Conversational sales is the process of talking to qualified leads on their terms, for example online with a chatbot, a phone call, or using forms on a landing page, whatever.
The focus is to use conversation to provide support, answer your prospective customers' questions, and move them through the buying process.
Every sales team, every rep, every company needs to be trained in conversational sales (low-pressure ways of converting leads to sales).
Unfortunately, most sales reps tend to forget the human element. Customers expect companies to connect with them, give a damn, and offer a solution to their problems. They're not just new leads for a rep to call and sell benefits.
So whether you're selling to other businesses—B2B marketing—or you're selling to consumers—B2C marketing—you won't see growth if there's no human impact.
This is why you need to master the art of conversational selling because conversations lead to customers.
But first, you need to know why conversational selling is highly dependent on human-to-human marketing.
Human-to-human marketing, or simply H2H, is the best thread that unifies both B2B and B2C business models. It's the understanding that all of us want sales conversations with real people, not automated bots.
Customers want personalized buyer experiences. They want to feel like they matter—not like they’re a nameless, faceless purchaser.
You need to show them you care about their hopes, dreams, struggles, and pain points. And here's where the challenge lies. You need to figure out how to make conversational selling work. You need answers to these questions:
Remember, conversations lead to conversions.
CX plays a vital role in the growth of your business. But what does CX mean, and why is it important? In short, CX are initials for Customer Experience, and this boils down to how your customers perceive their interaction with your brand.
As your potential customers reach out to you, their experience and the relationships they build with your brand really matters. Giving this a truly human touch and delivering a world-class experience can transform a once-off purchase into life-long engagement.
Here are three conversational selling tips you can use to your advantage.
When meeting someone for the first time, how do you start the conversation? You introduce yourself, ask questions, and naturally build rapport. This is how you get to know someone from your lead list too.
In conversational selling, you need to ask questions to see if your prospects are a good fit for your business. If you're out of ideas, you can start asking them:
Asking questions validates a person. And being validated delivers a unique customer experience—something that's very important for business growth.
Since this is all about human-to-human marketing, you need to show the human element in your brand. So when you're selling, tell your story. Share your ups and downs in sales conversations.
This is a great way to bridge the trust gap in the sales process and build authentic relationships with your customers. In H2H marketing, people engage and buy from businesses and brands that genuinely show who they are.
There are a lot of ways to deliver value to your prospects and customers through conversational selling. But the bottom line is, you must be open to helping them without expecting anything in return.
For example, a prospect asks for help on a problem they can't fix. Someone from your sales team offers free advice, which they implement immediately. Later on, they see fruitful results. This situation can prove that your service is worth investing in. And in the end, they'll buy from you and hopefully recommend you to others.
For me, this is how you deliver value through conversational selling. Instead of slogging through the doldrums of cold calling, listing your products and services, then waiting until someone bites, target the right people, and offer the value they need.
Now you might be wondering, is conversational sales the same as conversational marketing? Well, let's just say they use a similar methodology.
Then you need to market it. But not just any marketing will do. In my new 1-Page Marketing Plan Course, I show you the exact techniques I've used to start, grow, and exit several multi-million dollar businesses, so you can too.
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Conversational marketing happens when you personally engage with prospects and customers in real-time through multiple channels. This happens online and in person, and these channels include:
Any form of one-on-one communication, like phone and email, are considered part of conversational marketing.
Today, messaging is the most effective conversational marketing strategy to reach out to prospects and customers online. According to a recent survey from Twilio, 90% of consumers love to use it to communicate with brands and businesses.
So you want to consider using messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Viber to reach out to your potential and existing customers.
And even if you're worried you can't always reach out to people face-to-face or in real-time, conversational marketing tools like chatbots can really help. You can program them to automatically respond to messages and engage with prospects. Rather than sending an unwelcome form, you can start a conversation with an automated but warm greeting.
When done strategically, conversational marketing can do wonders for your brand. These include:
So now I want to talk about sales language. You really want to get this right, because the language you use can make or break your ability to sell.
Think about how you'd engage with a trusted friend. You're relaxed, easy-going, and the conversation flows naturally. This is how I want you to approach selling. You want to put your prospect at ease. So how can you do this.
Well, let’s start with what NOT to say.
It’s unfortunate, but lots of sales trainings teach bad language. These are some common phrases that have been overused by sales teams over the years:
I wouldn’t be surprised if you've used some of these in a sales conversation before. But I want you to know that this is outdated sales lingo. These phrases immediately trigger an internal alarm in prospects that says, "I'm being sold to." And they will slowly start backing away from you.
If you want to win customers and build long-lasting relationships with them, don't use these in conversational selling.
So now that you know what not to say, let's look at the kind of sales language which works well.
Remember, I spoke about keeping your conversations relaxed and positioning yourself as a trusted friend. If you use some of these phrases, you’ll see your sales numbers increase:
As you can see, using these statements in a conversation is not complicated. Most of them are probing questions, and you'll eventually receive a lot of different responses from qualified leads.
It puts the power back in the hands of your prospect, without causing pressure. By asking probing or leading questions, you're actually saying to your potential customer, I care. I want to know more about what you're struggling with.
That creates trust, which is essential to selling.
You can read our list of key sale tips here.
We asked our lead sales rep to share her best insights when it comes to conversational sales. Here's what she had to say:
I liken conversational sales to playing doctor. You get on the call with the patient. You listen to their symptoms. Give them space to talk about their problems, and by the end of the call, you can diagnose a solution.
Traditional sales, on the other hand, is pushy. You’re not allowing the other person to uncover what the real issue is. You're focused entirely on yourself, and that creates friction which will turn off a lot of prospects.
Conversations are vital because the more your prospect talks about their problem, the more it creates a sense of urgency within them to get it fixed. It's almost like they're convincing themselves that they need to take action and solve their problem.
Speed, really. The faster you can respond to a hot lead, the greater your chance of closing them. Don't give them time to reconsider.
Sales and marketing have evolved, and your business should too.
I'm not against classifying business models, but it's right to say that the era of B2B and B2C marketing has ended. It's over. You need to stop thinking that you're either in B2B or B2C. This time, you're in H2H marketing. And, you need to do what it takes to humanize your brand.
The power of conversational marketing and sales lies in personal and real-time engagement. Conversation is the best way to deliver a world-class customer experience.
It branches off in different directions. So whether you want to use messaging apps or chatbots on your website to reach out, what's important is shortening the buying process, understanding your prospects, and boosting the empathic element of your brand.
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