“Knowledge is power” is a saying that has been attributed to Sir Francis Bacon. This has been used in many different ways including encouraging students to continue their education.
In a business context, knowledge is also power. But knowledge in, perhaps, a different way than you think.
There are three basic types of knowledge when it comes to selling:
1. Knowledge about your products or services
This is the basic knowledge that you and your sales team (if you have sales staff) already know or should know about what you sell or do. It’s all about the how and what you do. It’s about the facts and figures of the products or services. It’s the details of what is delivered and when. Fundamentally it is all about you and your business.
2. Knowledge about your clients or customers
This is knowledge of a different type. This is understanding what your clients or customers are seeking to achieve. What do they really want as opposed to what are they asking for. It’s all about the benefits of the products or services. It’s about the why they would buy the product or service. Fundamentally it is all about them.
3. Knowledge about potential referral partners’ clients or customers
This is taking knowledge to the next level where you consider who else is dealing with your clients or customers. When you identify who those people are, the knowledge you need to identify is what challenge do those people have and how can you help them to help their clients or customers.
It is armed with knowledge from these three angles that you can sell more and increase profits.
There is another type of knowledge which will also increase profits. This is thinking about how else you can help your clients or customers. What else could you do as a value add or additional product or service that they would willingly buy from you given that you are already supplying to them.
This type of knowledge may require a degree of learning new skills that are not in the ordinary line of your business. Or you may simply decide to work with another business to provide the knowledge and you on-sell it to your clients or customers.
When talking to successful business owners, the ones who are doing extremely well are those who ask their clients or customers about their business and their challenges and needs and then go about finding ways to assist them. They are always looking for the benefits and providing the benefits in a selling conversation, not the hows and whats. It’s about the why. It’s about the emotion and feeling when a challenge or issue is resolved or eliminated. That’s what people buy.
The reality is most people don’t want to know the how; they just want to have the problem fixed. Finding ways to do this may require additional knowledge. Gaining that knowledge will grow your profits and differentiate your business from your competitors at the same time.
