If you want to help your sales reps to co-sell to the best of their ability then you need to make sure that you are doing what you can to focus on their needs, and the job you are trying to do. If you can do this, then you will soon find that it is easier than ever for you to get everyone on the same page.
What is Co-Selling?
Co-selling is an approach to a service or product, in which partners are the main route to the market and selling is done in conjunction with the vendor.
Why is Co-Selling Important?
It’s important because it gives you the chance to give your clients more protection and confidence.
What Is A Marketing Plan?
A marketing plan helps you to use advertising or even outreach to target a particular market.
Questions to Help your Sales Reps to Make More Sales
Do you want your sales reps to make more sales? If so, then you are not alone. This guide will help you to say all of the right things so you can empower your team and your audience.
- Who is the Prospect within our Category?
The prospect may well tell the partner which competitors they are thinking about going with. You need to position your product by being competitive and you also need to highlight as much market knowledge as possible. If you can do this, then it becomes very easy to work this kind of information into the sales conversation and for you to use it within your sales collateral.
- What is the Most Pressing Pain Point for your Customer?
You may well know about some of the use cases that relate to your prospect and various other companies within the category, but you could be missing out on something else that could well resonate with your company’s needs. Your partner may well have insight into the pain points that your product can solve and they may also be able to help with a low shift in your roadmap.
- What are You Doing with the Customer Right Now?
Think about it, how is your prospect using your partner’s product, to navigate any conversations that are had? If you know that your prospect is using a platform to target enterprise platforms alone then you should be trying to focus the general sales conversation on how your product can help them to target other accounts. You can then reengage the prospect with a focused sales pitch regarding their strategy and this can work in everyone’s favour.
- How Far Along is Product Implementation?
Your partner could well have insights regarding business goals and what the customer wants to achieve in general. If your partner has an adoption roadmap, then it is easy for them to figure out how your own platform could fit in.
- What do you Need to Know?
For your partners who have any kind of consultation relationship with the prospect, you have to ask them what is important for them to know regarding the account. It may be that the prospect has a very poor relationship with the platform within your category or that they are in the middle of a funding event that is draining their time and their resources. You will not find out these small bits of information if you have not worked with the customer in the past, so it is imperative that you take into account information like this if you want to come out on top.
- What Relationship do you Have with the Customer?
If you have done all of the account mappings, then you probably know that the prospect is going to be the target customer of your partner. That being said, there is far more to it than this. You have to think about the context for your partner and you also need to think about their current relationship. Are they expanding through upselling? What about cross-selling? Are they talking with the account? Do they have influence when it comes to helping you to close the deal? If you can think about things like this, then this will help you to make way better decisions in the future and it will also go a long way when it comes to your sales success.
- How can Joint Solutions be Tailored?
Sometimes, a call with your partner can be compared to the huddle that you have before trying to sell your solution to your prospect. Your joint pitch is a very good starting point, but you have to make sure that you are tailoring it to the specific needs of your projects. Take the time to discuss how you can be better together and then map out your talking points. Discuss how you intend to engage the prospect too, as this will help you in the long run.
- Who are the Stakeholders?
There really are so many jobs out there. The VP of the sales department could have way more buying power, but the Director could have more with another client. What you ultimately need to assess here is if there is one person, or three, who you need to be engaging with. If you can do this, then you will soon find that you are able to reap the benefits more than you realise.
- What’s Happening within the Industry?
Your partners should be your allies, so be sure that you are an ally to them. Be open to listening to them and help them when they need it.
- Do you Need Help with Targeting?
You need to map out your prospects to all of your partners and you also need to understand your partner’s customers too. That being said, you also need to map your customers and the pain points that they have in regard to your partner’s prospects. The overlaps will help you and your partner to try and grow closer to one another. Go to meetings and discuss target accounts, so you can make sure that you are getting the results you are looking for.