What are complex sales?
Complex sales, also called business sales, usually involve high-value goods or services that can be customized, and they need more time to close. During the complicated sales process, different people in a company often make decisions, and each has their own goals and concerns. These deals can be complex because they are complicated, and you need a different approach than uncomplicated, transactional sales.
Here are some common examples of sales that are complicated:
- Offering apps and other tech goods for sale
- Making sales to big businesses
- Selling goods or services that are made to order
- Selling advice
To make complex sales work, you must know the customer’s wants and ensure the vendor’s answer fits those needs. Also, you should know the product or service inside and out and be able to explain its benefits clearly. It’s also essential to have good ties with customers and know how to deal with the politics inside big companies.
Synonyms
- complex sales cycle
- complex sales process
- complex selling
- enterprise sales
Figuring out complicated sales cycles
The length and difficulty of a sales cycle depend on many things. Some of these factors are the type of product or service sold, the size of the deal, the number of people who make decisions, and the amount of competition.
Customized or hard-to-understand product or service
It can be harder to sell some goods or services than others. One example is that selling a new piece of software to a business will probably take longer and be more complicated than selling a well-known product to a single person.
Better Deal Size
The deal’s value can also change how hard the sales cycle is. It usually takes longer to close bigger deals because more people are involved, and decisions must be made.
More time to sell
Sales of complex goods or services usually take longer than more accessible ones. People who want to buy complicated goods or services must know all about the features and benefits of the item they’re considering. They often need approval from more than one person in their company who makes decisions. In general, selling a product or service that is more expensive and has a more significant effect takes longer.
With more decision-makers
The more people involved in the buying process, the longer and more complicated the sales cycle. This is because each person has to be convinced of the value of the product or service before deciding to buy it.
Thoughts on Risk
If potential buyers think the project is dangerous, they might not want to purchase. This could be because of several things, such as how hard the job is or not knowing if it will succeed.
The Level of Competition
When many businesses offer the same goods or services, it can take longer for people to buy because they must look at their choices and find the best deal.
RFQs, RFPs, and RFIs
People who want to buy complicated goods or services often use RFPs, RFQs, and RFIs. These tools are used to:
- Get information from several possible suppliers in a structured and effective way
- Make sure that all possible suppliers have an equal chance to fight for the business
- Help the client find the best supplier to meet their needs
You can also use RFQs and RFPs to help work out the best price for a service or product. When buyers ask multiple sellers to bid, they can often get better terms.
Buyers often use RFPs, RFQs, and RFIs when they want to buy complicated goods or services. This makes the selling process more complex and the sales cycle longer.
When dealing with complicated sales cycles, you must take a different method than when dealing with more straightforward transactions. Salespeople must know a lot about their product or service and be able to clearly explain why it’s valuable to people who might buy it. They also need to know how to build relationships and get the sale through all its steps.
It can be hard to make complicated sales, but it can also be gratifying. When you close a complicated sale, you can make much money and build a long-lasting bond with a valuable customer.
A Lot of Steps in the Sales Process
How do you handle a tricky sale? A complicated sales process is broken down into the following steps:
- Needs analysis: sellers must know what problem or need the product or service will solve for the customer. It is all part of finding new products, asking questions, listening to customers, and studying.
- Describe the change: what are you selling, and who will buy it?
- Create or adapt the answer: Once the need has been found, the next step is to create a solution that meets it. This could mean making new products or services or changing how current ones work to fit your needs.
- Identify the decision makers: Determine who will make the final choice about whether to buy.
- Build relationships: Get to know the people who make decisions and what they need.
- Make a proposal and negotiate: A sales proposal is then used to show the customer the answer. At this time, you also negotiate the price, terms and conditions, and other contract details.
- Close the deal: This is where sales reps get approval from the people who make decisions, complete the sale and hand over the goods.
Even the most experienced sellers can find it hard to sell complicated goods and services. To be successful in sales, you need to know how complicated the process is.
Examples of Hard Sales
In some fields, sales processes are complicated and challenging to track. Many things can change during the sales process, which can take a long time and be hard to understand.
In the following fields, complicated deals are shared.
- Pharmaceuticals: The sale of pharmaceuticals is usually closely regulated, and buyers and sellers may have to go through a lot of trouble to reach a deal.
- Engineering: Products for engineers can be very complicated, and the sales process usually includes a lot of talking about specifics and technical needs.
