7 Practical Tips on How to Master the Soft Sell
Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2024 5:49 am
Today, 97% of buyers go online to research companies and their products or services.
What does that mean for businesses?
Buyers are more educated than they have ever been in the past and no longer want to be sold to. They don’t need to be told what a product can offer; they already know it.
As a result, the modern salesperson needs to change their sales hungary phone number library approach. Sales reps must now use their soft skills to create lifelong relationships with customers instead of aggressively selling products.
And what’s the best way to do this?
By employing a soft-sell approach.
In this article, I’ll explain what the soft sell is, how it differs from the hard sell, and give you 7 tips to master this approach.
This Article Contains:
(Click on a link to jump to the specific section)
What is the soft sell?
Hard sell vs. soft sell
3 key benefits of soft sell
7 simple tips for an effective soft-sell approach
Perform in-depth research
Employ active listening
Build positive relationships
Give your prospects enough time and space
Be friendly
Ensure mutual benefit
Use technology to automate processes
Let’s get started.
What is the soft sell?
The soft sell is a technique that employs a more subtle sales approach.
Instead of pressuring the lead to make a purchase right away, you create a low-pressure sales experience for the buyer.
How?
You limit aggressive sales tactics and instead focus on conversations and subtle persuasion to keep the prospect engaged. This way, salespeople remain active throughout the sales process — even though they aren’t pushing for a sale.
Now, before we dive into how to perform soft selling, let’s first see why it’s far more effective than the hard sell when it comes to generating repeat sales and creating lifelong customers.
Hard sell vs. soft sell
Soft sell advertising and sales are more indirect, aiming to subtly persuade a potential client or customer to make a purchase. In fact, most sales reps who use the soft-sell technique don’t view sales as their ultimate goal.
Instead, they focus on building lasting customer relationships. For example, if your company has a blog, you could share a blog post containing value-adding content to a prospect to kick-start a relationship with them.
On the other hand, hard-sell tactics are much more straightforward, aiming to make a sale as quickly as possible.
And while the hard-sell approach may result in more sales in the short term, most customers perceive it as overly aggressive, uncomfortable, and pushy. They may end up avoiding the product — or worse, avoiding the brand altogether.
After analyzing 4,500 emails in a B2B context, a recent study found that while more aggressive emails (hard-sell emails) had a slightly higher response rate than soft-sell ones, a greater percentage of those responses were negative.
The softer, more subtle emails received a 31% positive response rate versus 13% for the more aggressive emails.
This highlights the importance of allowing customers to make the decisions for themselves, rather than sales professionals making the choices for them.
What does that mean for businesses?
Buyers are more educated than they have ever been in the past and no longer want to be sold to. They don’t need to be told what a product can offer; they already know it.
As a result, the modern salesperson needs to change their sales hungary phone number library approach. Sales reps must now use their soft skills to create lifelong relationships with customers instead of aggressively selling products.
And what’s the best way to do this?
By employing a soft-sell approach.
In this article, I’ll explain what the soft sell is, how it differs from the hard sell, and give you 7 tips to master this approach.
This Article Contains:
(Click on a link to jump to the specific section)
What is the soft sell?
Hard sell vs. soft sell
3 key benefits of soft sell
7 simple tips for an effective soft-sell approach
Perform in-depth research
Employ active listening
Build positive relationships
Give your prospects enough time and space
Be friendly
Ensure mutual benefit
Use technology to automate processes
Let’s get started.
What is the soft sell?
The soft sell is a technique that employs a more subtle sales approach.
Instead of pressuring the lead to make a purchase right away, you create a low-pressure sales experience for the buyer.
How?
You limit aggressive sales tactics and instead focus on conversations and subtle persuasion to keep the prospect engaged. This way, salespeople remain active throughout the sales process — even though they aren’t pushing for a sale.
Now, before we dive into how to perform soft selling, let’s first see why it’s far more effective than the hard sell when it comes to generating repeat sales and creating lifelong customers.
Hard sell vs. soft sell
Soft sell advertising and sales are more indirect, aiming to subtly persuade a potential client or customer to make a purchase. In fact, most sales reps who use the soft-sell technique don’t view sales as their ultimate goal.
Instead, they focus on building lasting customer relationships. For example, if your company has a blog, you could share a blog post containing value-adding content to a prospect to kick-start a relationship with them.
On the other hand, hard-sell tactics are much more straightforward, aiming to make a sale as quickly as possible.
And while the hard-sell approach may result in more sales in the short term, most customers perceive it as overly aggressive, uncomfortable, and pushy. They may end up avoiding the product — or worse, avoiding the brand altogether.
After analyzing 4,500 emails in a B2B context, a recent study found that while more aggressive emails (hard-sell emails) had a slightly higher response rate than soft-sell ones, a greater percentage of those responses were negative.
The softer, more subtle emails received a 31% positive response rate versus 13% for the more aggressive emails.
This highlights the importance of allowing customers to make the decisions for themselves, rather than sales professionals making the choices for them.