Interactive B2B Selling-Research Sales Methodology Assignment
Conceptual Selling Overview
The conceptual selling methodology does not focus on selling a product but selling a concept needed by the company. Primarily, conceptual selling involves understanding the client’s needs and formulating an idea to deliver the desired outcome (Miller et al. n.p). There are five areas of questions to consider keenly that includes; confirmation questions to understand the current information, new information questions to clarify the prospect’s concept expected of the product and service, attitude questions to understand the opportunities on a personal level, commitment questions to determine the level of investment, and basic issue questions to understand potential problems.
The conceptual selling is suitable in a relatively small and specialized market where referral and word-of-mouth are virtual channels for advertising. Moreover, it offers a practical framework for a company that thrives on a good reputation and aims to maintain the highest levels of customer satisfaction (Edge 272). It is also suitable for business-to-business (B2B) marketing strategy with an outlook on service provision instead of selling products.
How it Works
The first step of conceptual selling is listening to the clients’ prospects to understand the expected outcomes, underlying issues, and problems. After listening to the company’s prospects, the salesperson directly relates the product or service to the concept. Notably, the end result of the idea provides a win-win for the salesperson and the buyer (Edge 272). The questions asked to confirm, determine the anticipated problems, and gauge the issues should be saved correctly for easier retrieval.
Fundamentally, conceptual selling works best in a company where the salesperson has efficient customer relationship management, which will improve, maintain high consumer satisfaction and escalate the growth of the business. Similar to the conceptual selling questions, the sales process stages should be mapped out precisely based on the information provided in the questioning stage (Miller et al. n.p). It is appropriate for service providers and B2B companies because instead of tangible products that may be hard to describe, the service providers have an edge. Also, in B2B businesses, the company is focused on maintaining relationships with the consumers and longer business cycles.
Key Benefits of the Approach
The conceptual selling methodology is beneficial for a company in terms of maintaining relations and increasing sales. Besides the two significant benefits, knowing the prospect’s problem improves making effective decision-making; the closing ratio will increase. Similarly, it enhances product or service cycle productivity by supporting decision-making (Miller et al. n.p). In addition to building a lasting sales relationship, conceptual selling creates a productive sales organization.
AcmeTech Company-Enterprise Resource Planning software will benefit in training 200 hundred salespeople using the conceptual selling methodology. The company primarily deals with selling software that organizations use to manage day-to-day activities such as accounting, procurement, project management, risk management, and supply chain operations. The fundamental of the software is to integrate numerous processes into a single system. The most significant prospects for AcmeTech are the promotion of free flow of communication between business departments and accurate real-time data reporting.
The company (AcmeTech) will require training in conceptual marketing because, for starters, the business is B2B which is suitable for the approach. It involves building relationships between various departments in the company that uses their software. For example, to improve customer satisfaction and supply chain management, the training should focus on training the salespeople to evaluate and analyze anticipated problems during integration to enhance customer satisfaction and maintain a lasting relationship.
Unique Differentiators of the Approach
The uniqueness of the conceptual selling approach is evident in its ability to pinpoint its competitive position and align the selling process with customer decision-making. About other models, the table below identifies the difference.
Sales Model | Challenger Sale | Conceptual Selling | MEDDIC | Rain Selling | Sandler Selling | Target Account Selling | SPIN Selling | NEAT Selling |
Main aspect | Delivers insight on an opportunity that a supplier is uniquely positioned to solve | The salesperson listens to the prospect to determine issues and concepts | It determines better customer qualification and fruitfulness of customer base expansion | Uncovers needs and desires, and bias necessary in understanding the market | Acts as a consultancy; the salesperson takes the role of a consultant | Nurtures a customer-centric approach by identifying target consumers. | Enables the salespeople to acquire a deeper understanding of their customers’ needs, builds a persuasive case around specific problems, and provides practical solutions | Helps locate the needs of the prospect and allows response with product or services as a solution to the need |
In the above table, the conceptual selling method is similar to other companies because it considers customer relations. However, unlike the others, its design is unique because it offers the solution in the form of concept that has an anticipated positive outcome. For example, AcmeTech will benefit from the methodology by acquiring training on employees to focus on the problems of confidentiality or bias in data during the integration and management of day-to-day activities.
Suitability for AcmeTech
A conceptual model is suitable for AcmeTech because it enhances the relationship with other customers. Also, it evaluates the problems and issues affecting the prospect to enable effective decision making; the company will benefit from deep analysis and development of concepts in line with the possibility. Moreover, there is an increased number of close sales when applying the conceptual selling methodology.
Call to Action
In my opinion, the AcmeTech company should take the initiative to train their employees now because the future is projected towards a conceptual selling adoption. It provides a solution to the needs without interfering with the product or service.
Works Cited
Edge, Charles. “The Art of Selling” Build, Run and Sell Your Apple Consulting Practice. Apress, Berkeley, CA, 2018 271-288
Miller, Robert Bruce, Stephen E. Heiman, and Tad Tuleja. Conceptual Selling: The Revolutionary System for Face-to-face Selling Used by America’s Best Companies. Grand Central Pub, 1989