- Construction: Real estate development and construction are other fields where complicated sales always happen. Big projects can cost a lot of money, and the sales process usually requires a lot of planning between many people.
- Business software: It’s hard to sell business software because it’s usually costly. Also, enterprise software is often very complicated and has many features, making it hard to show and explain to potential buyers. Lastly, it can be hard to stand out in the market for business software because it is often very competitive.
How to Use Tools for Hard Selling
Software for sales is made to help salespeople close more deals and better handle their sales pipeline. Sales software can be beneficial in challenging selling situations like business-to-business sales.
Software for complex selling differs from other kinds of software in several ways. First, it must be able to track and handle many stakeholders. One way to do this is to track who has been contacted, their role in the decision-making process, and where they are on the buying trip.
Second, software that automates complicated sales processes needs to be able to deal with a lot of information. This could include customer data, cash information, or product specs. This information needs to be kept safely by the software so that the sales team can get to it when needed.
Third, software for complex sales needs robust data features so that companies can see how they’re doing against their sales goals and what they need to change.
Many types of software can be used in difficult selling situations, and each has its benefits and features. CRM, sales intelligence, CPQ, digital sales rooms, and revenue operations tools are some of the most popular choices.
CRM
CRM software helps sales teams track customer information and handle customer relationships. There are a lot of steps and points of contact that can happen in the sales process. This can be hard to handle, but a sound CRM system can help by keeping all of your sales information in one place and keeping track of your progress through the different steps of a deal.
This could help sales teams work faster and close more deals. A sound CRM system can also give you helpful information about how your customers act, which can help you plan your following sales strategies.
Information about sales
Sales intelligence software gives salespeople real-time information about possible buyers and helps them choose where to put their efforts. Sales intelligence software also gives sales teams helpful information that helps them close more complicated deals.
The software gives sales teams access to data on patterns and trends that help them determine what customers want and develop sound plans. For long sales cycles, sales intelligence software also has tools for measuring success and keeping track of progress. Sales teams can improve their performance and chances of success by using software that gathers information about sales.
A Lot of Sales CPQ
One of the hardest things for businesses to do when they want to close a deal is sales difficulty. It can be hard to figure out how much a sale will cost in the end when products and prices can be changed. This can cause many missed chances or deals to fall through.
CPQ software helps companies deal with this problem by giving them a quick way to set prices and goods to meet the needs of each customer. When sales reps use CPQ, they know they always set up products correctly and give the best price. When sales workers are this accurate, they can close deals faster and better.
CPQ software can also help businesses speed up the sales process by automating many chores, usually part of complicated sales. As well as making quotes and proposals, this includes managing orders and ensuring they are filled. Businesses can save a lot of money over time by cutting down on the time and resources they must put into each sale when using CPQ software.
Online stores for sales
When working on complex sales, sales teams have to deal with many problems, such as managing a lot of data and coordinating the work of many team members. Digital sales room software can help with these problems by giving everyone a place to work together and share information.
Software for digital sales rooms helps teams work together by showing everyone the sales process and progress. This can help a lot when working on long-term or multi-stage sales because it ensures everyone is on the same page and nothing is missed. Digital sales rooms also often have tools like schedules and to-do lists to help with organization.
Software for digital sales rooms also makes handling a lot of data linked to complex sales easy. You can put information in folders and files, and each team member can have different access based on their needs. This ensures that everyone gets the information they need without getting too much information that doesn’t apply to them.
Digital sales rooms can be helpful for teams working on complicated sales in general. It helps manage information and coordinate, two of the hardest things about complicated sales. In this way, it can help make complicated deals more accessible and faster.
Solutions for DevOps
A DevOps tool is software that helps businesses run and improve their revenue operations. Businesses can use the tool to automate and streamline important DevOps tasks like getting new customers, keeping old ones happy, making sales, billing and invoicing, and finance and accounting.
The RevOps platform gives all RevOps data a single source of truth. This makes it easier for companies to keep track of their progress and success against key DevOps KPIs. The software also has tools for looking at DevOps data and finding ways to improve things.
DevOps solutions can help simplify the quote-to-cash process in complicated sales settings. This makes it easier to see what’s happening in the sales pipeline and helps ensure the deal goes smoothly. DevOps solutions can give sales teams more time to do sales instead of paperwork by automating essential tasks and processes.
DevOps solutions can also help businesses find possible problems quickly and fix them before they hurt the bottom line by giving them real-time information about how their sales are doing.
