Having a high-performing sales department requires a lot of planning and a carefully thought-out structure with how to operate. There are multiple different sales techniques businesses use to try and maximise the performance of their business and sales department, but what is the best technique? This article will explore the different sales techniques that businesses use, discussing how your business can choose the technique that will best work for you.

What is a sales technique?

A sales technique is a selling method used by a sales representative or a sales team to try and win as many deals as possible, generating revenue for the business. Sales techniques are usually applied to parts of a sales process to improve efficiency, leading to an increase in the likelihood that deals will be won. There are multiple different sales techniques that different businesses use, and it is unlikely that one sales technique will fit all businesses. With that covered, the rest of this article will explore different popular sales techniques used by businesses.

The SPIN selling technique

The SPIN selling technique businesses use is based on a sales team asking the right questions to clients. SPIN is an acronym for asking clients different questions based on their situation, problem, implication, and need payoff (SPIN). By asking your clients these questions, you let the buyer do the talking, keeping them engaged and sparking their interest in your product. As Crunchbase shares, the SPIN selling technique was found to be effective from an analysis of 35,000 sales calls by 10,000 salespeople, in 23 countries for over 12 years.  

  • First, you ask a client a question to find out their situation to see if the product you are offering suits their needs.
  • Next, you ask a question to make your client aware of their problem.
  • After, you focus a question on how the implication of this problem will affect the client’s business.
  • Lastly, you ask your “need payoff” question to your customer. This will make them identify the benefits your product or service will bring them to solve the problem.

With this technique, you will be able to identify if your product can help a prospect’s situation, helping you pinpoint key areas of a client’s query to focus on to increase the chances you make a sale.

Challenger sales technique

The challenger sale technique is based on research by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson, who are co-authors of the book “The Challenger Sale”. This book explained research where B2B salespeople were split into 5 personas, which were relationship builders, hard workers, lone wolves, reactive problem solvers and challengers. After an in-depth assessment, it was found that the challenger sales persona was by far the most successful.

This sales technique steers away from the idea that it is good to build a relationship with customers and instead believes sales representatives should teach, tailor, and take control of their clients.

  • Teach – The first stage of this 3-step process is to educate your prospect on how to overcome the challenge they have in their business. You must have a competitive mindset and get customers to rethink their business’s needs.
  • Tailor – Next, each team member a customer may interact with in the sales funnel must have a tailored approach to the customer. Sales representatives must make sure that their approach to the customer is coherent with the organisation’s goals and client’s needs to be able to tailor the service to them.
  • Take control – Lastly, you must take control of the deal to close it. If a prospect pushes back, shift the conversation from price to the value of the product. This must happen to challenge the prospects thinking.

This technique is effective, with your business taking a firm stance on the value and quality of its product or service to offer a mutually beneficial deal to clients. As highlighted by Soco, 40% of high sales performers primarily use the challenger-style sales technique.

SNAP selling technique

The SNAP selling technique focuses on understanding your prospect’s thoughts and priorities to gain their trust when winning a deal. The SNAP acronym stands for simple, invaluable, align and priorities. This shows how this technique aims to provide information on a product that aligns with their needs and priorities. To effectively use this technique, a sales department must focus on informing customers about how their product or service helps the client’s needs. Some tips to use the SNAP technique effectively are:

  • Understand the goals and objectives of your client – You must make sure you know why your client may need your product to be able to offer a service tailored to them.
  • Keep your information simple – It is important to respect your buyers’ time by giving them a fast efficient service with easily digestible information on how your product or service will help them.
  • Always align needs and product – Make sure that the product or service you are offering always aligns well with your customer’s needs to quickly gain access to the decision maker.
  • Focus on selling and not impressing – Keep the information tailored to the client’s needs and only make points on benefits specific to the customer’s circumstances to give them a personalised service.

The Sandler selling technique

Unlike the other techniques, the Sandler sales technique is based on the idea that a prospect will have to convince the seller that they are eligible for the product or service being sold to them. With this technique, the seller will be asking questions to determine whether potential buyers’ needs suit the product. If it is found that the client is not eligible, the seller will quickly inform them to not waste any further time. For the Sandler technique to be successful, these tips must be followed:

  • The sales representative must be trustworthy
  • The seller will act in the best interests of both them and the buyer
  • Let the buyer know exactly how the product can solve their issue
  • The sales representative must be genuinely interested in the challenges the buyer is facing

How can these techniques benefit from CRM Software?

All of these different sales techniques are based on the idea of getting to understand your customer well by starting a dialogue with them, and CRM software makes this a streamlined process. CRM software allows businesses to get better data visibility, with Webinar Care sharing a statistic that 74% of businesses found that CRM software gave them improved access to their customer data. This section will look at how this increased data visibility can help a business improve and streamline its sales technique.

Improved data visibility on customers

Sales automation CRM software is able to record and store customer information in an accessible way for staff. This will help sales representatives get a better understanding of their customers before and during their interactions. These streamlines areas for each of the sales techniques, making sales teams work more efficiently.

Enables leadership to make data-driven decisions

Through increased data visibility, the leadership of a business is able to make data-driven decisions. Gaining insightful information on the performance of the sales funnel, for example, where deals are being lost, can be viewed by leadership. As a result, businesses can make low-risk data-driven decisions regarding what areas of the business to invest in to get the highest sales performance. Moreover, leadership can view the performance of staff, viewing how many deals are being won and lost by individual sales representatives, and where in the sales process this is happening. This will give your business useful insights into any adjustments that may need to be made to your sales technique and structure, to get your sales department operating at its full potential.

Enhance your sales process with TEB

TEB is a sales automated CRM software that will completely transform your sales process, regardless of the sales techniques employed at your business. TEB streamlines the entire sales funnel, greatly increasing the productivity and efficiency of your entire sales process. Furthermore, TEB enables your business to make low-risk data-driven decisions to get ahead in your industry. TEB achieves this through multiple unique features such as:

  • Automate all your sales pipelines for better efficiency – Kanban-style drag-and-drop management to make your sales pipelines more productive
  • Generate over 250+ reports – Increase your data visibility to make well-informed decisions
  • Enables you to generate custom reports – View the information your business needs  
  • Organise leads with funnels and filters – Organise your leads in order of priority to best suit your business
  • Create and manage sales teams – Create as many different sales teams as you want to suit your business

To learn more about TEB, and see first-hand all the features that can enhance your sales funnel, get in touch with us to request a call.

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