"Push" Sales model: what does it take to close the deal ?

Marketing & Sales nowadays adopts a blend of "push" and "pull" sales techniques to close deals and make their numbers, with more tendency towards the "push" model as it tends to be more "proactive" and more suitable for the majority of businesses in "gray" markets.
These are the markets where you can see multiple players competing for business with diversity of offerings and no clear exclusivity or differentiation against each other.  If you are in this business model, then you surely appreciate what I am presenting here.

So, in the push sales model, you are the sales person and you have a product/set of products to sell.  You identify your potential buyers and try to approach them and close the deal with them.

On the other hand, thinking from the perspective of the potential buyers being approached by someone unknown to them, offering them something that they possibly do not know or even do not need ,,, So, here how it goes

• Who are you ? and who do you represent ?
• What is it (product or service) that you are trying to sell me ?
• Why do you think I need this product or service ?
• What makes your product or service different from others in the market ?  (Why this product/service specifically)
• Why should I buy this product/service from you and not from others ?

If you manage to cut through these layers of uncertainty/doubt/suspicion/fear that separates you from your potential buyer, then you are on the right track, and you eventually manage to break the ice, gain customer confidence in yourself, your organization and your product/service.  But this is still NOT enough to close the deal ... right ?

Let us get deeper into what it takes to crack the nut and close the deal

• How much would this product/service cost ?
• What benefits would it give me ?
• Do the benefits outweigh the cost ?
• Are there any well-know negative implications ?  

This may cover the financial analysis that the customer needs to do prior to seeing the value of the proposal. More analysis is possible of course and it can go in depth into total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis over  the lifetime of the product/service being considered.   It may also go into feasibility studies and return on investment (ROI) analysis as well just to make sure that the investment is very well justified by the expected return/benefits.

One more thing to take into account before being able to break the ice and close the deal is to address "how the customer will use this product/service and benefit from it". Obviously, this is very dependent on the type of product/service we are talking about.

• Is the product/service ready on delivery, out of the box "as-is" for consumption ?
• Does the product/service need some "preparation" to make it ready for consumption ?
• If so, whose responsibility is it to do this preparation ?  the customer ?  or you the supplier/vendor ? or both ?
• In either case, does this preparation require special skills/tools or what so ever ?
• In this case,  how "long" would the preparation take ?
• How much would it cost ?
• Are there any post-preparation requirements ?  specially those on repetitive regular basis like maintenance and after-sale support ?
• Again are there costs associated with these "post-preparation" requirements, if any ?

The exercise can go on and on ...

Take it in a scenario, drill it well, put yourself in place of your customer and think the same way, prepare your answers and get ready when you make that call !