Buyer motivation is a key area that all sales professionals are looking at keenly in order to influence the buying process. A consumer’s need to buy a product or pay for a service is ultimately driven by their personal circumstances, but a salesperson can still stimulate the desire and develop a compelling reason for the customer to buy.

Good salesmanship lies not in selling the product itself but in selling the benefits of the product to the customer. It should be tailored according to the customer’s needs; and they should be made aware of the product’s value proposition. It’s important to win the customer’s confidence in order to complete a sale successfully. An effective value proposition is the one that drives forward the relationship between a brand and the consumer, and influences their buying decisions.

To create a buying need, it’s important to first understand the target market. Companies must get to know their customers and what motivates them to buy. Market research is a great tool to map the market and to gauge consumer experience. It’s essential for a company to identify the gaps in service and assess how they can change that for their customers. If a customer has a problem, give them a solution; however, the product must be superior to what the competitors are offering and a strong emphasis must be laid on the product’s unique benefits. It is easy to discard this step in favour of more elaborate sales techniques, but in the first month of a new year, it’s always worth revisiting the basics.

Rather than selling the product, sell the concept of the product to the customer. The consumer is more likely to be influenced into buying if they are shown the bigger picture.

So how can you motivate a customer to buy your product or service?

• Create the need for the product or service in the customer’s mind

• Show how it will generate value for them

• Differentiate the product from what’s available in the market

• Outline value proposition of the product clearly

• Sell the benefits associated with the product in terms of costs savings, increased customer
satisfaction, etc.

Triggering the motivation to buy is the most important step in the buying process. It is an essential part of the customer’s journey; from being introduced to the product to making the buying decision.

Have you successfully influenced a customer’s buying decision? How?

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Even if your holiday sales broke all records, you’d probably still have some targets to meet in the days and weeks after the big day itself. Done right, post-Christmas sales aren’t just for the retail sector. They can help to generate revenue, boost cash flow and continue relationships with customers, whichever industry you work in. To get the most from this period, though, you need to have planned your tactics in advance.

First, decide on your goals. Will you try to sell something specific, or focus on a specific customer? For retail stores, the target is usually to shift any left over Christmas stock, ready for the new year. Ensure your targets are just as clear.

Next, create some unique offers that will attract customers. Unlike retailers, who have to compete on price, you could choose to offer demos, or adjust your payment terms. For big businesses, for example, allowing them to be billed later could be enough to get a sale.

Now it’s time to identify your contact. Who is the best person at the company to make your offer too? Do you already know them? How could you get introduced to them? Identify who has already bought from you, and who has expressed interest. This is a stage that is often forgotten in the post-Christmas haze, so you’ll get ahead if you think about it now.

Finally, be aware of any existing offers you have on. For example, you might already offer 60-days of support for free, or price-match competitors. Make sure that these won’t affect your post-Christmas deals, or end up making your prices cheaper than you wanted them.

Will you be running post-Christmas sales this year?

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Traditional high street shops are preparing to combat online retailers by using new mobile technologies in the run up to Christmas, according to an international commerce specialist.

High street retailers will use mobile apps to monitor customer behaviour and attempt to “steal” shoppers from rival stores. The news comes following industry predictions that online retailers are set to take £10 billion in the lead-up to Christmas for the first time ever, causing the high street to need to find new and exciting ways to protect their market share.

So what do technologies should sales people be telling their customers about?

Geolocation is definitely the most popular, and it’s an offering only a physical retailer can take advantage of. If a customer transmits their location to a retailer, the retailer can respond with nearby stores, deals and stock levels. They can let their customer know that their order is ready to collect, or that there are tables free. They can also entice nearby shoppers in-store by having flash sales, or sending exclusive offers with a certain radius.

Online competitions, mobile payment options and interactive shopping environments are other alternatives that savvy salespeople may be able to interest their customers in, especially just before such a crucial sales period.

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Speculations are rife that traditional salespeople will be a thing of the past as more and more businesses adopt advanced digital platforms to reach out to their customers. It is not the salespeople but in fact the traditional sales techniques that are fast becoming redundant in today’s technically advanced world.

As technology continues to shape the modern environment, it’s becoming obvious to sellers that they cannot attract customers by applying conventional sales methods.

The pressure to provide fast, reliable and competitive service is always on for the vendor. To stay ahead in the competition, sellers are constantly deploying resources and investing capital. Even though there is a good reason for doing this, sellers most often forget ‘it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it’ that makes all the difference.

So how can you use technology to your advantage?

Modernize: Companies that integrate marketing automation into their process-flows have a better competitive edge. These days, customers often make buying decisions based on their research online; this has made one-on-one selling an obsolete concept. But a salesperson that can study their customers’ buying patterns and learn how they are interacting with the brand will be able to offer more targeted solutions, and make more sales.

