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Five
Selling Tips
-
Qualify.
Don't rush in to give your pitch without first finding out if there's a
chance this person will buy from you. Customers won't buy if they're not
qualified (interested in what you're selling).
- Persist "Sales
are made by the tenacious. You have to stay in there, even when you're
getting rejected sometimes it will take multiple sales calls to sell to
a customer. Many give up too early--and therefore miss the chance to
make the sale.
- Move
On.
Congratulations, you made the sale. or maybe didn't. Either way, the
successful salesperson knows when it's time to move on. You can't afford
to waste time gloating over successful sales, nor can you waste time
trying to sell prospect who will never buy. Farber's advice: "Learn
as quickly as you can how to know when it's time to move on."
- Differentiate.
How are you and your product or service different? What makes you better
than your competitors? "Don't try to copy others. What will shape
your success is how you deliver a personal touch," says Farber, who
adds: "Knowing what makes you unique lets you sell that much more
effectively."
- Form
relationships.
Build relationships with customers, then turn those relationships into
partnerships. You should
provide enough value so that your customers really appreciate doing
business with you. That creates lasting sales success.
[More Sales Tips]
Top
Concepts
of “The Deal”
View Books by Marc Diener
- Haggling is not the route to sales success. According to Marc Diener, Los Angeles attorney, and author of
Deal Power: 6 Foolproof Steps to Making Deals of Any Size (Owl
Books/Henry Holt), "Too much emphasis is put on haggling.
Preparation is the real key to making better deals."
- Know what you want from the deal. "People jump into deals
too quickly--before they know what they want," says Diener.
"Step back and ask yourself what you're really going after."
- Know What you Want from the Deal According to Diener, “Deal making is a team sport.” Diener, urges
that if a deal is important you should involve professionals, such as
accountants, lawyers and bankers. At a minimum do some self-help and and
do your research.
- Check out the other side. Are you dealing with a
crook. An incompetent? You don't want their problems to become your
problems," explains Diener, who insists entrepreneurs perform
"due diligence" (meticulous research into the other side)
before closing any deal.
- Plan
for the downside. "Know what can go wrong," says Diener,
"and seek to minimize your risks." Ask yourself: If the other
side doesn't perform as agreed, what do you lose--and how could you
cope? "Using tools such as insurance and performance bonds can be
good policy," adds Diener.
- Get it in writing. Don't let the glow of the moment prompt you to
close a deal on a handshake alone, stresses Diener. A written agreement
"is evidence of what everybody agreed to," says Diener,
"and putting it in writing forces us to flesh out our
thinking."
Learn More About This Topic
[Top]
Five
Commandments for Sales
View Books by Brian Tracy
- Excerpted
from books by Brian Tracy, titled
Advanced Selling Strategies (Fireside Books) and the recently released
The 1O0 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success (BerrettKoehler
Publishers). Based on his two decades of experience, he shares these
five "absolutely unbreakable" laws for sales success:
- Thou shall build credibility with thy customer before attempting to
sell. "The most important ingredient in a long-term sales
relationship is trust," says Tracy, who adds that the more a
customer trusts you, "the easier it is to sell and keep selling to
the customer."
- Thou shall learn the customer's real needs by asking questions and
listening carefully to the answers. "The better you understand a
customer's situation and what he or she needs to improve his or her work
or life, the easier it will be for you to match the benefits of your
offering to the customer so the customer accepts your
recommendation," says Tracy.
- Thou shall position thyself as a problem-solver, helper and teacher in
the mind and heart of thy customer. "The way the customer thinks
about you when you're not there is the most important determinant of how
the customer responds to you when you are present," says Tracy.
When you're viewed as a problem-solver, the customer welcomes your
input.
- Thou shall commit thyself to excellence in selling and never stop growin
in skill. Like anything,
good selling takes hard work. Tracy urges entrepreneurs to "resolve
to be the best at what you do. Read in your field. Listen to audio
tapes. Take sales seminars. Never stop improving."
- Thou shall set goals for every area of thy life and work on them every
day. If you want to succeed in selling, says Tracy, you must "have
specific, written goals" and set daily schedules to achieve those
goals.
