Selling IT – 5 x Areas To Focus On To Win More Sales
Many Sales Professionals make common mistakes when selling IT services.
They often get down ‘in the weeds’ of specifics and technical talk, and a lot of the time use jargon – which further confuses your potential client, preventing them from taking action.
So, what’s the best way to approach selling IT services?
In this article, you’ll learn what to avoid when selling IT services, and the best approach and positioning needed to help you win more clients on a consistent basis.
Mistakes People Make When Selling IT Services
Some of the more common mistakes people make when selling IT services, are generally two-fold.
First – they focus on selling their features and benefits and talk about what their IT services can do for their potential client.
Although you’ll need to get to a stage where you’re discussing how you can help them – many Sales Professionals do this to early and lose the opportunity and sale.
As per our article in Entrepreneur, we call this ‘Premature Presentation’.
This is when you sell your features and benefits without deep diving into what it actually is your potential client is wanting to buy.
Focusing purely on features and benefits is detrimental to your sales efforts. We’ll discuss what to do instead shortly.
Secondly, many Sales Professionals selling IT services use jargon.
There’s a common misconception out there that by using jargon, it’ll make you ‘seem smart’ and more than capable of doing the work.
Instead – it actually backfires.
When you use language that your potential client doesn’t understand, you confuse them.
And a confused person doesn’t buy.
Selling IT – 5 x Areas To Focus On To Win More Sales
We’ve identified five key areas to help guide you when selling IT services to your potential clients.
Selling IT Services Tip #1 – Qualify Early
If you want to be effective with your time, money and resources when selling IT services, you need to learn how to qualify your potential clients as early as possible.
The reason so many Sales Professionals make this mistake, is because they think that every lead is a potential client; this mindset can in fact hurt your sales, and waste valuable time.
Ensure you have a system and process in place to qualify sales leads.
We recommend using what IBM initially came up with for their Sales Professionals, called BANT. It stands for:
- B: Budget
- A: Authority
- N: Need
- T: Time-frame
To learn how to effectively qualify your sales leads, read the related article below for more detail.
Related article: Qualifying Sales Leads – A Step By Step Guide
Tip #2 – Maintain Rapport
As previously mentioned, one of the things that can quickly derail your selling IT services efforts, is using jargon that your potential client doesn’t understand.
It doesn’t make you look smart – it just makes them feel silly and breaks rapport.
Rapport is a key ingredient for consistent selling, because people buy from people they like and trust.
Instead of using jargon; how can you break the feature and benefit down to demonstrate what it means?
By making your services understandable, you’ll relate to everyone you’re speaking with who many be involved in the buying decision.
Your role as a person selling IT services is to make the complicated, seem uncomplicated.
The easier you simplify, the higher the chance they’ll buy.
Tip #3 – Set A Pre-Frame
Something we teach in our online sales program called The 5% Sales Blueprint, is that you want to set up a pre-frame as soon as possible.
When selling IT services, you’ll most probably have to sit down and have an extensive conversation with your potential clients.
We like to call this deep dive conversation ‘the frame’.
You’ll ask questions to understand where they’re at, the issues they face, where they want to be, and then frame the conversation in a way that shows you to be the solution (if you can in fact help them).
A pre-frame is the conversation to have prior to the deep dive conversation.
In this conversation, you want to set up what they can expect from you, and what you would like to expect from them.
Doing so can minimise the opportunity for objections to come up later, ensure decision makers are present, and also help position you as a specialist rather than just another commodity.
To learn how to set a pre-frame and position yourself correctly, read the article linked directly below.
Further reading: Positioning In Sales – How To Sell Effectively
Selling IT Services Tip #4 – Use A Sales Process
One of the most important things you can learn in sales; whether you’re selling IT services or anything in general, is to use a consistent sales process.
A sales process, also known as a sales framework; is a step by step system that guides your potential client towards the sale, as well as directs you on the steps needed to close the sale.
Many Sales Professionals and Business Owners have inconsistent sales results, because they wing it with their sales process.
By mixing up your process, you’ll have mixed results.
The trick to ensure you’re consistent, is to use a consistent system. Although there are various types of sales processes out there, we teach something called The 5% Sales Blueprint.
The steps include:
- Building rapport
- Setting a pre-frame
- Asking questions to find pain
- Learning about their desired result
- Talking about money
- Presenting your solution
- Handling objections
- Asking for the sale
This system ensures you don’t present any IT service solutions until the very end; when you know exactly what they’re trying to solve or wanting to buy.
Many Sales Professionals selling IT services use an old school, back to front sales process.
They present early, ask questions, and then try and ask for the sale.
Instead, we highly recommend asking questions to reveal deep down what it is they’re trying to resolve. By doing so, you can speak to the actual pain points, rather than what they’re telling you on the surface.
Tip #5 – Sell The Meaning
Finally, our last tip to help you when selling IT services, is to sell what it is they’re actually wanting to buy.
People don’t buy IT services.
They don’t buy your features and benefits either.
Instead – they buy what it will mean when they own a solution.
What does it mean when they own whatever it is that you’re selling?
When presenting your product or service, ensure you effectively demonstrate the meaning of owning whatever it is that you’re selling.
By showing them what it will mean, you’ll alleviate any assumptions – which much like avoiding jargon, will help your potential clients from becoming confused.
Final Thoughts On Selling IT Services
These five tips will help guide you when selling IT services, because they focus on using not only a systematic approach, but also getting to the core reason as to why they want to buy.
If you’re interested in learning more about increasing your closing rate, register for our no cost 7 day sales challenge here.
Want To Close Sales Easier?
Are you committed to closing sales a lot easier, and consistently?
If so, you should check out our self-paced and affordable online sales training program; The 5% Sales Blueprint.
It’ll give you everything you need to close sales consistently.
To learn more, simply click on the link below for more information.
Our Online Sales Training Program – The 5% Sales Blueprint.
