This is the first video of a series on how to sell software to businesses. This is a big subject that we are going to dive deep into and in order to do that, we are going to divide the subject across many different videos.

  • Strategy
  • Reaching Out
  • Gathering Information
  • Sales Process
  • Generating Leads
  • Meetings and Presentations
  • Closing Deals

 

The Common Sales Strategy

I believe that the sales strategy for how to sell software to businesses that many salespeople use can be stripped down to trying to talk about the software to as many businesses as they can. Which sounds pretty logical, right? We refer to this approach as product selling.

The problem with that approach is that it makes the salesperson sound like a salesperson who is trying to sell something. And since the prospects are getting approached by a lot of salespeople every day, giving off this impression will trigger guardedness. That will lead to an increased level of objections and rejection.

 

Our Approach

In this video on how to sell software to businesses, we actually outline an approach that is the opposite of this and it involves talking less about your product and possibly trying to talk to fewer businesses.

The way this works is that instead of talking about the product and what it does, we recommend talking more about the improvements the product can deliver and the pain points it can help to solve. And to make conversations more about the prospect than about the product. To do this, we recommend asking good questions.

By asking good questions, you will identify prospects that need the software you sell and also identify ones that do not. When you learn more about the prospect, you will be able to identify which prospects need the software and those that don’t. This will prevent you from wasting valuable time trying to sell your software to prospects that have a very low probability of purchasing.

We refer to our approach as consultative selling because you are operating more as a consultant and finding solutions to problems instead of talking businesses into wanting to buy software.

 

Which Approach is Easier?

One reason that most salespeople use more of a product selling approach for how to sell software to businesses is that it could be viewed as being easier. Since all you are doing is talking about your product, there is less to think about when trying to figure out what to say because you likely have a lot of product knowledge already in your head.

With consultative selling, it is a little more sophisticated because you are talking more about benefits and pain points and asking good questions. In order to do this, you probably need to stop selling and take a moment to organize your thoughts in order to figure out what to say.

So, at first glance, product selling might appear to be easier than consultative selling. But product selling is not easier in other ways because you are likely to face more objections and rejections every day. So with that, you might be able to skip the step to organize your thoughts around what to say, but every day will be a little more difficult.

When using the consultative selling approach for how to sell software to businesses, you might have to spend a little extra time on the front end, but after that, the day-to-day selling experience is easier because you will face fewer objections and rejections.