Personalised interaction: The best customer is the returning customer; this adage applies to all businesses. New business is good but it’s proved that the existing clientele is the main money-driving machine behind successful companies. After-sales interaction is just as important as pre-sale engagement. Sending automated updates via emails, web links, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media channels is vital for the growth of the business. Personalising these emails with the customer’s name and details about their birthday, even if done using automated services such as email HTML, is likely to increase sales.

Digital Marketing: The use of the web based applications to inform customers about upcoming events, exhibitions, and conferences have become standard. It gives the business the required visibility and creates brand recognition. Developing email campaigns and e-newsletters that can be circulated to customers on an ongoing basis helps in winning the client’s business, as well as keeps them interested in the company’s growth.

Effective use of CRM: Utilising a customer relationship management system is the absolute must in business nowadays. The ability to connect with consumers efficiently and in a timely manner is the key to running a successful company. It’s worth knowing a customer’s feedback in order to improve services and to enhance overall customer experience.

Sales as a profession is changing; it’s come of age, hence it’s important for salespeople to evolve with it. Technology has bestowed a very effective tool upon the modern workforce; it’s now up to us to use it effectively to drive successful businesses in this global marketplace.

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The technology boom has positively impacted retailers across the world and almost doubled their annual sales figures. A survey conducted by Deloitte showed some very powerful evidence to back this claim. Smartphones influence 5.1% of annual retail sales and this is just the start, trade pundits predict this figure will double in the coming years.

To engage with consumers, more and more sellers are adopting technology based services. The intention is to get more visibility and to reach a wider consumer base. Retailers who still follow conventional methods to make sales are quickly losing out and lagging behind.

Deloitte’s study suggests that 61% of smartphone owners use their phones to shop at stores and nearly 48% of smartphone users agreed that their phones influence their decision to buy a product. Using traditional methods of sale may help in retaining current clientele but it does not present the opportunity to attract new customers.

In this day and age, where everything is instant and at the tip of the consumer’s fingertips; technology backed techniques to drive sales are now the industry standard. To market a product or service to the right audience in less time, in the most cost effective manner has taken precedence over any other aspect of retail sales.

Sellers have started focusing on becoming more digitally advanced in order to increase their sales. Mobile shopping apps allow stores to get a substantial amount of business nowadays than any other method used previously. The research conducted by Deloitte confirmed that smartphone users who use shopping apps are more likely to convert and make a purchase in the store than non-smartphone users. The use of mobile phones is evidently influencing consumer behaviour. It is the right time when retailers are getting in and taking full advantage of this technology fuelled consumerism to push their sales even further. This trend will only see an upward movement with time. Deloitte forecasts that by 2016, total retail sales will grow by 19% due to use of smartphones by consumers for buying purposes.

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If you told your customers that you could tell them the most effective day to post their promotions on, or that you could build a real-time picture of exactly what their customers want, do you think they’d buy?

Thanks to big data, unveiling this kind of vital information is more possible than ever. Projects that amass and analyse vast amounts of data are being adopted by firms across the world, with 18% of midmarket firms having already invested in big data, and 25% more due to invest in 2014. There’s no denying that big data is as popular as ever – but if you are selling big data without talking hardware, you are missing out.

Big data is complex. It’s more than just large quantities of data – it’s data that comes from a wide range of sources at incredible speeds. Traditional systems can struggle to deal with this increased velocity and volume. While conversations about big data typically focus on analytics software, it’s worth talking about commodities, too.

When it comes to infrastructure, the platform chosen needs to be able to manage diverse virtual resources, whilst maximising the productivity of a limited pool of resources. For midmarket companies who can’t afford a major IT transformation, they also need a hardware option that is easy to deploy, and reasonably priced. A turnkey solution, if you like, that takes very little operation but will automatically ingest data and produce information. Selling a company this plug-and-play vision is much easier. It reassures the customer that they will avoid the stress and frustrations of a failing IT system, and gets them ready for the future, too.

Have you found selling infrastructure easier when you combine it with big data?

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Cloud computing has taken the corporate world by storm. According to a recent study conducted by IBM, 67% of companies with a revenue of under £1 million have adopted the cloud at some level, and many of those companies are already looking to do more than just save money on IT. IBM’s “The Power of Cloud” report found that 16% of respondents plan to use the cloud to innovate. How do you sell innovation benefits to potential buyers, though?

