Selling services- Is it easy or challenging ?
Many Salesmen misunderstand the challenge of Selling Services or what we can say selling intangibles. They feel that selling services is difficult as compared to product selling due to the fact that services have no physical presence (You cannot touch and see), Services offer promises only etc.
Typically, services that we consider here are Medical services, Insurance, Cleaning services, Insurance sales, Wellness, Advocates, Educational sales and many more.
The prime strategy to sell services are two i.e., Make sure you fully understand clients’ needs and then offer a solution. Conduct extensive research. Take the time to analyze your findings and discover the real needs of your customers. Develop your ideal customer profile, and then customize your service concept to fit the needs of those profiles and accordingly position your services.
The other strategy would be creating a scenario by developing a positioning statement for your service. The statement describes how you want your customers to perceive your service. Obviously, every service provider would like their users to think their services are the best. The positioning statement defines how “your service is the best”. We all heard the saying — “a picture is worth a thousand words.” You will have to create uncertainty, doubt and fear in the mind of the customer but keeping ethics.( No wrong or unethical saying , that will only kill your brand image).For example, telling the truth in case Clients do not take insurance then their family may lose chances of getting any amount in-case of any causality or by not taking medical insurance they may have to pay heavy bills to the hospital etc. all you have to make emotional sales along with proof. Such as in Educational sales by telling parents that If your kid will not complete graduation from a good college. Then , he may not get a good placement.
Therefore, we need to adopt the right strategy to sell services. We fail because most of the time we try to use strategies of products sales while selling services. Infect there are lots of advantages of intangible sales (selling services) such as:
-You need not to deal with inventory in which you have to deal with size /color/packaging
-Intangible services required low storage hence very less operational cost
-No logistics and shipping cost
-You need not deal with issue of production
Therefore, in a way selling services is also easy. What you need to do is to understand the requirements, create a right picture in the mind of the customer by communicating with him about uncertainty and doubt and then offer a solution.
Dr. Praveen Srivastava, Profit coach & Management consultant ( www.praveencsrivastava.com )
