Five Tips for Selling Services

Once you’ve determined that selling line item products is no longer working for your print business, it’s time to shift to selling complete solutions to your customers.

But, how do you go about successfully pitching your service offerings?

1. Focus on the outcome, not the process.

Remember: Your customers really only care about the end goal. They’re not particularly interested in the nuts and bolts of your service. Years ago, sales reps could run down a list of features and land sales. It’s not that easy anymore.

Instead of getting wrapped up in a list of bullet points about your service, try viewing it from your customer’s point of view. What’s the real, concrete benefit of this service? What will it really do for your customer, and how will that make their job easier?

If you can paint a picture of what their workday will look like with your service to help them, you stand a much better chance of making the sale.

2. Listen.

Listening is perhaps the most important skill of any sales rep today. With heavier workloads and longer to-do lists pulling at their attention, customers want to know that you really hear and understand their needs—and that you care enough to try to meet them.

That means engaging in real-life conversations instead of just pitching the products and services you want to sell. Let your customers tell you about their frustrations and problems, and demonstrate that you understand their unique business environments.

3. Sell solutions.

Now that you’ve really listened to customer needs and challenges, focus on solving those through the services you offer. Instead of pushing a specific package, offer your customers comprehensive solutions that will ease their workload or make the process easier.

If you can create an image in your customer’s mind of how their workday will go smoother with your service, you’ll have a much easier time making the sale.

4. Don’t just sell for the sake of selling.

Customer satisfaction is important for any sale, but when you’re selling a service it’s absolutely critical. If any part of your service doesn’t meet your customer’s needs or feels superfluous to them, they’ll be less likely to make another purchase—or stick with you when it’s time to renew their contract.

That’s why listening is so important to this process. By really understanding what your customers need, you can offer them solutions packages that are tailored to them. You can also steer them away from services that won’t really help them meet their goals.

It may seem counterintuitive, but by declining to sell your customers services they don’t really need, you’ll build trust, and that trust can translate to loyal customers for life.

5. Use every interaction as an opportunity to build trust.

As mentioned in the previous point, trust is everything when selling services. Your customers need to know that your company knows and cares about their businesses, and that you’re dedicated to helping them succeed.

You can help build trust by using your industry knowledge and understanding of your customers’ business environments to deliver information and services that will help them grow their businesses.

Taking the time to build trust and learn about customers’ businesses now will help your business remain successful for years to come.