Promotions are a part of sales. If you’re in direct sales, going door-to-door to inspire interest in a product or service, you’ll often present a sales offer to sweeten the deal.

Those sales offers can be great tools to help gain new business. But if a sales rep becomes reliant on the offer in order to close customers, they will find themselves at a loss when the sales offer changes.

Sales Offers Must, And Will, Change

Sales promotions, by nature, are fleeting.

Markets change, no matter the product. Prices will go up and down. Features and benefits become more and less relevant. Customer needs vary, as do the realities of the economy.

The products and companies that direct sales agents represent will want to keep their offers fresh and exciting to their target market, in response to those realities. But how can you, as a salesperson, stay on top of an offer change without it impacting your pitch and, ultimately, your numbers?

Sales Offer Change, Tip #1: Sell On Value, Not Price

One of the biggest mistakes that salespeople make is to try and close business based on price.

Why is this such a big mistake? Well, because sometimes, it works.

If you’re presenting a sales offer that has a particularly attractive price, it may serve to close some business. But what happens when the promotion ends?

If you’ve come to rely on price to be your primary positioning tool, (especially if your product is a commodity-style product in which price is a major decision factor,) you won’t be able to adapt when your product’s price has increased.

In contrast, if you sell based on value, you won’t use a low price as a crutch to close business. If you are able to position your product based on the benefits that it brings to your potential customers, you won’t be tied to any particular price-point. A customer will be willing to spend money on something that they have a perceived need for.

This is much easier if you’ve already built a productive sales pipeline.

Sales Offer Change, Tip #2: Identify Key Points Of New Offer

Most sales reps struggle when adapting to a new sales offer because they are used to talking about a particular set of features and benefits. If an old sales offer highlighted or accentuated a particular feature, it was put to the forefront of the pitch.

This is why it’s important to reassess your pitch in light of a new offer.

A new sales promotion may highlight a completely different set of benefits that you’re not used to presenting. Figure out what those are and learn how to present those instead.

Take the time to learn and understand the sales offer, and the benefits that the new promotion values. You’ll need to be able to communicate those effectively to your customer.

It may benefit your company to have your sales leaders who are most familiar with your product get together with the less experienced reps in order to hone a new sales pitch that accentuates the new offer. It can help the whole organization!

This is especially true if you’re adapting to a new product or the business is new to direct sales.

Sales Offer Change, Tip #3: Practice, Practice, Practice Your Pitch

New sales offers cause problems because they interrupt the established habits of sales reps.

A rep is used to presenting their product in a certain way. They understand the process. They’re confident in it.

But now there’s a brand new offer, and they need to readjust their entire process. It can feel overwhelming.

That’s why practice is so important!

Think about it this way: if you’ve been “in a groove” with a particular pitch for so long, you may fall into a rut. It’s hard to get out of a rut without concerted effort. After all, it can take twice as long to replace an established habit as it does to develop a new habit.

This is why, many times, when a sales promotion changes, the majority of the sales office sees a drop in their numbers.

Once you’ve developed a new value-driven pitch to highlight the benefits of a new offer, practice that pitch – from icebreaker to close.! Do twice as many role-playing exercises, twice as much training, until you know the new pitch as well, (or even better,) than you knew the old one.

(You’ll also want to make sure you practice overcoming objections.)

With the right pitch, presenting the right value, with the right amount of practice, you’ll be adapting to your new promotions in no time.

If you’re ready to take the world of telecom direct sales by storm, Solcomm wants to talk to you. We help train and support the best of the best when it comes to direct sales reps and sales leaders. Apply now to learn how we can work together!