Empower, Engage, Experience – 3Es of Selling Effectively

We are living in a world that is more flat now than it was a couple of decades ago. Thanks to the advancement in information, web and communication technologies, it is a great environment now to do business in a global market. People can access any part of the world, connect and share views, beliefs and opinions. Global enterprises can access talent all over the world to spread their business empire and to enter new markets. Startups have same level of access to talents, technologies and investments to build disruptive business models and solutions for the market.

However, this situation also throws up interesting challenges on how you can effectively sell in a dynamic business environment. For the past 10 years, I have been into Lead Generation, Sales and Business Development. This involves reaching out to the targeted audience in the Global Market for new business acquisition, on a daily basis. This is a great learning experience as I talk to buyers in geographically dispersed locations and from diverse cultural backgrounds.

What I have learned is that the three Es are key drivers for influencing a decision in your favour. They are – Empower, Engage and Experience. Let us see how these will help you sell effectively.

Empower: Your buyers know you better than ever before. How is that? They research, shortlist their service providers or vendors (sellers) and know who to reach out to for their problems or challenges. If they don’t see real value in spending time with you, they will completely close you out and there is no second chance.

Therefore, do not talk about your products or services.

Instead, talk about:

• How you can help your buyers achieve their goals.
• How they can approach their problems and find solutions or results.

To do this, equip yourself on the following and empower your buyers:

• What are the external factors or industry trends affecting his industry/domain? Are there any good practices? Research and find out.
• How does the buyer’s industry operate? What is unique about that industry? Get down to the basics.
• What is key responsibility of the person you are talking to in their organization? Know his profile.
• What are their priorities and what do they want to achieve? Learn about their goals.
• How they are currently performing and what is their “status quo”? Check their background.
• What they value most? Understand any specific preferences.
• What are they struggling or constrained to accomplish? Find out their most pressing need.
• What are your achievements in sorting out similar situations? Talk about your success stories in providing solutions that is relevant to their situation.

Here is one of my favorite video on “Selling to Executives – Prepare or Die”

Before approaching your customer, do your homework. When you actually approach them, go with a consultative rather than a prescriptive mindset, so that you can uncover information that will be useful to prospect further and take logical next steps.

When you do this, two things will surely happen:

• You gain the customer’s respect
• The customer starts listening and trusting your information

When you accomplish those two things, you become a reliable person to approach for finding solutions to their problems.

Engage: We work in a multi-cultural environment where it is imperative to understand and respect people coming from diverse cultural backgrounds. As sales professionals, you need to learn about the cultural aspects of your buyers to understand them better and explore opportunities.

The best way to engage with your buyer is to:

• Listen and pay attention to how they treat, communicate and behave with you in each conversation.
• Observe them closely and watch out for words that they often use to describe their challenges or problems.
• Understand how your customer feels about their business.

Develop ‘Emotional Intelligence’ to recognize emotions in others so that you can handle relationships better. This is because every human is an emotional person and the feel factor is an important indicator in the sales process to get insights on the customer’s pain points.

The groundbreaking book on Emotional Intelligence by “Daniel Goleman” was a revelation for me. It is a must read for every business leader. If you understand and manage emotions in others, you can connect and engage with them better, influence their actions and help them make better decisions.

Experience: Experience is not the professional experience but the buyers experience when dealing with you in the entire buying process. The experience that the customer has acquired in the entire sales process with you will ultimately lead to the final result. Here are some questions that your buyers will most likely ask themselves when they deal with you.

1. Is this person knowledgeable and has a good understanding of my business?
2. Is he providing relevant and accurate information?
3. Does he understand my requirement and has the ability to come up with solutions?
4. Does he stick to his commitments?
5. Can I trust and rely on this person for achieving my goals?
6. Is he genuinely looking to add value to my business?
7. Does he have the attitude to put customer priorities first?

When you address those questions effectively, you create a better impression about yourself and the organization you represent. They are looking at your organization’s capabilities through - the way you communicate, behave and act. These values create a good impression in your buyer’s mind and eventually it translates to better experience with your company.

Following the 3Es will definitely give you a competitive advantage over your competition/peers. You are most likely to be on top of the buyers list to seal the deal. In spite of doing all this, you may lose the deal and the reasons could be beyond your control. At the end of the day, you walk away with gaining your customer’s respect and with the option of approaching them anytime in future for business opportunities. By practicing these 3Es, I believe everyone can improve their competency and sales effectiveness. I certainly have!