Customer-centric selling
The CustomerCentric sales methodology promotes factual conversations with prospective customers to identify their needs and find solutions that solve their problems. The salesperson targets key decision-makers and asks questions to understand their situation, adapt to their needs and offer appropriate solutions.
Customer-centred behaviour is based on eight principles:
1. Talk situationally instead of making presentations.
Customer-centric selling is based on putting empathy for the customer above everything else. This means understanding his point of view and the specific situations he may be facing. One-dimensional presentations are not personal enough. With this methodology, you must be able to adapt and talk based on the client's individual needs and experiences.
2. Ask relevant questions instead of offering opinions.
Again, empathy is an operational concept in CustomerCentric selling. You want customers to know that you're listening, feel that you genuinely care about their best interests, and understand that you're thinking about solutions tailored to their individual needs. If you dominate the conversation with opinions and don't take their perspective into account, you're not engaging in CustomerCentric selling.
3. Focus on the solution, not the relationship.
The key to CustomerCentric selling is to understand that your priority is not to sell but to solve problems. The goal of the entire process is to understand the specific situation of the customer in question and offer them a solution that fits. If you can do this, a solid relationship should emerge from it. But building that relationship alone cannot be your top priority.
4. Target the decision-maker, not the user.
Customer-Centric sales focuses on how the product is used and what specific problems it can consistently solve. It's less about the features of the product and more about how it is used on a daily basis. This type of selling is tailored to people who can make a vendor choice and free up unbudgeted funds for a full business, as opposed to individual users who may be more interested in fancy bells and whistles.
5. promote the use of the product to garner interest rather than the product itself.
This point ties into the one above. Customer-Centric selling revolves around showing how using the product you're selling will make life easier for the prospect. Instead of discussing product features and assuming the prospect will figure out how to use them on their own, show what the product can do and demonstrate how it can solve their specific problems.
6. Try to be the best salesperson, not the busiest.
Quality over quantity is the name of the game when it comes to Customer-Centric selling. According to this methodology, it is better to apply your efforts to finding solutions for fewer individual customers than to spread yourself thin and half commit to a few.
7. Close on the buyer's timeline, not the seller's.
The whole concept of Customer-Centric selling is to sell based on the best interests and specific dilemmas of customers. Achieving this will not always be easy, quick or simple. Don't pressure your customers to stick to your schedule. Ideally, you'll be able to help your client solve a problem on a schedule that is mutually beneficial. But ultimately, this is their solution. It's their business. So, it will have to happen on their timeline.
8. Empower buyers to buy, rather than persuade them.
The basic reason for the case of every Customer-Centric sale is simple - the customer has a problem. Your job, as a salesperson, is to empower them to make the effort to solve it.
You are not selling a product, but rather a solution. Your priority should be to show how your product fits into that solution - not how great your product is in general. You are selling to them for them. Remember this.