[Top]
|
Perfecting
the Close
Books by Tom Hopkins
- An
undisputed master of selling,,Tom Hopkins is one of the nation s top
names in sales training. He spends much of the year on the speaker's
platform, but Hopkins is also a prolific author, whose titles include
Selling/hr Dummies, Sales Prospecting for Dummies, and Sales Closing for
Dummies (all from IDG Books Worldwide). If you want to close more sales,
take these tips to heart:
- Eliminate
distractions. "You need to be in control of potential clients'
attention," says Hopkins. "Keep them focused on the matter at
hand by moving to a quiet area."
- Be
enthusiastic. "If you're not enthusiastic about the wonderful
benefits of your product, why should potential clients be?" Hopkins
asks.
- Emphasize
the emotional aspects of the sale. According to Hopkins, people
make decisions emotionally, then defend those decisions with logic.
"So, you must be prepared with the logic, but sell with
emotion," he says. "Get them thinking about how they'll feel
after they own the product or service."
- Be
direct. "You'd be amazed at how many salespeople think they didn't
make the sale because the client said no, when what really happened is
that the salesperson didn't ask the client to say yes," warns
Hopkins. "After doing a summary of the points you've covered, hand
[the prospective client] the paper work and pen and be certain to say, for example, 'With your
approval right here,John, we'll welcome you to the family of XYZ clients
and arrange delivery of your new widget.' Those words are soft and
gentle, yet get the message across that it's time for a decision to be
made."
- Stop Talking. "After
you ask for the business, wait for the answer, says Hopkins. "I've
long thought that the first person who talks owns the product or
service. Stay quiet until the client gives you an answer. They'll either
make the purchase or give you an objection. Then you can talk."
[Top]
Selling
No Nos
More from this Author
Ask
Kevin Davis for a list of the five most frequent sales blunders, and his
biggest problem becomes trying to narrow down the field of countless
common mistakes to a select few. That's because this Danville,
California, sales trainer and author of Getting Into Your Customer's
Head (Times Business/Random House) has made a distinguished living
studying such goofs.., and, believe us, he's seen plenty of them.
If
any of the following sound familiar, at least you can take solace in the
fact that you're not alone:
O
Thinking about the selling process, not the buying process. Make this
big mistake, and "you're too focused on your own agenda, not the
customer's. You're self-absorbed," says Davis. Worse still,
customers today can actually predict your next move-at least when you
concentrate too much on technique and not enough on what the customer
needs. Says Davis, "Today's customers are sick and tired of
self-focused product-pushers. Sell slower, and your customers will buy
faster."
O
Failing to identify behind-the-scenes decision-makers. Up to 90 percent
of the buying decision occurs when the salesperson isn't even around,
says Davis, who points out that many other parties often participate in
making the decision to buy. Successful selling means identifying those
behind-the-scenes decision-makers--and making sure features and benefits
resonate with them, too.
O
Neglecting to educate customers about the costs of doing nothing.
"For many salespeople, the number-one competitor is the customer's
decision to wait," says Davis. Savvy sellers know how to show a
customer the real costs associated with delaying a purchase. Waiting
might seem a safe choice to them now, but successful salespeople make a
habit of popping that balloon.
O
Calling on prospects who don't value your value. If your big selling
strength is high quality, you're probably wasting time going after
purchasing agents who are far more price-focused, says Davis. A key to
successful selling is identifying the right potential customers who
already want, need and value the product or service you have to sell.
0
Failing to resolve a customer's fears. What kills the deal in the
eleventh hour, when you're sure you've landed a big one? What makes
customers quake in their boots before they sign on the dotted line?
What's the big reason why customers pull out of a deal in those last
minutes is fear. Being the
fear of commitment or the fear of being made out to be a fool you need
to have a plan for overcoming their fears.
[Top]
Nice
People Finish ____
Do
nice guys finish last? A recent study seems to support that notion.
Two
professors at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management
in Nashville, Tennessee, spent a couple years studying behavior at the
bargaining table. One key finding: Agreeable folks did worse in certain
types of negotiations because they tend to value cooperation over
protecting their self-interests. That might not be surprising, but how
about this: Intelligence had absolutely no impact on the outcome of
win-lose negotiations (where one side comes out ahead), say professors
Bruce Barry and Raymond Friedman.