The story of Drivewyze, a Canadian start-up, has become one of the easiest case –study examples of selling the innovation benefits of cloud computing. With an estimated 1.2 million trucking companies in the US, moving nearly 10 billion tons of freight, it’s no wonder that the trucking industry is so important to the American economy. That means maintaining road safety for trucks and other vehicles is an absolute priority for law enforcement agencies. As part of this move, truckers must stop at roadside inspection stations which aim to identify unsafe vehicles. This obviously causes delays.

In an attempt to reduce those delays, Drivewyze piloted a hands-free application that offered a safe and secure way for truckers to request and receive bypass clearance. Drivewyze Preclear uses GPS, cellular and internet networks to verify safety information on trucks, and allow them to bypass if security requirements are met.

Drivewyze used the cloud to extend their existing business ideas, and have become a household name thanks to their great idea. It makes them a really easy way to explain cloud innovation, and a great example of how well it can go if it’s supported from within the business. With the number of companies using the cloud to innovate expected to jump from 16% to 35% over the next two years, it’s a great time to start selling the benefits of innovation.

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The Gartner Outsourcing Summit 2013 came up with some interesting data on the effect of digitisation on IT sourcing.

Surprisingly, 90% of IT budgets could soon be sent outside of the IT department by 2020, to be controlled by business executives. Trends in digitisation and consumerisation are responsible for the shift in control.

Cloud, mobile, social and analytics are all examples of technology that will be moving out of the remit of IT and into the wider business. Gartner analyst Frank Ridder predicted that in 2014, executives from non-IT backgrounds will begin taking on tech procurement abilities. This will lead to changes in the traditional procurement structure, in order to avoid the risk of improper sourcing.

“The ‘no clue’ buyer has arrived. They buy what they want, but do not know how to buy it,” said Ridder, referencing the fact that potentially uninformed business departments will not initially have the knowledge of sourcing best practice. Combine this with the data that says most business executives want to mirror personal technology usage in the workplace and the chance for inefficient purchasing is steep.

CIOs polled by Gartner said that currently 25% of the IT budget is controlled outside of the IT department. By 2015 it is believed that 40% will pass over, before finally arriving at the figure of 90% being out of IT’s control. It is described as an inevitable rather than a possibility that digitising customer services will lead to a reduction in reducing back-off IT costs. The subsequent service industrialisation will free up funding, which will go onto improving digital offerings through investment.

“The money has to be found because CIOs are already planning to increase spending on IT to change the business. The focus for European CIOs for the next few years will be profitability and growth” said Gartner analyst, Claudio Da Rold. 47% of CEOs have a digital strategy at the moment, with that number rising to 80% by 2015. Once again, the drivers behind this will be cloud, social, mobile and analytics.

To make the largest changes and show the best use of innovation, the current allocation of budget will need to be rebalanced. Currently 70% of the budget is spent on running the business, while 30% goes on changes and improvements. A recommended ratio of 50:50 would better serve CEOs to get the balance between functionality and future proofing.

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Getting your customers to sign up to a service that requires them to relinquish control of 70% of their code requires a lot of trust and confidence. While the latest research suggests that businesses across the UK are interested in PaaS, your selling technique will need to be just right to get them to invest at this stage.

Industry experts suggest that around 70% of software adds no differential business advantage at all. It’s simply software that is required to get the job done. PaaS allows businesses to focus on the 30% of software that does add competitive advantage, making them much more efficient.

The answer to selling PaaS with ease isn’t about understanding the coding more. It’s about using data to sell the benefits, and reassuring the customer that this is the perfect solution for them. Just keeping data in a cloud isn’t typically enough to encourage a customer to buy.

The key benefits that you should be using to sell include:

· Analytics. Businesses like analytics, and the ability to report on what works and what doesn’t. Express how easy it is to find and monitor data, and create excellent reports.

· Integration. No software is an island, and everything needs to integrate with something. Using PaaS makes this integration simple. Have a good knowledge of the key systems your customer is likely to use, and mention whether your PaaS system is integrated with them, or can be. Allowing your customer to use their favourite systems in exchange for keeping their data in your cloud is a very successful selling technique.

· Data Aggregation. Benchmarks are vital to businesses, and they get these through looking at the same data across many customers. Refining this process and making it as efficient as possible is a big business ambition. If your PaaS service can offer this, you’ll be cutting costs as well as delivering valuable data. SalesForce, for example, integrates with Jigsaw. This shows information about any contact that you add to the database, including contact details and job information.

· Other vital applications. These aren’t the only ways PaaS can be used. It could also be used for Disaster Recovery – not only backing up immediate data, but also cloud-based data. Archiving systems are always in demand, and a reduced-functionality front end for use during maintenance is always a popular option. Find ways to meet the business’s needs, and your customer won’t hesitate to buy.

What benefits are you finding the most effective in PaaS sales at the moment?

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