the this sales life guide to
avatars
q4 2021
We’ve all heard of an avatar. No, not the blue aliens made famous by James Cameron’s movie. You know, the sales avatar. The “magic” marketing tool that helps you get inside your customers’ heads and relate to them so you can sell more products and make bookoos of cash.
CLOSing MORE DEALS
Avatars are a tried and tested tool. And they work! Understanding the customer as a marketing professional allows you to create better campaigns, write more convincing copy, and of course, secure more sales.
And the beauty of this tool is it’s totally translatable for technology sales reps. We can use the idea of a customer avatar when understanding our clients. Getting into their heads and imagining ourselves in their shoes. Of course, we’re not marketers, so we need to translate the tool a bit and make it work for us.
Successfully implementing client avatars into your sales process will close more deals, solve more problems, lead to less stress and more success.
4 SURE-FIRE ROADS TO RESEARCH
Now, when I say research don’t freak out y’all. I’m not talking about PhD-level thesis research here. Spending hours and hours researching before meeting face-to-face (or screen-to-screen) with a client is probably not going to help you too much in the long run.
But spending 15-20 minutes on some quality online digging and jotting down a few notes? That’s what I’m ALL about. Ultimately, we know it’s one of the keys to closing more deals, which is what it’s all about!
In order to connect with your client in that first meeting, you want to already know who they are. You’ve got to understand what’s important to them and what problems their company is facing. You don’t want to waste 15 minutes of their valuable time asking questions that Google could have answered for you in less time.
FLESHing OUT YOUR AVATAR
Goal: Close more deals. Scruples: Not many.
I’m with you. I’ve been there. I’m still there y’all. Hungry for more. I’m always looking for ways to close more deals, help more clients, and make that commission check fatter. It’s my job and my passion.
Today, we’ll discuss three ways to flesh out your avatar that translate information from facts to usable data that you can level up with.
low priority avatars
A couple of months ago I met with my coach for our usual session. As is typical for us, I had a few questions about aspects of a deal I was pushing through and he had a few things he wanted to follow up on from our last chat.
And yes, I have a coach. It’s the most effective way I’ve found to level up my sales game, balance work and life, and observe my actions with an outside eye. In short, it’s nice to have a second opinion from someone who’s “been there, done that”. I highly recommend it.
Also yes, sometimes we disagree on things. We’re human, obviously. And, I don’t just take his word as gospel. We pick it apart together, talk things through, look at situations from different points of view. A good coach is a good sounding board and isn’t too dogmatic about “here’s what you should do next”.
9 QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR AVATAR IN THE FIRST MEETING
Eventually, once you’ve done the research, drug yourself through the background work, properly imagined your avatar as the ideal customer, you’ll end up with a meeting on the books. You’re nervous. Sweating. Anxious for this half-hour call to go well because you know you might not get another chance. This is the moment when your avatar becomes a real person you’re having an actual conversation with.
You’ve done the pre-meeting work. What now?
First, it’s important to keep in mind the goal of your initial meeting
Let’s Wrap This Sh!t Up!
We have had quite the ride this fall exploring the many angles of avatars. I admit that avatars are much more useful than I had initially realized. In fact, I didn’t even fully understand how often I was using this concept in my own work. And now, I’m more excited than ever to keep integrating this tool into my sales processes to close more deals and help more people get what they need to succeed.
But it has been a while since we began this journey, so perhaps, as we bring this series to a close, a little retrospective is in order.
