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According to you what is more important, the concept of your product or your product?
Although your product is important, the concept behind how your product is what will be the difference between winning a sale or not. This is where conceptual selling is useful.
Conceptual selling is a sales method that focuses on selling the concept of your solution rather than just the solution itself. Understanding the concept behind your product and aligning it with your buyer's desires and needs will help sales reps close high-value, complex deals.
In this article, we will look at conceptual selling, it’s pros, cons, examples and how you can use it to drive your sales.
What is Conceptual Selling?
Have you seen the movie Pulp Fiction?
The characters Jules Winnfield and Vincent Vega are tasked with retrieving a briefcase that glows golden when opened (although we never actually see what’s inside). Frequently, the audience is told that whatever is in this briefcase is of the utmost importance.
But what’s inside the briefcase?
In the film industry, this is known as a MacGuffin. According to Wikipedia, MacGuffin is an event, object, or device necessary to the plot and the characters' motivation but insignificant, irrelevant, or unimportant in itself.
So, the concept is more important than the object itself. It doesn’t matter what’s inside the briefcase. What important is that it’s desired.
In conceptual selling, you will make your product a kind of MacGuffin. During your pitch to prospects, you will focus on the concept of your product rather than the product itself.
You’ll explain why it’s important and desirable without going into much detail about its core features.
Advantages of Conceptual Selling
Disadvantages of Conceptual Selling
While conceptual selling offers huge benefits, it also comes with its own set of challenges:
Tips for Conceptual Selling
Now that you understand the pros and cons of concept selling, here are some tips to make concept selling work for your business:
1. Conduct Thorough Research
Learn about your prospects' roles and the company before meeting with them. Dedicate hours to researching your potential clients. Research what industry your client fits in and what their biggest pain points are. Check what solutions they are already using.
Example: If you want to talk to a client to convince them to buy your CRM software, spend a good amount of time researching what their current sales process looks like and where and how your CRM will help their sales team close more deals in less amount of time.
2. Overcome Objections Proactively
Anticipate and address any potential objections that your prospects may have about your concept.
If the product is concerned about the cost of your product, be prepared to show them how the benefits of your product’s concept outweighs the cost over time. This will help to build trust with the prospect.
3. Practice Active Listening
When it comes to concept selling, it is important to understand what customers want and not sell what we want.
Prioritize active listening over responding. Reduce your talking time and focus on understanding the prospect's needs.
Don’t make conversations with your customers one-way, where you ask your questions and they answer. In the initial conversations, take enough time to understand who they are and what they need from you.
Listen closely to understand why they are not open to sifting to a new CRM platform. By listening carefully, you can understand which is their biggest fear factor.
4. Use Storytelling
Stories work well in sales pitch because they create a sense of connection and make your concept more memorable. Use storytelling to help your prospects visualize how the concept of your product can be applied in their specific situation.
Example: “Hey! We can see that some of your customers no longer need your solution. Isn’t it frustrating not to know why this happened?
This takes us back to one of our clients who had a similar situation. We swooped right in, unrooted the cause, and fixed it quickly. Seeing a win-win situation for the recruiter and the candidates with our product was a delight for us.”
5. Appeal to Your Prospect’s Emotions
Build relationships with your prospects. Earn their trust by getting to know them. Use emotional appeals into your pitch. It's not just about selling products, it's also about building long term relation with your prospects. So, treat your customers like long-term partners.
For instance, you can also send congratualtory messages to your customers like “Hey! Congrats on being featured in top 100 companies by LinkedIn. Kudos to your entire team!”
6. Take Charge of the Meeting
Plan the meeting in advance and take control of the conversation. Guide the narrative and flow of the conversation. Communicate clearly to make the most of your meetings. Also use your downtime productively.
For instance, durning your demo sessions, ensure you spend 10 minutes or less presenting your product. Use the initial 10 minutes to understand about the prospect and their needs, next 10 minutes giving the product demo and last 10 minutes for Q & A. This keep the conversation engaging without.
The best questions to ask for conceptual sales
Now, let’s take a look at some examples of conceptual selling in action.
Like many other sales methods, conceptual selling relies on listening to the customer rather than speaking. Therefore, your sales reps will spend a lot of time asking open-ended sales and sales discovery questions to your prospects that will guide them to an eventual sale.
1. Discovery and Confirmation Questions
Your sales reps can lead with discovery questions like:
2. Problem/Issue Questions
Next, you will need to ask some questions to determine the prospect's core problems or issues.
3. Attitude Questions
Find out more about your prospect’s decision process. Here, you will be able to identify the objections that might hold up the sale and address them proactively.
4. Commitment Questions
And finally, you will work your way to commitment questions. These questions will allow you to seal the deal.
Here’s an interesting take for you: If you follow up with your prospects, you can land more sales.
Examples of Conceptual Selling
Here are some examples that illustrate how conceptual selling can be applied in different scenarios:
1. Tech solutions for businesses
Think of a software company selling a project management tool. Instead of highlighting features like workflow management or task assignments, the sales rep delves into understanding the client's workflow challenges, project bottlenecks, and team dynamics.
The sales rep will then demonstrate how the project management tool can improve communication within the team, improve deadline adherence, and build a collaborative environment. This will align the product as a strategic solution to the prospect's specific operational hurdles.
2. Healthcare equipment for hospitals
The medical equipment sales rep doesn't just list the functionalities and specifications of a new MRI machine.
Instead, they engage hospital administrators in discussions about diagnosis accuracy concerns, their patient throughput, and the stress of outdated equipment on their doctors.
The salesperson shows how the new MRI machine delivers high-resolution images and integrates with the hospital’s existing systems. It reduces scan times and offers a more comfortable experience to patients, thus directly addressing the hospital's core operational and patient-care objectives.
3. Educational resources for schools
A sales rep from an educational tech organization meets with school administrators. Instead of focusing on the technological prowess of their learning platform, the sales rep explores the school’s specific challenges in engaging students, the teachers' tech-savvyness, and the curriculum goals.
The discussion leads to a tailored demo of how the platform can make learning more interactive for students, provide teachers with real-time performance insights of each student, and align with the school’s educational philosophy, thus positioning the product as an important tool in achieving the school’s educational objectives.
4. Financial services for a business
A financial advisor meets with a small business owner. But, it doesn't start by showing its investment products. Instead, the advisor spends time understanding the business’s cash flow patterns, growth plans, and risk appetite.
The financial advisor then presents a customized financial plan that addresses the business's need for growth capital, liquidity, and risk management, which makes their financial services a strategic fit for the business rather than a generic offering.
5. Real estate solutions for a company
When a real estate consultant meets a business seeking a new office, it doesn't merely list available properties.
They delve deep into understanding the business's brand image, space requirements, and employee commute patterns.
The consultant then presents options that fit the spatial needs and improve the company's brand, offering employee satisfaction and growth flexibility. Thus, the property solution aligns with the company’s broader operational and cultural aspirations.
Conclusion
Conceptual selling shifts the focus from products to solutions that align with buyers' needs and goals. Success with this method requires strong communication, active listening, and a deep understanding of prospects' unique challenges.
Now that you understand conceptual selling, you can use it to close deals and improve sales. If you are not already using it in your sales process, why not start right away?
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