In so many ways, business people are pitching their products and services all day, everyday. One could be trying to get a loan or venture capital, getting help from a vendor, convincing a star employee to join the company or writing descriptions on Amazon. eFulfillment Service’s sales team would like to share some of the best practices that help them daily—if you’ve talked with us, I hope you recognize that we tried to keep things simple, listened to your needs and provided you with insight that will help you stay competitive in your market.
—Taylor Gonyon, Sales Representative
Keep Your Ecommerce Pitch Simple
Less can be more if you get straight to the point. You should be able to boil down your pitch to 3 bullet point ideas, or about 30 seconds. If you can’t, spend some time thinking about what your true value to your audience is. And that may change, depending on the audience. For example, a banker may be interested in your long history of consistent orders. Your new hire may be swayed by the investments you’re making to stay ahead of the marketplace, because that demonstrates a promising future for him or her. And the customer on Amazon wants to know how your product will perform and improve their lives.
It’s important not to bury answers your audience needs behind the information you want to share. Give people what they ask for up front and keep it simple. If someone is reaching out for a quote, they want to know all costs involved, not just some of them.
Making your audience jump through hoops before providing them the answer is just wasting time for both parties. If the prospect says “no” early in the process, it allows you to answer the objection. If you can’t overcome the objection, if it’s a bad fit, both parties can move on and spend more time on connections that work.
Imagine walking into a hardware store looking for a particular sized bolt, and the sales person keeps telling you about the exquisite nails he has in stock. Nails can’t do what bolts do, but he keeps telling you about nails. Crazy, right? Finally, you press him to talk about the bolt and he explains, they are out of stock. You can’t buy what you want from him. He might be able to overcome your disconnect by calling you when it comes in stock, sending you to another location or having it shipped to you from online stock. And if he’d have started with that, you’d be getting your bolts quicker and having a better experience. Even if he apologized for being out of bolts and directed you to another hardware, you’d remember his good service and that he helped solve your problem.
Listen to Your Audience’s Needs
We’re passionate about our businesses, and we like our story, and if given the opportunity we’ll go on and on in hopes that you will eventually buy what we are selling. We were given two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. If you’re as passionate about your audience’s needs as you are your story, you’ll be successful. If you listen and understand, then when the time comes to offer a solution, it will be relevant.
If a customer hates tomatoes and the server spends 10 minutes describing the heirloom tomatoes grown in the restaurant’s back yard, that customer isn’t going to order the calabrese. There could be a hundred other menu items that would fit that customer’s needs, but the server is too enamored by the tomato story.
Similarly, if you were to ask for help finding a basic laptop for checking emails/typing word documents, yet the sales rep feels compelled to try and upsell you on the benefits and tech specifications of a gaming laptop that is 3x the price, they may have heard what you said, but ignoring that info feels like not being listened to. For either business, you’ll likely be reluctant to return for future business or recommend others to do business there.
Do Your Homework
Nothing shoots down a presentation faster than listening to someone who sounds disingenuous or as if they do not know what they are talking about. If you have researched the most commonly asked questions or objections to your product or service, and you know how your competition operates, then when the time comes to deliver a confident presentation and answer objections, you will be prepared and it will flow naturally.
With fluctuating trade negotiations, tariffs, other external factors and living in a world where information is readily accessible and ever changing, subscribing to multiple news sources with information and updates relative to your industry can help in being better prepared to offer consultative sound responses.
If you went to purchase a new home and the real estate agent doesn’t know when the house was built, what the neighborhood is like, or where the nearest school is, it can be difficult to take the agent’s word that it is the perfect home to purchase. The odds of purchasing that home are drastically lower than purchasing a home from a real estate agent well versed in the material. When that agent says this is the perfect home, it now has more credibility and that level of confidence flows into the customer having faith in their purchase.
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Very crisp and structured content beneficial for e-commerce businesses. Listening to the audience is very important. Then only you know what exactly they want—very nice articulated article.