultative selling is all about gaining deep insights into prospects and clients, their behavior, and even their likelihood of making a purchase.
The more you can prove you know about their industry, the more credible you will be to your prospects, and the more they will trust your insight and experience. You’ll be better able to answer their questions and offer concrete advice.
If this is challenging for all industries, try finding your niche and focus on what you know best.
If your strong point is selling to a pizza vertical, know the business inside and out. Know how many terminals the client should have (1 per phone line), and know how to determine the number of phone lines (based on square footage, staffing, production capabilities for example). If you only know the pizza industry, then invest 100% of your energy into that industry. Understand it inside and out, so you can understand each and every way your solution can meet their needs.
If you can find the sweet spot – the unique quality your prospect needs, and can demonstrate how your solution can address it, you position yourself ahead of your competitors, and are more likely to win the sale.
Showcase Success Stories
When your product or service is needed, outlining a compelling story goes a long way towards convincing prospect that your product or service provides the best value. Consultative selling requires you to build a compelling case, and put the customer at the center.
Your success story should demonstrate what the customer’s needs are, how they are similar to your prospect’s needs, and how you successfully solved the issues. Knowing how another customer found success with your product helps them visualize themselves finding the same success.
Bring the “Value-Add” to the Table
Don’t just be seen as a provider of hardware and software. Become a valued resource that they can turn to for expert advice, industry knowledge, and technical support. Your prospects want an expert to turn to for sage wisdom, in addition to the products you are selling. Becoming this resource is the foundation of consultative selling.
Don’t pigeonhole yourself. Make sure your line card has a wide array of various products that can address different needs that your prospects are looking for. If you only sell a single product set, you limit your ability to help clients overcome different obstacles. Prevent them from turning to your competitors by offering more products and more value.
For example, the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory deploys the Aures Yuno Windows terminal that comes in a color that is the same purple as their logo. This modern unit also saves counter space by allowing for a printer to be positioned directly below the screen. By offering point of sale software that is “hardware agnostic” and offering a wide variety of hardware products, you can win more sales by being able to deliver a “package” that not only solves the challenges of your customers, but also helps strengthen their brand.
Win Them Over
Consultative selling is about building a rapport with prospects by demonstrating your professionalism and commitment to helping restauranteurs grow their business. That alone is half the battle to winning over a sale. The other half is making sure you provide powerful software with the features and affordability that’s right for your customers.
Learn more about RPOWER’s reseller program.