Summary
Modern sales technologies are flexible and dynamic as they develop and exist in a market with rapidly changing conditions. Sales are influenced by a variety of factors: politics, transport, logistics, and the international environment. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a massive impact on commerce and business. Recently, there has been an increase in online platforms and online sellers on these platforms, who conduct their trade and industry in slightly different rules traditional companies are still poorly familiar with. It will undoubtedly change in the future as the online business model has proven to be very flexible.
Such a business does not lose margins, while the traditional company turns too dependent on external conditions. Developing new sales strategies and improving old ones is a pressing issue every day for professionals associated with trading from certain angles. In this regard, it is essential to note that before launching a new sales strategy that tens and hundreds of salespeople will use, it is crucial to conduct quality training that can highlight strategic flaws, controversial details, and ways for further refinement.
Strategy creation includes theoretical development, practical examples, the use of sales scripts, and other supporting mechanisms that will introduce a new strategy to the company. Every company needs to rethink its strategy; otherwise, the loss of many customers is inevitable. Marginality and revenue will immediately decrease, and this will not be the fault of purely economic factors. Owners can solve many profit impairment problems by creating a quality strategy and presenting it to salespeople accurately. These strategies must have a psychological foundation, focused primarily on customer satisfaction. Creating a quality strategy includes a theoretical background, clear goals, and possible templates for sellers to use.
Training Goals
During the initial work on the strategy, three goals are identified that the researchers assume could be easily achieved by staff. During the training, the sellers have to study some aspects of sales psychology, familiarize themselves with the proposed templates, express their opinions, and make corrections. During training, sellers can also work in a team; the fundamentals of sales psychology are the unshakable core of successful sales and an assistant on the way to creating a solid and memorable brand that remains in the buyer’s memory for a long time. Even if ordinary employees are familiar with sales psychology, this means that they can easily cope with stalemates and emergencies face to face without contacting a manager. With such knowledge, employees can unnoticeably argue with buyers and convince them.
During training, one of the main goals is to familiarize yourself and thoroughly study the templates for communicating with customers. A dialogue with a customer is the key to a quick sale of a product or service, and careful handling will remain in the customer’s memory for a long time, and he (or she) will recommend the company to his friends. On the way to achieving this goal, salespeople practice, train their voice, facial expressions, and gestures, and rehearse texts with their colleagues.
Team selling is one of the recent trends; the sellers work together according to the principle of manufacture, and enterprise, which is based on the division of labor. It is vital to establish intra-team communication and understand that all sellers are moving towards the same goal and by the same terms. On the way to achieving this goal, you can use questionnaires that will help determine the strengths and weaknesses of each salesperson, as well as specific activities that they are psychologically comfortable with. Perhaps some of the sellers would not like to communicate with buyers a lot, but this part wants to try themselves to collect information.
Selling Strategy
Exploratory factor analysis is possible in pricing when there are no assumptions about the number of factors and their loads. In this situation, the hidden factor structure is investigated, and there are no hypotheses. Pricing is a complex mechanism that is becoming more understandable for buyers (Victor et al., 2018, p. 11) with the advent of information technology, the Internet, and universal economic literacy. Perhaps the excessive variety will cause trouble for sellers, but it will make their background very powerful in the end.
These strategies include value-based pricing (the seller understands the product’s value to the consumer and how much he (or she) is willing to pay for it) and cost-based pricing (which considers many factors, such as the presentation of the product or service, etc.). Market penetration pricing (suitable for introducing new services or products that have not yet taken root in the market), and market skimming pricing (ideal for situations where the seller understands that the buyer is willing to pay for the brand).
Confirmatory factor analysis is possible with assumptions or hypotheses about the number of factors and their loads. These hypotheses need to be tested to control, for example, the pricing process already mentioned above. For example, the demand for a particular service or product rises in a company. Sellers are wondering what caused the influx of customers. They assume that a company providing similar services has raised prices for some reason.
The confirmatory analysis does confirm that the company has grown the price by a third. Investigators can further assume that this company does not have a stable and famous brand with a good reputation based on the pricing mechanisms. Under these circumstances, buyers are not willing to overpay; often, experts believe that exploratory factor analysis is a continuation or consequence of a confirmatory analysis that has not been successful.
