In the new economy, marketers frequently double as salespeople. After all, they have to. Marketers without sales experience miss out on an opportunity to channel a brand or product’s message directly to the client or customer. This is true of the team at my digital agency – every team member must be competent in sales, and if they aren’t, we provide comprehensive sales training to them. Educated and empowered talent is the best investment we can make.
Marketing and sales go hand-in-hand, and it’s important to possess both skills when looking to get your brand out there and attract new clients or customers. But mastering sales can be confusing. Not sure where to start? Read these three tips for being a better marketer and closing the deal every time.
1. Know what your client wants – every time.
Sit back and ask yourself what any one of your clients want to accomplish using your skills. Could you come up with one sentence that truly describes their goals, aspirations, and long-term objectives? Chances are you can’t. After all, clients are sometimes overly enigmatic and lack a clear vision.
How will you ever get to know your client, then? The key is for you to define what your client wants to accomplish for themselves. It’s up to you to ask the tough questions, get several answers, and work with your client to narrow down these various objectives into one, long-term goal. Define for them what they can’t define themselves. Your help will be highly valued and you’ll be viewed as an asset to their business.
2. Skip the lingo, jargon, and other BS. Tell them how you’ll make things easier and more productive.
I mention the importance of reducing web bounce rates and draw a blank stare from my client. Talk in simple terms to avoid making your clients think too much, or worse, confusing them.
It may seem cool to talk in technical or specialized terms, but technicality confuses most people and turns off clients. It also opens opportunities for clients to ask plenty of questions, worry too much, and derail a deal.
Talk and write for the average person, not for your industry. Avoiding overly used technical jargon, lingo, and other tried terms greatly helps the chances of a successful deal.
Jargon is great – for those who have hours a day to research all those confusingly different terms.
3. Be flexible and offer a true deal. There’s no such answer as no deal.
Absolutism won’t close any deals. Not now, not never. You must be ready and willing to compromise and be flexible on key elements of your proposal. The best place is to start is with an enticing offer.
Think of something you can offer clients to build confidence, save time and money, and give them long-term certainty. Business hates uncertainty – it’s a fact. Sometimes a great deal is the difference between a successful or failed deal.