Soft selling – what is it and how it can benefit you

It’s a long journey from finding a prospect to making a successful sale. Sometimes, you don’t even reach your destination. Opting for the wrong approach that scares your prospect away is most likely the reason. Whether you want to increase sales on your website or close a big deal, you need the best tactic for the task. With so many different approaches to sales, it can be difficult to choose which one works best. Instead, you need to constantly test out new tactics and keep customers guessing. One of the better ways to approach prospects is through soft selling. Let ConvertMore show you why that is.

Imagine the following situation. Everything seems fine at first, but then it starts to look like you’re losing your customer. So, you try to retain their interest by bombing them with offers and extra information. However, the harder you insist, the less interested your lead is. Before you know it, you’ve wasted your time and resources and lost your lead. Why did this happen? Because instead of soft selling, you opted for the more aggressive approach. In this article, we explain what soft selling is and how it can benefit your business.

What is a soft sell?

First, let’s define what a soft sell is. Soft selling refers to sales techniques that rely on building relationships with customers and using a subtle, low-pressure approach. Instead of prioritizing getting to a close as fast as possible, your focus stays on the prospect and their needs. Although this technique is subtle and slow-burn, it doesn’t mean it’s passive. On the contrary, you’ll need to stay persistent and keep engaging your prospect in order to close the deal.

Differences between the soft and hard selling

What’s the critical difference between soft and hard sales approaches? When you use a hard-sell approach, your goal is to close the deal as quickly as possible. Therefore, you’re going to be direct and straightforward. It will provide some quick results and can be quite effective in the short run.

However, you’ll lose many other opportunities along the way. When you deal with a reluctant visitor online you can always use exit popup software to get their interest back. But adding extra pressure on a reluctant prospect can lead to driving that prospect away completely. The soft sales approach allows you to gradually convert your prospect into a customer and create a more permanent relationship.

What are the benefits of soft selling?

We’ve already hinted at some of the benefits you can expect when you opt for soft-sell techniques. Let’s explore further the advantages of this approach. Soft selling allows you to:

• create a community around your brand
• decrease your churn rate
• increase the number of returning customers
• encourage brand loyalty
• build a good reputation for your brand
• create more opportunities for cross and up-selling
• increase your conversion rate in the long run.

Where to start – the best soft-selling techniques

Adopting a soft-sell strategy doesn’t mean you should completely give up on the hard-selling approach. On the contrary, you should always assess your goals and your prospects’ personalities and pain points before choosing the right strategy. In fact, you’ll achieve the best results by combining both. Implementing soft sell strategies into your business isn’t difficult and it has many advantages. Here are some excellent techniques that you should try:

Learn about your prospect

In order to sell well, know who you’re selling to. Don’t hesitate to do the research and learn as much as you can before approaching your prospect. See what challenges your prospect is currently facing and how your products or service can help with overcoming them. This will show you care and have their interests at heart.

Focus on creating a meaningful relationship

You want your prospects to see you as their ally and advisor. The only way to achieve this is to gain their trust. It’s not something that will happen immediately. Instead, you need to work on building a good rapport and creating a relationship that brings value to both of you. Once the prospect knows you’re invested in helping them solve their problems, they’ll gladly listen to your advice and recommendations.

Adjust your manner and language

A pushy and insistent, demanding manner is likely to put off a great number of prospects. Also, reading from the script or ignoring the words and behavior of your subject will make you appear artificial and selfish. Instead, you want to adjust the language you’re using. Be friendly, conversational, positive, and patient. Listen to what your prospect has to say, and don’t forget that we are all people at the end of the day.

Tell stories

Another way to connect with your prospect is to be personable and tell stories. Stories make business proposals sound less impersonal and appeal to people’s emotions. However, make sure that the stories and anecdotes you use are honest and true. Whether you share something personal or tell a work-related story you want it to have a positive effect and humanize your brand.

Amp up your social media presence

An excellent soft-selling technique is building your brand’s story online. It will appeal to people for many reasons. Product reviews, simple purchase options, and valuable how-to guides will provide valuable content your audience needs. But blog posts, sharing your values, lifestyle editorials, user reviews, etc. will help you tell your story and engage your audience in a meaningful way. Plus, you can use many useful tools such as a callback system, or launch an effective marketing campaign.

Listen and ask thoughtful questions

It goes without saying, that with a soft sales approach you should take a backseat and listen attentively to what your prospect has to say. Not only will that leave a good impression but it will also help you gain important insights and tailor your strategy to suit the prospect better. However, don’t hesitate to ask thoughtful questions and learn better what your prospect needs and expects from you.

Provide value without asking for a deal in return

Adding value with little or no cost will have many benefits. You can offer a useful piece of advice, training, or a guide that will help your prospect solve an issue. Or you can offer samples and provide discounts. That will allow your prospect to see for themselves the value of your product. Also, it will encourage them to continue working with you. Even if it doesn’t result in an immediate sale it will provide long-term advantages.

Give your prospect some time and space to reach their decision

Last but not least, give your prospect an opportunity to reach their decision at their own pace. Don’t add extra pressure and insist on closing the deal. Although it may seem counterintuitive, doing so is more likely to result in making a sale and building a strong relationship. Now that you know what soft selling is, don’t hesitate to try out some of these excellent techniques.

Start exploring your soft-selling skills today!

Before you start testing all these tactics, you need the prospects. And ConvertMore offers a callback widget that guarantees up to 30% higher chances of getting customers to trigger calls with you. Learn more about our app and how it can benefit your business by exploring our website or contacting us directly. For more insight on how to improve your sales performance, just keep reading our blog.