Using Insight Selling to Close More Sales

BY Rachel Cagle
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The process of creating and winning sales opportunities, and driving change, with ideas that matter.” That’s the definition of insight selling, according to RAIN Group’s president, Mike Schultz. Insight selling focuses on the prospect. The salesperson doesn’t tell the prospect what they need to do, the salesperson guides the prospect in the right direction and helps them figure out the best course of action themselves.

Learning is difficult when the answers are handed to you. And if you don’t come to those conclusions on your own, you may come to doubt them later. It’s the same with sales decisions.

Part of educating a prospect on how to solve their problem and how you can help is leading them to self-​discovery. By listening to your prospect’s concerns and asking relevant questions in response, you’ll both discover for yourself the next step the prospect should take and help them realize the same first-​hand. Then you need to not be afraid to share your ideas with the prospect and explain to them exactly what it is your product or service can do to solve the problem. That way, they can be 100% confident in their decisions, whether or not they choose to work with you. That's insight selling. You should measure the impact of your sale, not the money.

People like this make us better,” says Schultz. “They help us see what's possible. Today's buyers have a lot of information and choices, but they don’t necessarily have more wisdom or confidence. They need people to share ideas and help them think ideas through.”

Schultz points out that the three traits of salespeople who utilize insight selling are education-​focused, collaborative and persuasive, which are all based on ideas. In order to gain your prospect’s trust and, therefore, a sale, you need to help them come up with an idea for a solution, tweak the idea to best suit them personally and then show the confidence you have in the solution to inspire them to feel the same way.

That’s all there is to insight selling. It’s a simple process, but one that continues to close sale after sale.


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