When sales reps ask the question, “How do you plan to pay for this?” or “Do you want to lease or pay cash?” the typical answer from their customers is “cash.” Most technology buyers are not educated on other avenues of acquiring new technology, or don’t understand the underlying benefits leasing can provide to their business. While cash and bank lines are options, they can negatively impact a customer’s bottom line. Leasing may have less of an impact on a customer’s cash flow and doesn’t require precious working capital.
By asking the following impactful, needs-based questions you will differentiate yourself, eliminate competitors and put yourself in a position to sell more long-term contracts.
Confirming what their business initiatives are for their business will allow you to learn about plans, challenges, and growth opportunities for the future. This will position you to offer a financial solution that fits the customer’s current and future needs.
If your customer is looking to grow, you can provide leasing recommendations that will grow with their plans. Financing will free up their funding for growth, and by pairing it with a maintenance program you can help mitigate financial risk.
By better understanding how the customer makes money, you will be able to put technology in place to maximize their profits.
Ensuring you are spending your time with the decision-maker is important. This question may also help you drive the conversation to include any other decision-makers.
The answer should give you an idea of how the customer is already using technology, and provide direction for a demo. You can concentrate your efforts on the most important piece of the business.
Finding a pain point will help you isolate issues and provide solutions that will negate situations like this. This may also help you position a long-term maintenance contract.
Confirming how important cash or working captial is to the business is a crucial step in the sales process. If it is important to them to have working capital, you have successfully positioned a lease or rental program.
This will help frame up whether the customer understands how your technology could impact their business. This can also help the customer understand the importance of having a vehicle that provides up-to-date technology.
This will help validate your new technology sale. You can create a sense of urgency and shorten the sales process.
Most companies rely on technology to keep their business running. Even a temporary loss of functioning technology would be costly. The prospect of down time is a strong way to position the cost of a new system today against potential loss. It also presents the importance of long-term maintenance contracts that protect the customer.
If they’re thinking about their bottom line, you should recommend long-term maintenance contracts along with monthly equipment payments. Having already set the stage, you can avoid price objections because you are showing savings in the long run. In contrast, your competitors are showing small, one-time savings on the equipment.
You need to understand the customer’s mindset going into this transaction. This final question will help you overcome objections before the concerns become objections.
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