Lately, I noticed with some salespeople the irony of, on the one hand, persuading everyday customers to change, but, on the other hand, they have difficulties themselves with making changes. Although they have seen a decline in their closing ratios, to make that deliberating change from their traditional way of selling to a modern sales approach is a challenge for many. In a way, this is strange, because every month your paycheck depends on your success in closing deals.
Making a change in how you sell is hard for everyone because you have developed ingrained habits. You believe in what you know well and not in what is new and unfamiliar. I want to help you with making it more transparent in comparing the traditional sales approach with the modern sales approach. Not in too many words – just an overview and key differences. Which one do you believe have the best chance to improve your closing ratios?
| Traditional | Modern | |
| Your focus | pain-points and dissatisfaction | the customer’s business results |
| You help to see | why us? | why change? |
| Your questioning | try to get the buyer interested in you | becoming interested in your buyer’s challenges and how you can help |
| Your are competing with | your main competitors | views of other stakeholders in the customer’s organisation |
| You are selling | with the seller’s perspective | with the buyer’s perspective |
| Who is discovering? | you | your customer |
| Key persuading skill | sales acumen | business acumen |
| Relying on | magic wand and closing tricks | insights and ideas that shine a different perspective on the customer’s challenges |
| Selling | products and solutions | reason to explore a change |
| Offered value | transactional | strategic |
| What the buyer experiences | an expert on solutions | a value creator and a trusted advisor |
| At the end of the meeting | getting pushed on price | gaining commitment to involve more stakeholders |
| Closing ratio | 20-30% | 65 – 75% |
Do the maths; you need to work twice as hard using the traditional sales approach. The challenge is that the modern sales approach is harder to learn. It needs your time investment. It requires reading blogs, books, listening to podcasts and doing the work going through training modules. You will have to do more research for every meeting. You cannot wing your meetings.
Above all, like you try to convince your customers to make a change, you first need to answer the Why Change? question yourself. Starting with the end in mind, which door will you choose to improve your closing ratio?
Feel free to share with your sales colleagues.