by Scott Howard | Jul 22, 2014 | ScLoHo Sales Tips
When I was managing a sales team or interviewing a potential new team member, I would tell them that sales is one of the hardest jobs they’ll ever have and one of the easiest, it all depends on how they approach it.
Recently I have been coaching others in my profession who are in other parts of the country. Several struggle with getting through to the person who can say yes. It’s real easy to find people who can say no. One of them is the “gatekeeper”.
RAB.com has more:
Empowering the Gatekeeper
Do not bypass gatekeepers. Build alliances. Do not come down to their level. Come up to their level. You never know with whom you are talking. For all you know, the “secretary” is the owner.
Gatekeepers’ jobs are to push you away, but in the same respect it is their job to determine what might be a benefit for the company. Humanize with them. Make a joke. Have fun. Be respectful. Treat them like they are the owner.
And here’s an interesting idea — never ask for the person in charge. Assume they are the people in charge. Say you want to meet with them “and whoever else also makes the purchasing decisions.” There are two reasons here:
1) Who you think is in charge and who really is could be different people. By letting them say if they are or not, you will get the real answer;
2) At the same time, by respecting them and their importance, you are separating yourself from every other sales rep who tramples upon them with disrespect as they try to reach the decision-maker.
Source: Sales consultant/author Todd Natenberg
by Scott Howard | Jul 15, 2014 | ScLoHo Sales Tips
When I’m teaching and training salespeople how to get the information they need to create a proposal that their prospcetive client will want to buy, I clue them in to a couple of my favorite questions.
- Why?
- Tell me more about that.
Okay, the second one isn’t really a question but it is important and by using these two in tandum, you’ll get much better information than if you simply take the first answer they give you.
RAB.com shared a related article:
In Case of an Emergency, Ask Questions
Questions will save you.
Whenever you start to feel stressed and don’t know what to say to a customer, start asking questions. Questions are your emergency kit for all situations.
Simply asking, “Please tell me a little more about that?” or “What could we do to help you?” or “What would you like us to be able to do for you?” will often turn it all around.
Once the prospect is talking, you’ll have the opportunity to regroup and prepare your next move.
Source: Sales consultant/trainer Steve Waterhouse
by Scott Howard | Jul 8, 2014 | ScLoHo Sales Tips
Another sales tip from my RAB.com newsletter:
Building Trust
Continually setting, and meeting, expectations is one of the easiest and most direct ways to build the strong, trusted relationships you need to close deals.
Building trust allows you to:
1. Set the agenda. If each encounter goes as expected and the prospect gets what they want, they will let you drive the process — that, in turn, allows you to control the sale, determine the process, set next steps, and take it where you want.
2. Mitigate risk. Buyers want to be sure they are making the right decision. Unfortunately for them, any purchase decision comes with risk. You can mitigate this risk by providing direction at each step of the sales process. If there are no surprises, you create a sense of certainty in an otherwise uncertain endeavor. Certainty helps eliminate doubt in the prospect’s mind, removing a major obstacle and allowing you to move the sale forward faster.
3. Be seen as the expert. Delivering as expected demonstrates a certain mastery that inspires confidence in you, your company, and what you are selling. This positions you as the thoughtful and trusted expert as you answer questions, listen and demonstrate understanding, and provide recommendations.
4. Demonstrate what it is like to work with you. Trusted relationships are built over time, and you can start building that trust during the sales process. When you consistently deliver on what you promise, you demonstrate what it will be like to work with you and your company day in and day out.
However, if you over-promise and under-deliver — by missing deadlines, showing up late to meetings, setting inappropriate expectations — you lose out on your best opportunity to build trusting relationships with your prospects.
Trust does not come overnight, in fact it can take months, in some cases years, to build, yet it takes only one instance of not following through on your promise to destroy it.
Be mindful of this in your sales conversations and interactions with prospects. Think things through, take the time to make appropriate decisions, and give each prospect the respect they deserve; this allows you to maximize the trust factor.
Take it one step further and think of how you can over-deliver in the sales process. I’m not suggesting you sandbag it. I’m suggesting you set expectations that you’re sure you can meet and leave some room for yourself to go above and beyond.
Source: Sales consultant/author Bob Croston
by Scott Howard | Jul 1, 2014 | ScLoHo Sales Tips
Today’s sales tip is from a newsletter I receive from RAB.com:
Learning From That Sale You Lost
My mom always used to tell me how we learn more in life from our failures than we do from our successes, yet for too many of us in sales this concept doesn’t seem to sink in.
