Sales managers in the alcoholic beverage industry are always looking for ways to get an edge up on the competition. It's one of the most challenging goals to meet, yet it can also be one of the most rewarding. Being outcompeted and poor sales and marketing are in the top ten reasons many businesses fail. The small percentage that makes it, however, has no doubt found a way to get an edge up on their competition.
One of the most important things you can do in sales is finding what works best for you, your team, and your business. Here are the two most common selling approaches and how they work. One, in particular, will be right for you.
As Patricia Fripp once said, "To build a long-term, successful enterprise, when you don't close a sale, open a relationship."
Much like it sounds, to relationship sell is to sell using a sales technique focused on building relationships with customers to close deals. This means the products/services are often on the back burner while the interactions with individuals are better prioritized.
The most common techniques associated with this sales approach includes:
Like with any approach, there are some notable advantages to using relationship-based techniques:
On the other hand, there are also some pitfalls to consider when working with a relationship-based approach. They are as follows:
Fact-based selling is a consultative approach using facts, data, insight, and better storytelling to maintain relationships. Meaning simply telling customers they can benefit from your product won't work. In this case, you would say something like, "As you can see in this report, 98% of our customers who responded to the survey felt like our product either "significantly improved' or 'completely resolved' their problem."
The best things you can do when fact-based selling is to:
This approach can be instrumental in the alcoholic beverage industry because it can grow your brand awareness and business now instead of down the road. This doesn't mean the customer won't stick around for the long term — after all, proven results eventually lead to strong consumer relationships.
When successful, fact-based selling actually strengthens the relationship due to the customer realizing you have their best interest in mind by focusing on their particular needs.
It's also effective in the following ways:
With fact-based selling, it's much easier to back the product you’re selling because you have evidence to support your pitch. However, it isn't quite as bonding as relationship-based selling.
On the other hand, that can also be another reason it's effective — no customers are left behind in importance to prioritize those who have been around for a longer period of time. And results build relationships.
While both approaches are well-known and commonly used, a fact-based approach can genuinely transform the culture of your sales department — mainly because it can move them from a relationship-based model to a consistent, predictable, repeatable process. It's much more reliable and easier to execute, putting your sales team in a better position to get the customer to take action and close the deal.