Sales Dialogue Template
During the conversation with the buyer, the seller must demonstrate a thorough and responsible knowledge of the product they are selling: “Dialogue, in its deepest sense, supposes an ethical responsibility on the part of those who engage in it” (Bourgoin, Marchessaux, & Bencherki, 2018, p. 596). The basic seller script for most customers is:
Seller: “Hello, my name is [seller’s name], nice to see you here. Thank you for taking the time to our company and feel free to ask a question”.
The seller or buyer can initiate polite small talk, in which the seller must be careful because the information already received can be used for suggestions and advice.
Buyer: “Do you have options for a small office for four? We are assembling a small team of translators to work on an encyclopedia”.
Seller: “Did you rent the premises before the pandemic? How much did you pay for rent?” // “Why did you decide to change the premises and the company that allocated the premises to you?”
The seller can ask a serious question about the consequences of the pandemic by involving the buyer in the conversation. Buyers love to talk about their problems and how they decided to overcome them. Another vital part of the dialogue can be failover. It is possible to work politely and successfully with each of the refusals, leaving the prospect of purchasing goods or renting premises. Below are several short options in the form of dialogues where the buyer refuses the seller’s product/building/premises.
Buyer: “Thank you, I am satisfied with the building that I rent now.”
Seller: “I understand! Please tell us about the advantages that you see now in this building”. // “Don’t you think that the prices for rent and sale of office space have become prohibitively high due to the pandemic? How much do you pay when renting a building?”
Buyer: “How can I be sure that you are renting me a quality and renovated building?”
Seller: “We are not interested in providing low-quality services, as we work to maintain our reputation. I understand your concern, sometimes landlords defraud customers. I offer you a contract for free technical assistance at any time within the next six months”.
Buyer: “The price is too high!”
Seller: “I understand, these are tough times and small businesses are depressed. It may be difficult to rent a building at first, but in the long term, given the location of the building and its quality, you will be able to realize that profitability has increased”.
Buyer: “I don’t trust your company, never heard of you!”
Seller: “We do not hide information about our origin and success from buyers. We invite you to watch a presentation about us on the Internet, find our website or social networks”.
Team marketing works when one seller can quickly transfer information to another to provide the buyer with the mentioned website and pages on social networks.
Buyer: “I need time to think!”
Seller: “It is important to consider all the proposals and make the right decision. We are offering an 11% discount on office space until the end of this month. Until the end of the week, there is a 50% discount on the second office space for rent”. // “Of course, it is important to consider all the proposals and make the right decision. Then I suggest you open our e-catalog with discounts, website and read reviews about us at your leisure. You will definitely be satisfied!”
Assessment and Ensuring Customer Satisfaction
Sometimes customer satisfaction is brutal to measure in terms of scales and to express in numbers. This situation is also relevant for measuring the feelings, hopes, and sympathies of salespeople who want to work in a team and distribute responsibilities. In general, depending on the specifics of the business and trade, ensuring customer satisfaction can be different, but at the moment, four undeniable ways are most often encountered. These methods are in some way devoid of specifics, and their meaning lies only in general recommendations.
Providing information that is adequate and relevant to realities is a critical aspect of guaranteeing customer satisfaction. If a brand or, moreover, a startup company falls for a lie, usually consumers are not supportive and do not tolerate such an attitude. It is also vital that the product, its instructions, description, origin, and other aspects are transparent to the buyer for his satisfaction. It is psychologically uncomfortable not to understand what a person is dealing with and what he buys for his (or her) own money; therefore, explanations regarding the product or the service provided should always be transparent.
The staff should be polite and friendly. Even if the company has a high-quality product, the inattentive attitude of the team and especially rudeness on their part can quickly reduce sales. If a rude person sells a service or product, the consumer is inclined to leave the establishment where he feels stupid and ridiculous. It is always necessary to remember, in general, the importance of providing high-quality service. Sellers must develop and attend seminars and training on issues of interest to them. Service improvement is a process, and improvement in this area does not stop for a moment in the life of the company and its employees.
References
Bourgoin, A., Marchessaux, F., & Bencherki, N. (2018). We need to talk about strategy: How to conduct an effective strategic dialogue. Business Horizons, 61(4), 587-597.
Victor, V., Joy Thoppan, J., Jeyakumar Nathan, R., & Farkas Maria, F. (2018). Factors influencing consumer behavior and prospective purchase decisions in a dynamic pricing environment—an exploratory factor analysis approach. Social Sciences, 7(9), 1-14.