How are your sales reps overcoming the reality of today's overeducated buyer? Hi, I'm Jim Pancero, helping you become the stronger food of your sales team. We're in a new reality of selling today. Frankly, customers don't have as much trust and respect for salespeople like they did 20 years ago. So because of that, before a customer will even talk to a sales rep, they most likely have done extensive research online or asked their friends or associates for information to prepare for a sales call to make sure they're not taken advantage of. So the reality today is, your sales rep, walking into a customer situation, is likely to be hit with a more advanced, detailed, aware buyer, who has a lot of technical questions they expect a sales rep to answer. Now that's okay if you only sell a few products, but what happens if you have a warehouse full of 2,000 different items that you represent as a distributor?

The reality is, that we had to prepare for our sales calls today and our sales reps need to increase their technical expertise, if they truly want to be persuasive. Because we have to count on the customer having done research. In fact, one of the best questions you can ask a customer that's shown interest in your product or services, when you do talk to them on the phone or meet with them, is to say, "I'm sure you've already done some research on this. So what have you discovered? What do you like most? What do you want to make sure you avoid?" We need to respect the fact that customers are doing their own research before they talk to us, and making sure we affirm that and support it, not push back.

This is a time for us to be more persuasive. But one of the ways reps can be more persuasive is to have stronger technical knowledge and be prepared for all of the customer's detailed and extensive questioning. Would love to know what you're doing with this, would love to be of any help as you train your people on these skills. Thanks for checking out my podcast. I'm posting two new podcasts each week, all aimed at helping you and your team increase your selling competitive advantage.