Turning interest into need: Education from sales to customer

Enthusiasm is catchy and knowledge is power. When you combine those two things — knowledge and enthusiasm about the product — you create a winning combination that can positively impact sales and get your teams excited.

And this might just be the equation your salespeople need in order to turn potential customers, who are merely interested in a product, to actual customers who make a purchase of your product or service. Inarguably, it is difficult to effectively sell to a customer if we cannot show how a particular product will address his or her needs.

This post hopes to outline the benefits of product knowledge, and how that works within enthusiastic teams in order to drive sales.

How managers can empower sales teams

It’s simple, really. The more product knowledge your sales teams have, the more likelihood they have of closing the deal and making a sale, right? Right! But they can’t do it alone. Without the guidance of hands-on managers, as well as an established email tracking tool, it is difficult for many salespeople to be successful.

Team leaders and managers can boost the confidence and enthusiasm of their salespeople by giving them the tools they need to communicate with potential customers and close the deal. This is why education is so important.

Activities such as role playing can provide managers and teams with a real world understanding of how to communicate effectively with potential customers. Because you’ve likely already identified a target audience, you’re aware of what interests them and what kind of messages to use. By being consistent in those messages, as well as providing different types of sales collateral, such as case studies or demos, managers can develop driven sales reps who impact the bottom line of your business.

Ways to market to potential customers

Being well versed in not only your products, but similar products sold by competitors, allows you to easily counter objections. Marketing literature, training sessions, testimonials, and practical use implications are all important ways that sales teams can gain product knowledge. It is important to understand how the product is made, the value of the product, how the product should and can be used, and what products work well together.

Have you ever tried using content or success stories as a way to market your products within teams or to prospects? If so, you know that type of messaging has the potential to generate excitement for a particular product or service.

Seeing someone completely enthusiastic about a product, and seeing concrete examples of the its effectiveness, is one of the best selling tools in your arsenal. As you generate excitement for the product, you remove any uncertainty the product may not be the best solution for that customer.

There are many different ways to effectively market to customers and complete that sale, but by articulating the problem that your service or product solves, and creating personalized messaging for them, or use easy-to-send email templates, you’ll be focused on selling the benefits of your product or service, and not just the features.

This streamlined and effective communications workflow is the simplest way to turn a customer’s want into a need. Whether it’s playbooks or pricing plans, or any other kind of document, automated personalization can be the salesperson’s greatest asset.

But the bottom line is that the easiest way to become enthusiastic is to truly believe in the product you and your teams are selling. And it’s nearly impossible to believe in the product, unless you’re aware and knowledgeable of all its features, benefits, uses and so on. Remember, the first sale you make is yourself; the second sale is the product. If prospects believe in you, they will believe in what you are selling.

When knowing the purchasing process helps your team

Many times, potential customers simply want to know what the logical steps in the purchasing process are, and this is another aspect where product knowledge can be beneficial. By knowing the ins and outs of what you are selling, your teams have the potential to maximize efficiency by balancing the creation of personalized emails and messages with effective automation.

By tiering your accounts, and personalizing the information sent to priority, top-tier prospects, teams can maximize conversions and have more impactful conversations with potential customers. Whether its proposals or other important documents, the turnaround time should be quick and easy, in order to capitalize on those opportunities.

PandaDoc has improved long and arduous tasks into efficient and seamless ones with their document creation process.

Read our success story to see how PandaDoc proposal solution shortened turnaround times and doubled iOffice’s customer base.