Selling Technology In Today’s Business World

In today’s market, it’s no longer what you sell, but how you sell that determines your success. Value no longer resides in the technology rather in the manner in which it is sold.

In order to keep up with these market changes, everyone in your organisation must adapt their sales pitches to involve more than simply what is inherent in the product, and must show customers the value that you can provide that cant be found anywhere else.

Although companies can often see that customer buying patterns are changing, the often fail to adapt accordingly. Lots of organisations don’t understand how drastic these changes actually are, or that they are not necessarily setting a trend and can very easily change.

Businesses that are aware of these changes will fall into some common traps. One of which being when you are able to speak to a prospective customer and you know your time with the prospect will be short, you spew out as many features of your company’s solution as you can in the minute or two that you have the prospect on the phone.

If you meet with a prospect face to face then you will probably have a bit more time but many salespeople still rush to squeeze in as many features of the product as they can, in the belief that if you can get the person to see how superior your solution is to its competitors they will buy it. And sometimes they do.

However, research has shown that these sales have almost no correlation with technological advancements or how products differentiate from each other, but are mostly based on price and how easily they can get hold of the product on the whole.

Despite this, many company executives are still trying to hang on to the idea that new versions of technology with impressive new functions will make them stand out from their competitors, but the hard truth is that most consumers don’t really see any difference between suppliers of technology, and so price will usually be the deciding factor for most customers.

The main thing to remember is to try and do more than just reel off a sales pitch about what is inherent in the product and deliver better, more measurable outcomes for customers to try to fundamentally change the buyer/seller interaction. Those who adopt this approach will be presented with a fertile and virtually untapped marketplace as most technology businesses are still selling information not insight.

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