There's a lot of great (and some remarkably bad) advice in the replies here, but one thing I can share from my two decades of having my hands in sales, engineering and service is that customers, regardless of they are B2B or private, are going to weigh your product on two things;
1. Does this solve a problem we have?
2. Can we afford it?
That's it. There's no magic tricks or dark patterns to be exploited, contrary to what a variety of sales/marketing books might tell you (those books are selling you the books, nothing more).
Here's a few easy things to remember:
1. Your customer has needs. Meet them or walk away before you waste valuable time and create resentment.
2. Your customer is a human that values honesty and wants to make an informed decision, so be prepared to give them the information they need to do so.
If you go into a presentation knowing your product and knowing your customer's needs, there's really no other controls you can account for that will sway that deal one way or the other. So, do your homework. Use OSINT techniques to gather info on your customer, build a profile of what they already use, what their pain points are, etc and don't forget to just talk to them. Not every interaction has to result in a sale, in fact, most are fact-finding/info-gathering sessions for both parties, in my experience.
Despite doing well for myself when I was operating in a sales capacity, I do not do sales much these days mostly because I prefer the troubleshooting and development side of the industry I'm in, but if you approach it with a Troubleshooting Mindset, you're better off. It sets you up to offer the right solution for the right problem if you think of your customer's workflow/processes as something to be studied so that it can be improved.
I say this because I have met countless salesmen in my day that think they can human-hack their way to a deal because they watched Glengarry Glen Ross too many times, or read a Malcolm Gladwell book. They're the reason why we have a used car salesman stereotype and why movies like Wolf of Wall Street are made (that movie is not about a hero). Approach with caution any advice that a behavioral economist or anyone claiming to be a market expert offers; none of these people have crystal balls or mind-reading capabilities and they make money by convincing people they do. You're in a position where a lot of that might seem attractive and I was there once myself, going so far as to paying real money to attend a Tony Robbins seminar more than once when I was first starting out. It's all nonsense in the end, boiling down to getting yourself out there, building relationships with people, spiced with a bit of luck and privilege.
1. Does this solve a problem we have?
2. Can we afford it?
That's it. There's no magic tricks or dark patterns to be exploited, contrary to what a variety of sales/marketing books might tell you (those books are selling you the books, nothing more).
Here's a few easy things to remember:
1. Your customer has needs. Meet them or walk away before you waste valuable time and create resentment.
2. Your customer is a human that values honesty and wants to make an informed decision, so be prepared to give them the information they need to do so.
If you go into a presentation knowing your product and knowing your customer's needs, there's really no other controls you can account for that will sway that deal one way or the other. So, do your homework. Use OSINT techniques to gather info on your customer, build a profile of what they already use, what their pain points are, etc and don't forget to just talk to them. Not every interaction has to result in a sale, in fact, most are fact-finding/info-gathering sessions for both parties, in my experience.
Despite doing well for myself when I was operating in a sales capacity, I do not do sales much these days mostly because I prefer the troubleshooting and development side of the industry I'm in, but if you approach it with a Troubleshooting Mindset, you're better off. It sets you up to offer the right solution for the right problem if you think of your customer's workflow/processes as something to be studied so that it can be improved.
I say this because I have met countless salesmen in my day that think they can human-hack their way to a deal because they watched Glengarry Glen Ross too many times, or read a Malcolm Gladwell book. They're the reason why we have a used car salesman stereotype and why movies like Wolf of Wall Street are made (that movie is not about a hero). Approach with caution any advice that a behavioral economist or anyone claiming to be a market expert offers; none of these people have crystal balls or mind-reading capabilities and they make money by convincing people they do. You're in a position where a lot of that might seem attractive and I was there once myself, going so far as to paying real money to attend a Tony Robbins seminar more than once when I was first starting out. It's all nonsense in the end, boiling down to getting yourself out there, building relationships with people, spiced with a bit of luck and privilege.