What
does matter? Nerve and toughness, say the profs. Have them and, odds
are, you'll come out on top.
If
you're an agreeable person by nature, your best bet is to go into the
negotiation strongly focused on what you want out of the deal--not on
making nice with the other side--and you'll probably do okay, say the
researchers.
Incidentally,
in negotiations where true win-win outcomes are possible, intelligence
does benefit a negotiator because he'll be more adept at sniffing out
what really matters to the other side. In fact, in those kinds of
negotiations, say Barry and Friedman, intelligence is a key factor in
reaching a successful conclusion.
Jard DeVille has some excellent writings on this topic.
[Top]
What
does "No" mean?
A
customer says no? It's. not over.
As
an entrepreneur, you will hear "no" no matter how thoroughly
you follow the 6ps on these pages. In fact, if you haven't heard some
nos by now, you're not selling hard enough. But a no isn't necessarily
the end of your hopes for making a deal with a prospect, says Jeffrey
Gitomer, a Charlotte, North Carolina, sales trainer and co-author of
Knock Your Socks Off Selling (AMACOM Books). He offers tactics to use in
overcoming initial nos:
Use
humor. "Say to the prospect, 'Thanks for telling me no. I usually
have to hear four nos before I hear yes. Do you know anybody else I can
call who'll say no?'" suggests Gitomer. Or: "Say'Is that your
final answer?' ' says Gitomer. These tactics can help to defuse the
tension triggered by a no and move conversation to the next level.
Ask
why five times. "Ask why and ask why again, and keep asking until
you get to the truth about why this prospect said no," says Gitomer.
For instance, if the customer says, "I said no because I need a
voice-actuated wireless telephone," start by asking: Why do you
need voice-actuation? Ask enough questions, and the customer may find
that your product or service does what he or she needs.
List
the things of value you offer prospects in addition to what you're
selling. "If you don't have anything to put on the list, you don't
deserve this sale," says Gitomer. He explains: If you're selling
longdistance telephone service for businesses, for instance, you might
offer free sales training tapes to customers who sign up. To make any
deal of value, "You need to offer more than just what you're
selling,'' he says.
Tell
prospects you can't accept a no until they make two phone calls.
"Ask them to call two of your customers who initially said no, then
decided to buy," says Gitomer. "You may not be able to
overcome a prospect's resistance, but he or she might listen to your
customers."
Find
out whom your prospects eventually buy from and what the criteria were.
:Maybe you won't get this sale, says Gitomer, but if you get the reasons
you didn't, you'll be more likely to get the next deal.
More From this Author
[Top]
How
to Get Repeat Business
If
you're not getting repeat business you're working way too hard. As any
smart salesperson knows, the real profits come when past customers
return to make additional purchases. To make sure your customers are
return customers, hungry for more, try following these tips from John
Tschohl, author of Achieving Excellence Through Customer Service (Best
Sellers Publishing) and president of Minneapolis Service Quality
Institute:
- Love
your customers. "A customer knows within five seconds if you like
and care about them, and they want to do business with people who
do," explains Tschohl. "There's a tremendous amount of
indifference in today's wealthy economy, but customers still want to be
cared for."
- Call
them by name. "This is simple, but it's a magical tool," says
Tschohl. "People love it when you call them by name, and they want
to do business with people who know them." But just make sure to
use the proper pronunciation. (His is pronounced "shoal.")
- Focus
on speed. "People want it now; they want immediate response,"
says TschohL "If you want to keep customers, you'll set standards
for response times and keep working to do it faster.
- Keep
your promises. "Nothing turns off a customer faster than when you
don't keep your promises, but nowadays few businesses do," says
Tschohl. "If you say you'll handle it tomorrow, make sure it's done
by then or sooner. Whatever you say you'll do, do it."
- Make sure everybody has been trained in service. "It's not good
enough when only the salesperson knows customer service," stresses
Tschohl. "Everybody on your team has to know-and practice--service
basics." A consistent commitment to serving the customer is key to
winning repeat business.
Five
Selling Tips
Concepts
of “The Deal”
Five
Commandments for Sales
Perfecting
the Close
Selling
No Nos
Nice
People Finish
What
does No mean?
How
to Get Repeat Business |
