Concept Selling – Tips To Do It Correctly
Sales Professionals and Business Owners who use concept selling as a key ingredient within their sales process, generally win more sales then people who focus purely on the product itself.
But why so?
What is it about concept selling that makes it such a powerful sales tool?
In this article, you’ll learn:
- What is concept selling?
- Why concept selling is a powerful sales tool
- Key sales tips to help guide to with this concept
Concept Selling – Tips To Do It Correctly
What Is Concept Selling?
Put simply, concept selling is a sales approach that shows your ideal clients various uses and benefits of what will happen if they invest in your product or service.
Correctly stated by Business Dictionary; marketing and sales strategies that allow people to come up with their own ideas of what it will mean if they buy, will generally result on no sale at all.
Concept selling gives you the opportunity to dive deeper into what it will mean if they buy – which we’ll touch on in more detail now.
Why Concept Selling Is A Powerful Sales Tool
Concept selling is a powerful sales tool, because it shifts the focus from speaking plainly about features and benefits, to instead something a lot more meaningful.
That is – what will it mean if they buy.
Most Sales Professionals and Business Owners do something we call ‘Premature Presentation’; this is when they present their product or service, without first learning what it actually is a person wants solved.
Contrary to a lot of what is taught out there – people don’t buy products or services.
They don’t even buy features and benefits.
More importantly – they buy what it will mean when they own the benefits of what you’re selling.
Therefore – they’re buying the meaning of owning it.
Concept selling works so well, because you’re speaking to the meaning of owning your product.
By speaking directly to the meaning, you’re removing any assumptions about what they may think it may mean if they invest in you or your company.
Related article: The Psychology Of Sales – Tips To Increase Success
Tips To Guide You With Concept Selling
Below are five tips to help you learn and implement concept selling in more detail.
#1 – Use Stories
Stories are a powerful sales tool, and a must when concept selling.
Selling with stories simply means using stories during your sales conversations, which in turn enhances empathy, rapport, and helps your ideal client see a reason to invest in your product or service.
According to Harvard, there are two distinct reasons why selling with stories works so well.
First – telling stories creates a sense of connection.
Stories build trust, familiarity, and helps your ideal client place themselves being in the same position as the character in your story.
At times; the sales process can be complex, and hard to digest and understand.
Stories help break down the jargon and technicalities and makes it easy to understand and relate to.
Secondly, stories stick.
Because stories are so visual, they also make it a lot easier for your ideal client to retain information.
This way it’ll be easier for them to make a decision; and hopefully a buying decision at that.
For thousands of years, human beings have transferred knowledge and ideas from generation to generation by using storytelling.
Because of this, we’re naturally wired to receive and give information to others by effectively telling stories.
Selling with stories works exactly the same – the more you share, the closer you’ll become to winning the sale.
To learn more about using stories to sell, and how it relates to concept selling, read the linked article below.
Further reading: Selling With Stories – Why It Works So Well
#2 – Find Pain
In order to master concept correctly, you first need to understand what it is a person is moving away from, and why they’re engaging you as a vendor in the first place.
This generally means, that they’re moving away from some kind of pain.
Pain points; in a sales context, are the things that cause discomfort to your potential clients in their business, day to day activities, and their everyday lives.
Everyone has different pain points, and they come in different levels of pain.
Pain points are generally based on different levels of pain; and the measurement for the level of pain will be based on your potential client’s perceptions, and what they categorise their pain points as.
Generally, there are three layers of pain points. These are:
- Technical issues
- An impact on their business
- Personal impact
Most Sales Professionals or Business Owners stay on the surface; which is the technical issues aspect.
The problem with this is, most people are buying to remove themselves of the personal impact of the problem.
By using concept selling, you can demonstrate how investing in your product or service, they’ll rid themselves of each of these layers of pain.
Related article: Pain Points & Sales – Your Ultimate Guide
#3 – Listening Carefully
Concept selling means that you need to be an excellent listener, so that you can listen to whether or not they’re agreeing and aligning with your concept.
The problem with most people, is they listen to respond; versus listen to understand and empathise. An excellent Sales Professional and trusted advisor however will listen to be present, and truly digest and learn what it is their client is actually telling them.
They’ll get clarity before making assumptions and ask further probing questions to learn the underlying reasoning for their client’s viewpoint.
Trusted advisors know that it’s not about being right; but more importantly, being present and actually hearing what people are saying.
Related article: How To Position Yourself As A Trusted Advisor
#4 – Ask Excellent Questions
Something that separates mediocre salespeople from true professionals, is that the professionals know how to ask excellent questions to help ideal clients sell themselves.
When speaking with your potential clients, we recommend using questions that cover:
- Learning how they buy
- Qualifying questions
- Finding pain
- Handling objections
- Asking for the sale
Sales probing questions help with concept selling, because it’ll give you all the information you need to then display and demonstrate how your product or service will bridge the gap from where they are, to where they need to be.
Further reading: Sales Probing Questions – 20 x To Use Daily
#5 – A Defined Sales Process
The most powerful tool in your sales arsenal, is by far the use of a consistent and respective framework called a sales process.
A sales process is a step by step system, that’ll help guide you and your potential client on a journey towards a decision.
A sales process will help you with concept selling, because a good sales process will focus on learning pain, their ideal outcomes, who the decision makers are to get there, and what they have investment wise to reach their solution.
Once these items are clear, it’ll be a lot easier to use concept selling by sharing how your product or service will alleviate any issues and give them their desired outcomes.
Final Thoughts On Concept Selling
Concept selling is an excellent ingredient to use as a part of your sales process, because much like selling with stories; it gets to the meaning behind what they’re actually buying.
Another handy tip is to research your ideal client’s industry, interests, and roadblocks that may be hindering their progress.
Knowing some of these things up front, can help you with concept selling because you’ll know what kind of concepts to share in your presentation stage.
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