With a very keen eye to details, Manik is involved in strategic planning that is transforming the operations of the company

Sales was always considered as an art. For time immemorial, it was a skill that was special to a few and the art form was always considered difficult to teach. But as the information age, taken over by consumer behaviour has changed. Consumers today are more aware of choices and critically analyse their purchases. In this new age of buying patterns, sales have also moved to become a technology driven aspect of business that is backed by scientific reasoning and analysis.

Making the Science backed Pitch
Analyzing and understanding the consumer is the first step of a science backed sales pitch. Intelligent sales automation, CRM systems, metrics-based planning and technology infused processes are taking over the sales world. Today, selling goes beyond just the product or service offering. The questions that a salesman needs to ask have changed. Today we need to ponder on these points:

1. When was the customer's interest generated and how?
2. Did they make a similar purchase earlier?
3. How does the product/service compare to the competition?

For example, consider what we do at Pinclick when we handle real estate sales. We understand that purchasing a home or commercial property is a personal decision that has a lot of emotions tied to it. We need to first build a relationship with the customer and in order to do that we use the technology tools to showcase our products in the best way possible for the customer to get a 3600 view. In the real estate

market, prospect looks for requirements based on their target budgets and then selects from the listed properties. While the location of purchase makes a huge difference, the price becomes the ultimate deciding factor. Keeping this in mind, we highlight the price listings ahead of the remaining features because that is the first elimination point. The next process then moves to location, square footage, amenities, and others.

Thus, if we need to capture the customer's attention, then we need to understand their primary motivation and then finally, tune our technology platform to cater to the needs.

Scientific sales methods are tried-tested and proven to bring in more sales than just winging it on instinct

Forecasting with Information
Forecasting a sale closure depends on the information you have managed to gather about the client. The metrics and analysis will help the salesman benchmark the information. Again the standards will predict whether the sale will move to the ultimate end. In Pinclick, our sales personnel use information from their meetings and negotiations to predict the time period in which a sale would be completed. Based on information from past sales, we have been able to predict with consider-able accuracy that the most common window of closure is between 30-45 days.

The Support Systems
Science based selling uses social psychology, neuroscience and behavioural economics to close a sale. This new approach has helped salesman boost their sales numbers across industries. These processes are more focussed on the buyer. These sales methods also use tools that correspond to the buyer behaviours, thus showing a dramatic increase in the percentage of conversions.

Science based sales use a positive approach without deriding the competition and by focussing on the positive attributes of the product/ service. The salesman who uses a positive approach outsell their negative minded colleagues by 40 percent in sales numbers. Science helps them to understand the buyer behaviours in depth and also relate to what a consumer might have in terms of long-term expectations. This helps retain consumers and also increase the chances of re-purchase for high-value items.

Scientific sales methods are tried-tested and proven to bring in more sales than just winging it on instinct. So, the next time you have a sales meeting or speak with a potential new customer, try the science backed way and you will see the positive impact. It will definitely increase your sales pipeline.