The Sandler Selling System, developed by David Sandler in 1967, encourages salespeople to abandon the traditionally rigid sales approach where salespeople simply read through generic sales scripts and prioritize quantity over quality instead. By prioritizing a more consultative approach, sellers can more efficiently qualify leads. Rather than acting like a pushy salesperson, sellers focus on building trust throughout the qualification process. While there are various ways to accomplish this, an adaptive selling approach– which enables sellers to personalize their strategy based on each buyer’s personality and needs– is often key when building trust and developing connections.  

Building trust and asking the right questions at the right time allows sellers to build better relationships with a prospect. By creating and sustaining strong relationships with prospects and adequately qualifying each opportunity, Sandler enables sellers to be advisers to potential customers resulting in a better buying experience.

This sales methodology provides a 7-step guide for sellers to follow:

1. Bonding and rapport building.
2. Up-front contracts.
3. Pain.
4. Budget.
5. Decision.
6. Fulfillment.
7. Post-sell.

These 7 steps are further categorized into 3 main stages of the buying process:

1. Building and Sustaining Relationships
2. Qualifying the Opportunity
3. Closing the Sale

Utilizing DISC insights while navigating through the stages of the Sandler Selling System can streamline the process and maximize its effectiveness. DISC is a proven and tested personality methodology that categorizes individuals into four main personality types: D (Dominance), I (Influence), S (Steadiness), and C (Conscientiousness).  By identifying someone’s personality type, the DISC framework allows sellers to better understand each buyer’s behaviors, motivations, and communication preferences. With this knowledge, sellers can adjust their own communication and opt for a more personalized approach to quickly build trust and win more deals.

Let’s take a closer look at how to use DISC throughout each stage…

Using DISC to build and sustain relationships

In this step of the Sandler sales process, sellers must establish a connection, as well as objectives and expectations, with their buyers. This step sets the tone for the rest of the sale, so strong communication and an understanding of the individual here are critical. DISC is a perfect vehicle for better understanding the behavioral nature of a prospect and can help sellers adapt their communication to fit their prospect’s personality and build trust and rapport more quickly.

By understanding a prospect’s DISC type and tailoring communication to fit their style, salespeople can more quickly build relationships that lead to an eventual sale.

Using DISC to qualify the opportunity

When qualifying the opportunity, sellers must discover whether a prospect is a good fit for their product. This includes understanding a prospect’s needs, timeline, budget, and buying process. To uncover their problems and identify solutions, sellers need to ask the right questions and communicate in a way that resonates with the prospect. 

DISC helps understand how a buyer is naturally motivated and how to best communicate in a way that will uncover their needs.

Using DISC to close the sale

Once a prospect is qualified, sellers must demo their product, pitch pricing, confirm the agreement and discuss delivery logistics. There are plenty of times during this stage where things can go wrong. For example, a negotiating tactic that pushes one deal across the finish line may cause another one to blow up. While some people value direct, bottom-line discussions, others may prefer slower conversation and collaboration.

DISC can keep the process running smoothly by enabling a personalized approach through each stage of the process.

Final thoughts

The Sandler Selling methodology enables sellers to skip the games and more efficiently qualify potential customers. By building trust and acting as a consultant rather than a typical salesperson, sellers can improve conversion rates, increase deal sizes, and maintain a much cleaner pipeline.

Every prospect has their own communication style, preferences, and concerns, which means every sales interaction needs to be personalized. Crystal, the software platform for adaptive selling, uses DISC as its core framework to understand how different buyers naturally behave, communicate, and make decisions.

Try Crystal and see how our sales tool has helped elevate sales operations for leading sales organizations.

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