What are effective communication strategies for IT sales?

Knowing your audience is a very complicated process, it might take a long time to have the full visibility and connecting dots within a single account. Building the power map within an account is a long process and will be subject to individual talent how he could connect and get needed intel. Building your allies within a single account is another tough task. For me I am starting by building the trust by being honest and transparent with my customer. Gain the customer buy in will allow you to sell, upsell and even cross sell. Being customer trusted consultant is the key especially if this trust is combined by some technical flavor.

Understand the specific challenges and trends in the target industry is very important! Its shows that you comprehend your client pain points. It will position your sales process as a partnership able to adapt your IT solutions to their unique needs. By focusing on these strategies, IT sales professionals can effectively communicate how their solutions are tailored to overcome the industrial challenges their prospective clients face.

You have to focus on their unmet need. Sounds simple and will take time but I often find asking the direct question helps save time.

Dont shoot in the dark. Client website, mission, vision, financial reports, voice/strategy of board of directors/executive team give an important overview of client. Financial reports and latest news articles would help in understanding client journey and current state. Important thing to deduce is how our product/service can add value and address client challenges. Explain with cofidence(references) how similar challenges have been addressed by us with other industry players.

Person to Person + Research is Key Once you know your audience, in my experience, once comfortable with how your product works, research is very important. Build out an org chart and know how your product will benefit the specific individual you are connecting with. I write 3 key points for each position and what I believe would generate interest. When your confident it shows. You don’t want to sound like every sales pro. Whether your reaching out to a CTO, tenured experts or a new employee be concise and if you can tap into an EMOTION and address a real pain point it will make you stick out. Be a human on the other side. You are reaching out bc YOU KNOW how you can help and your excited to tell them! Actively listen & respond accordingly!

The most critical factor in active listening is asking open-ended questions. To ask good and insightful ones, you need to sharpen your critical thinking, connecting the dots from your homework about the client. In some cases, it will be tough to read and empathise with the client's emotions, but asking good questions can save it all.

I´ve never been on the side which sells, most of the time worked as a "buyer". It is very clear for the customer know who is focus only on the selling - I mean, get the money from the customer - hustle approach and who is really care about to solve the problem. To solve the problem, the salesperson should understand what are the painpoint, instead of "what is your budget?". IT sales must be focus on problem solving instead a "commodditie selling", to achieve this approach active listening is the key.

In my experience of running IT sales for over a decade, I would say trust is the cornerstone of any successful business relationship. In addition to active listening, transparent and honest communication builds trust. If you don't have an immediate solution, it's better to admit it than to promise something unattainable. Stay clear of talking at them about the gigabytes, megabytes and scare tactics. Just listen. Once you learn to listen and genuinely hear them, you’ll build trust and grow together.

It is fair for clients to work/deal with multiple providers. If we actively listen to clients, they reveal a lot of problems other providers are not solving or the challenges with their current processes or vendor. Most of the time, actively engaging with clients help in fine tuning the solution and making it fit to the client needs.

Active Listening is a key to win great deals. Most of the sales person have tendency to jump in the conversation and start with their side of story or justification. At times this may bounce back if this happens multiple times. Actively listening at times does 50% of the job, that allows you to show empathy as well as understand the client's requirements. This will also help the team align the product in a manner that can excel or meet the client's requirements. Listening to the problem also creates an opportunity for the sales team to bring similar examples in the conversation. A sales person can also deep dive and understand the latent needs by asking the right questions. Having said that active listening plays a key role in sales.

I hear from IT leaders that nothing irritates them more than for a sales rep to rattle off buzzwords as if they are technical. The truly technical folks make it concise and direct and steer clear of the word of the week.

Always keep it simple and concise. Companies nomenclature will be different than your own. Don't waste precious time trying to seem fancy and sophisticated.

We should definitely use simple language, but that doesn't mean we should avoid using technical terms or acronyms entirely. It's more about understanding who we're talking to. We need to tailor our language to our clients, considering their technical and business knowledge. When we oversimplify things, especially with tech-savvy clients, it might not work in our favor.

Been fortunate to be both sides of seller and buyer conversation. I look back at all the sales training given and problem solving advice and I wonder if FUD is a huge problem, stopping the honest questions to flow across the table. How we both - seller and buyer - frame the discussion is an equal role if ( and I say if) there is a genuine need in play. Often not and so much time is wasted by all concerned.

I feel our role as a sales professional is to make the complex - simple - and make it easy to buy from you. I love story-selling!

Objections are indeed oportunities, if the salesperson are not able to overcome then. It is a oportunity to think about and be more prepared for the next pitch. 98,5% of the time the objections will be the same like: Why I should by your product? Or what is your competive leverage from others? Again, this is thigtly with active listen. If you understand the customer need, no objection will be made.

I wrote a book about some of this. How we frame problems, ask questions and tell stories is at the heart of the sales conversation. If we encourage diversity of thought - if the CRM tools and cookie cutter management allow - then amazing things can happen. It takes courage for leadership to allow people to explore the human side of the conversation. Too many are fearful they will be seen to lose control. Measurement of performance has become such a blocker that buyers shut up shop.

This is very easy and natural to do, however so many don't do it, just follow up, do what you said you were going to do and be genuinely interested.

To make future communication with potential clients easier, it's essential to establish a personal brand. In the initial stage, clients create a list of potential service providers to choose from when selecting their partner. If you have a strong personal brand, it gives you an advantage because future clients already know you, and they'll treat you better.