1. Know your product

The more knowledge you have about your company and the product you are selling, the better you will be in selling it. This knowledge consists of several components.

• Who do you work for – you need to be able to clearly communicate what your company does in the time it takes for an elevator to get from the ground floor to the 30th floor – so maybe 30 seconds (also called an elevator pitch). For example, here is a sample elevator pitch: “ABC is a custom application development firm. We help our clients achieve their goals by first understanding their business needs and then mapping out a creative strategy to leverage technology to meet the business objectives.”
• What are you selling – how would you describe what you sell to someone in Finance, or Marketing, or Operations, or Human Resources? You need to understand how your product might be beneficial to different kinds of people. You need to not only be able to present the features and benefits of your product, but consciously select the specific ones that are meaningful to the person you are meeting. Why is your product important to this person, and how will it help them? For example, an HR Manager may want to know how your product will help improve productivity of the staff, whereas a Finance Manager may want to know how your product can help reduce costs, and yet the Sales Manager may want to understand how your product can increase revenue. The more ways you can describe what you are selling, the more relevant you can make your presentation to any prospective customer.
• Who purchased it previously and why did they buy – stories relaying examples of other customers who have done business with your company help prospective customers understand how others have benefitted from your product, especially if they are in the same industry, or have a similar challenge. For example, if I am going to meet with a membership association, prior to the meeting, I will review what associations my company has done work for in the past, what goals and challenges we addressed, and how the clients benefitted from their investment in our services. If possible, I will print out case studies of our past performance and bring those to the meeting in case the prospective customer is interested in having hard copies. This helps to establish credibility to the story.