One of the largest challenges for salespeople is selling technology. It’s intangible, certainly not sexy, and complex. Salespeople have an idea of the products they’re selling, but oftentimes they don’t know some of the nitty-gritty details a tech would know. On that same level, a tech can breeze through a Discovery because they’re highly skilled with technology; but they probably couldn’t sell that same technology to save their life because they blather on about the geeky parts. How do you overcome this? There are many ways to practice and prepare for a sales pitch. Whether you’re a tech or sales pro, you can always get better at your craft.  

Think of a professional athlete. They have practiced until perfect and still continue to practice until the day they retire. They know the plays like the back of their hand, they repeatedly run their routes, watch game film, and invest in coaching. Similar strategies can be used for sales. In fact, CharTec has programs that hold your hand through every step of the sales process training up to selling a managed service deal. The key is perfecting your pitch and becoming comfortable with the process.   

Practice makes perfect. You never want to practice your pitch while pitching it. That seems obvious, but you’d be surprised how people attempt to wing it on something so important, then fumble over objections or get hung up talking about the technology. No professional athlete goes out and just plays the game. They spend hours and hours practicing throughout the week only to play for a couple of hours on game day. The same should be said for your sales. Roleplay. Roleplay, and roleplay some more. Don’t sit there and hope that some objection isn’t going to come up. Prepare for it, and practice your response.  

Know Your Routes. “The Secrets of Question Based Selling” by Thomas A. Freese is a book that literally everyone within CharTec reads and remembers. The sales methodology spelled out in this book is worth the investment. Salespeople who have gone through our QBS centered course have more than quadrupled their number of closes every year. We utilize QBS as the basis of all our sales training, with a specific managed services twist to make sure we’re the experts in our industry.  

Watch the Film. We film the sales presentation of every member that goes through our Training Lab: Sales Edition. This allows salespeople (and their bosses) to see their flaws, habits, or where they might be coming up short. Watching and reviewing a video will help with sales practice. The more you work through it, the better your pitch will be. Film yourself on a regular basis to monitor progress, as well as see where you can continue to improve. 

Invest in the Coaching. Even hall of fame baseball players have batting coaches. You should not try to go at this alone. You need to be regularly connecting with a managed services sales coach to hone your craft, learn the latest tricks, and stay on top of your game. We work with salespeople on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and ad hoc basis to up their game, which has turned timid techs into confident closers, and salespeople into MRR machines. Be confident, you got this!