Do You Know How To Sell Stuff?

By Swatil Binte Mahmud, Blogger, Lava Protocols

Remember that scene in The Wolf of Wall Street movie, where Leonardo DiCaprio, portraying Jordan Belfort hands a pen to a salesman and tells him to sell the pen? After a handful of failed attempts by some salesmen, one man sitting in the diner takes the pen and tells DiCaprio to write down his name. However, DiCaprio replies that he does not have a pen and the man replies, “Supply and demand.” 

The reason why I just mentioned one of the iconic scenes from the movie is because I want you to know how to convince someone to buy what you are selling. In the next scene, DiCaprio says, ‘Before I am even going to sell a pen to anybody, I need to know about the person, I want to know what their needs are, what kind of pens do they use, do they use a pen? How often do they use a pen? Do they like to use a pen formally, to sign things, or use it in their everyday life?’ Asking all these questions will lead to answers and conversation while letting the salesperson know exactly what a prospective customer is looking for. And this is how you will be successful and have a bunch of happy customers!

For years, through tried and tested methods it has been found that the best salespeople have great communication skills. In this age of technology, if we take support from Artificial Intelligence (AI) which is clearly not human, can we still be successful in selling pens? I will tell you some of the ways by which you can, but you must keep reading! 

Relationship Intelligence

Sales are about understanding your customer, so you can connect with them and provide them with relevant products and information. Customer data is the most important sales resource which includes everything from their experience with your business to their relationship networks. This is not a new concept and these days it goes by a new name: “relationship intelligence.” A new name is fair though, considering how far our ability to capture, analyze and use the data in question has come. 

Accelerate Sales with Relationship Intelligence Tools

Salespeople spend less than 36% of their time selling. This is because, to be effective in selling, they need to research customer’s prospects and accounts. They need to know if the prospect influences decisions, whether they share contacts with the prospect, and what problem their product or service solves for the prospect. They also need to understand the prospect’s industry and company. This research takes a tremendous amount of time as Salespeople dig through customer relationship management systems (CRMs), Google, LinkedIn, news articles, internal documents, external documents, productivity apps, and other data sources.

Successful sales organizations know relationship intelligence is the secret to reaching key decision-makers. Hence, they keep all the data in their CRM and the whole organization can access it from anywhere and anytime. Many businesses are adding artificial intelligence (A.I) to the mix. AI searches their CRM for relevant prospect insights and pulls in new external data and insights. New AI tools can scour search engines, social profiles, news articles, and more. It automatically identifies connections with, and insights about, prospects. 

Therefore, salespeople can now create a more compelling pitch that can lead to larger sales in less time.

Amplify the Impact of AI-powered Relationship Intelligence Tools with CRM

AI-powered relationship intelligence tools provide incredible value.

• Disparate Data Analysis: Find unanticipated relationships with data gleaned from search engines, social profiles, news articles, external documents, and more.
• Network Analysis: View key connections in your network, as well as sources that define the relationship.
• CRM Enhancement: Enrich contact records with relationship data in real-time, right within your CRM.

Also, according to the Harvard Business Review, using AI tools with CRM can have a 50% increase in leads and appointments. 

Einstein Relationship Insights

Salesforce’s Einstein Relationship Insights (ERI) delivers on all of the above. And it goes beyond the basics in key ways:

• Unstructured Data Analysis: ERI explores all relevant data sources by automatically reading natural language, which means it understands unstructured data like news articles mentioning two people together.
• Native Design: ERI efficiently pulls external data directly into your CRM as you work.  ERI connects the dots for you, so you can quickly see the big picture.
• Contextual Learning: ERI shows you the key passages of text that explain how your prospects and contacts know each other – it is your personal research analyst.

Now that you are familiar with relationship intelligence, A.I, and CRM you can understand that we have entered a new generation of customer data collection and use. Harnessing that power is the key to driving sales and business growth for your business. 

So, next time someone asks you to sell a pen, you will know exactly how to do it!

Lava Protocols is an authorized Salesforce Partner. Want to improve your Sales funnel with a reliable A.I? Drop us an email to schedule your demo: hello@lavaprotocols.com.