Increase Prospect Engagement with Valuable Customer Insights
Increase Prospect Engagement Through Valuable, Engaging Sales Conversations with Customer Insights
3 Types of Information Potential Customers Want from Salespeople
As a sales professional, you’ve probably heard it a million times. Provide value to your customer. Lead with value, not product. Value is king.
What customer insights actually resonate with buyers today, though? What information should you share with clients to help ensure engaging, successful sales conversations? Here are three key places to start:
3 Insights That Provide Genuine Value to Your Custome
1. What You’re Seeing in the Market
What sets you apart from your competitors? You! It’s your insight, knowledge, and value, all of which you can bring to your clients. With that in mind, one of the most valuable customer insights you can offer is what you’ve observed in the market and how it could affect that individual prospect, the company as a whole, or the potential client’s entire vertical.
(Confused about the definition of “market insight,” this much-used but little-understood term? Get some guidance here.)
This insightful, relevant evaluation of the current market offers a prospect not only actionable insights but helps build that initial credibility and trust you need to position yourself as a strategic partner.
These insights could uncover known or unknown challenges the prospect is having, and from there, it’s simply a matter of weaving in how your product or service can address or alleviate those challenges.
2. The “Why” in Why They Need to Change
Pointing out challenges and barriers to success is helpful for potential customers. It gets them thinking differently about how they need to approach their market, customers, internal processes, and more.
To make the most impact, though, always focus on the “why.” Show that customer the concrete consequences associated with not changing.
The impact of the why is going to vary from client to client. For some, it might be most helpful to frame this in terms of dollars and cents. Demonstrate with real numbers the revenue-based consequences of not taking action. For other clients, the why might be more about boosting employee satisfaction, upholding a company’s reputation, or furthering the progress of a mission-driven organization.
Whatever motivates your potential customer, frame the need to change through that lens.
“The more impactful value you can bring to the table, the greater the likelihood you’ll earn follow-up conversations with that prospect. Providing real value—instead of blindly listing the features and benefits of your product or service—opens the door to developing a strategic partnership with that prospect.”
3. Use Cases
Use cases can be helpful to sales professionals on three levels.
- One, they inform the salespeople about the past successes of the company. It helps them understand where the business excels, and it gives them the groundwork to have intelligent, insightful conversations about the capabilities of the company; the challenges other clients in the prospect’s vertical have overcome; and the opportunities afforded by working together.
- Two, use cases can help when qualifying prospects. A robust list of use cases will help a sales professional gauge whether this new potential client is a good fit for the product or service on offer. This is especially helpful for new salespeople as part of the onboarding process.
- Three, they inspire prospect confidence in your company. As illustrations of how your product or service can solve challenges within that prospect’s industry or vertical, they immediately illuminate how you can help a company like them. Don’t bring use cases in too early, though. Make sure you’ve already established your credibility before using such a company-specific resource.
Why Are Customer Insights Important?
It’s not always easy to get a prospect to think differently or to change. Customer insights, provided in the right way, offer convincing and powerful arguments justifying the need to change how they operate their businesses.
For the most impact, translate all the provided insight and value into story-based messaging. This helps prospects feel the emotional impact of what you’re describing, and it helps them better visualize their companies in the circumstances you’re describing.
The more impactful value you can bring to the table, the greater the likelihood you’ll earn follow-up conversations with that prospect. Providing real value—instead of blindly listing the features and benefits of your product or service—opens the door to developing a strategic partnership with that prospect.
Once that happens, you can enjoy a number of benefits:
- Increase your price point. The prospect will see your value and be willing to pay more for your expertise and insight.
- Expand your product offerings. Strategic partnerships can open previously unconsidered doors, and this could even lead to additional revenue streams, such as new products, services, or offerings.
- Reclaim power in the sales process. When you’re pitching your product, you have very little control in that situation. Prospects either want it or not, and the decision is in their hands. When you’re crafting value-based messaging and providing genuine insight, you’re sharing what you know, and you’re controlling the direction of the conversation. In that scenario, you have all the power in that deal.
Want guidance on what sales technology tools could help you better engage with prospects? Check out our free sales technology selector tool. The quick questionnaire will help you prioritize what matters to your business and then provide a personalized report with suggested resources that could help.
Have any other questions? Whether you’re looking for general advice about today’s best practices or you want insight about how this all applies to your company, we’re always here to help. Reach out today!