The Gestalt Sales Model does exactly what it says on the tin. It combines market-leading strategies with our own core values to create a state-of-the-art methodology that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Current strategies often focus on the use of acronyms and buzzwords whose purpose is to prompt the sales representative to ask certain questions in order to satisfy tick-box criteria. Whilst this is an effective strategy for information gathering, our extensive experience leads us to believe that this approach does not yield the best results. Simply memorising questions can stall conversations or lead to an interrogation-style exchange. We believe that developing skills in order to deliver the right open questions and apply the right solutions is more efficient and far more successful.
The Gestalt Sales Model encourages sales representatives to take control of a conversation and develop their ability to identify, analyse and apply their knowledge to any situation. This works by applying a three-stage process: Identify. Unravel. Overcome.
Identify
The sales representative identifies key facts about the prospect such as:
- Who are the decision makers? What is their role in the decision making process?
- What solutions do they have in place now and what lead them to making this decision in the past?
- What issue is the prospect facing?
- What budget does the prospect currently have for the issue?
- What is the status of the budget and timeline for purchase?
This process is predominantly an information gathering exercise, but in reality, it is much more than that. Identifying key facts allows the sales representative to develop an understanding of the prospect’s position in the market and is a good opportunity to build rapport and to understand what their competition are doing. The sales representative is encouraged to use these key facts as a springboard to the greater issues.
Unravel
Whilst discussing the key facts, it will become evident that some of the answers given by the prospect can be expanded on. The sales representative should identify these points and ask short open questions, using “clean language” techniques in order to discover the extent of the issue and how the prospect feels it impacts their company. Such questions may include:
- What is the likely outcome if the problem is not addressed?
- Where does the problem rank in terms of priority?
- What do you feel would solve the problem?
This process develops the sales representative’s proactive and reactive skills and opens the discussion to analysis. Questions should be tailored to the key facts with the aim of identifying how the prospect is dealing with the issue so that their approach may be analysed, and a potential alternative solution proposed.
Overcome
Once the sales representative is aware of the extent of the issues, they should consider which products may assist the prospect. They may also consider whether the prospect is doing anything that may damage their path to a positive outcome. It is sometimes the case that a prospect needs to be challenged, particularly if they do not appear to be aware of the potential damage. That is not to say that the conversation needs to be aggressive, more, the sales representative should encourage the prospect to consider outcomes. Questions may include:
- What are the future steps you will be taking to tackle this problem? What issues could arise from these?
- What can be done to bring about an ideal solution? How are you going to enable this to happen?
- I am aware of a product *from client* that could solve these issues, let take a look.
- Why did they not address this issue sooner? Were they unaware?
- If the issue is ranking low on their list of priorities, why is it ranking low?
The Gestalt Sales Model In Action
By way of an example, the following conversation is between an ISR and a company who are seeking potential cloud-migration:
ISR – Identify: I would like to know a little more about your IT infrastructure, what would you say are your mission-critical applications?
Prospect: SAP is the most mission-critical application, however we are unable to identify how many applications we have or what those applications are across our entire estate.
ISR – Unravel: How is this issue impacting your migration to the cloud?
Prospect: This is causing problems when migrating data as we need to know exactly what is going to happen with each and every application before they are moved, whilst they are moving and after they have been moved.
ISR – Overcome: I am aware of a product on the market that will allow you to identify all of your applications and effectively do a practice run of the move in order to identify any potential issues without delaying cloud migration or seeking external support at a greater cost.
Prospect: That sounds ideal.
ISR: I am going to set up a face to face meeting with *client*, does the 7th of August at 1pm look in your diary? Or would you prefer an earlier or later meeting?
As you can see, the three stages may flow quite quickly into each other, there is no requirement to find all key facts before moving on the unravel them due to the bidirectional approach that this model creates. It is important to keep the conversation flowing and take advantage of each opportunity to expend on issues. Similarly, there may be some key facts that do not require expansion at all, and therefore can be noted but may be left without unravelling, such as who the decision maker is, once known, there is likely nothing to be gained from asking further questions on this matter and time is better spent unravelling higher priority facts. However, it is worth mentioning that you would need to speak directly to key members of the Decision Making Unit at a later date, but in terms of gathering information about a company and the problems they are currently facing, budget holders may not always knows the “ins and outs”.
The three stages of Go Demand’s sales model (the Gestalt Sales Model) combine all of the elements of effective sales strategies without the need for memorising questions or complex principles. It is as simple as identifying a key fact and following it through with appropriate questions. It allows for the development of competent and confident sales representatives who can think on their feet and gauge their prospects responses in order to apply the right questions and suggestions at the right time in a measured way. We have no need for parroted questions or scripts; we believe our prospects deserve a tailor-made approach from a sales representative who understands their needs. If you think your business could benefit from high quality leads generated in an intelligent, nurturing environment, just get in touch and find out how we can give your business a boost.
Follow us on Instagram for more info and tips about lead & demand generation