Unlock the key to competing, connecting, and closing sales in today’s market

Implementing the latest sales strategies and enabling employees to fully adopt them is essential for companies to stay competitive and drive future growth. For business decision makers and sales leaders, failing to update selling strategies can risk losing revenue and potential new business to competitors. After all, highly competitive markets require highly competitive sales strategies. Without them, companies could lose the ability to effectively engage or retain customers—no matter how good the offer, product, or service might be. Increasingly, today’s buyers crave more than a simple product; they’re looking for brands that build meaningful relationships and provide reliable value at every turn.

Accelerating business growth with stronger customer relationships

Relationships play a crucial role in driving sales, and relationship selling is an ideal strategy to connect with modern customers and close deals. In fact, trust and personal relationships were the top two reasons cited by B2B buyers for doing business with a vendor.[2]  Traditional selling strategies—often called transactional selling—are primarily product-focused, often relying on generic scripts and templates to reach as many potential customers as possible. In contrast, relationship selling is the process of fostering genuine connections with customers. This strategy helps sales professionals provide well-informed solutions, encouraging customers to view them as a reliable resource to address any future business challenges. This kind of selling emphasizes strong, long-term relationships, encourages return customers, and improves brand loyalty.

Relationship selling translates into greater business success, higher profits, and new revenue streams. While there are plenty of noteworthy advantages to this modern selling strategy, here are three of the most compelling benefits:

1.     Discover new high-quality leads

For relationship selling strategies to be successful, sales employees have to research and uncover insights about the needs and priorities most relevant to customers. This discovery process can reveal unexpected connections to new leads, whether it’s through a LinkedIn connection or a colleague with a mutual professional partner.

These new leads are especially valuable because they allow salespeople to leverage mutual relationships to connect with other decision makers. Mutual colleagues can provide referrals and introductions between the salesperson and the new lead, dramatically improving the chances of a successful sale.

2.     Boost win rates across sales team

With better insights into the priorities of today’s consumers and decision makers, sales leaders can guide their teams to successfully close deals and develop long-term customers. According to LinkedIn, 78% of social sellers outsell peers who aren’t using social media. In addition, social selling leaders are 51% more likely to reach quota.[3]  Relationship selling isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a proven strategy to increase profits and drive growth.

3.     Drive bigger deals and greater revenue

In the past, it was common for companies to only include one or two business leaders in their decisions. The number of people involved in B2B solutions purchases has climbed from an average of 5.4 two years ago to 6.8 today.[4] Relationship selling is much more conducive to this kind of buying consensus practice, as it allows for a more group-oriented approach to sales. Rather than interacting with decision makers as singular entities within a company, this strategy enables sales employees to foster robust, valuable human connections and reach a broader audience without becoming generic. And, according to sales analysis, having relationships with multiple people in a buying circle leads to larger deals and greater revenue. The more people a sales team builds relationships with, the greater trust that customer has in a company—and the greater trust they have in a company, the more willing they are to partner on high dollar deals.

Preparing sales teams for a new way to succeed

A company’s ability to compete is crucial to the sustainability of the business and its ability to grow in the future. Investing in a modern sales strategy is the most effective way to ensure your sales teams have the right tools, productivity goals, and sales priorities in place to succeed.

Regardless of the size of the business—whether it’s a global company of 1,500 employees or a burgeoning team of 200 people—relationship selling strategies are designed to better enable the skills of an already effective sales team. Sales leaders and their colleagues are already perceptive communicators who understand consumer needs; adopting a relationship sales strategy just enhances those skills to take sales goals and business success even further.