I’ve lost plenty of sales in my life. If I wanted to get really down on myself, all I’d have to do is take a piece of paper and start writing down as many as I could remember. If I wanted to go into a complete state of despair, all I’d have to do is to write down next to each sale I lost the amount of commission I failed to receive because of the lost sale.
For this simple reason, too many of us in sales choose not to dwell on what didn’t happen. Instead, we merely move on.
It’s much easier to move on than dwell on the past, and I’m a firm believer that dwelling on the past doesn’t do anyone any good. If you want to damage your sales motivation, go right ahead and dwell all you want.
As much as we can’t dwell on the past, we do need to spend a few minutes doing an autopsy on the lost sale and learning from it. If we don’t learn from each sale we fail to close, then we’re committing ourselves to a pattern of losing more sales.
The key I’ve found to the process is to do the autopsy on the failed sales call right away. The sooner you can do it, the sooner you can apply what you’ve learned to the next sales call.
The only downside to doing it quickly is you have to make sure you’re in a stable frame of mind. I’m not meaning to be rude with this comment, but you can’t think clearly if you’re so hot emotionally over losing the sale. If you are worked up over the lost sale — wait till you calm down. Then do your autopsy.
Ask yourself the following questions:
— Was I able to get the customer to state their key needs and desired benefits?
— Why specifically did the customer choose not to buy from me? How do I know that?
— What were two things I know the customer appreciated about me?
— What did the customer ask and how did I answer? What can I learn from the questions?
— What were all of the customer’s objections and how did I respond to them?
— Did the customer clearly understand my value proposition? How do I know that?
— What closing technique did I try? How specifically did the customer respond to it?
— What did the customer agree with me on? How can I leverage this for future sales?
— What is my next step with this prospect/customer?
Take the time to answer these questions. Doing so will provide you with key information you need. Also, never hesitate to go back to the customer after they’ve turned you down and ask them why they didn’t select you. Be sincere in how you speak to the customer and be appreciative for what they tell you.
This is not the time to be defensive or attempt to convince the customer they’ve made a dumb decision by selecting someone else. Your ability to be professional and appreciative in listening to what the customer shares with you will do more than anything else to help ensure you have a good relationship going forward with that person.
It’s been my experience both personally and professionally that by doing this process right, you can position yourself to become the salesperson these individuals turn to in the future.
The beautiful thing about this entire process is you come away with two major outcomes.
First, you find out things you can do differently to help you with other customers. Second, you deepen your relationship with the customer you weren’t able to close, setting yourself up to potentially close with them next time around.
Source: Sales consultant/speaker Mark Hunter
by Scott Howard | Mar 3, 2014 | ScLoHo Sales Tips
from RAB.com, this weeks sales tip:
Have a Focused Game Plan
Defining success metrics allows you to formulate a game plan for your meetings with prospective clients.
If you know what you need to accomplish, the roadmap becomes very clear for what you need to achieve. If your success metric is defined as your having a comprehensive picture of their challenges with their current provider, you can prepare questions that will expose their challenges. If your success metric is to gather all of the data needed to put together a pricing proposal, the game plan is to ask all questions needed to craft a solution for this prospect.
From a prospect’s point of view, they have no time or tolerance for salespeople who show up on their doorstep and ask pointless questions for an hour. They are busy and very sensitive about their time. If they accept a meeting with a salesperson, they expect that salesperson to arrive having done their homework on their company and with a laser focus approach to the meeting.
Remember, sales is a profession. They expect a professional experience.
Source: Sales consultant/trainer Lee Salz
by Scott Howard | Sep 3, 2013 | ScLoHo Sales Tips
Welcome to Labor Day, 2013.
Lot’s of folks have a three day weekend, except those in retail sales.
Want to be more successful in sales? Stop being a typical pushy salesperson. Just be a person who helps people buy. And follow this advice from RAB.com:
People Love a Good Story
Over the years as a speaker, manager and facilitator, I have observed the greatest retention of my message was from stories that I told.
The impact went beyond facts and theories. Stories engage the audience, were conversational, and tapped into the emotions and senses. Often I would encounter people years later and they would playback a story I had shared with them, and more importantly, voice the point of the story and how it helped them overcome barriers or create solutions to problems.
How to use stories to educate and explain:
Listen. Learn to listen to your audience for clues as to what would resonate with them and what is important in their world. Be prepared to tell a variety of stories from your arsenal.
Use personal experience as a basis for your story. The greatest way to build trust and relationships is to be vulnerable. The story can demonstrate how you had to overcome an obstacle or barrier, reveal up-close and personal experiences that your audience can relate to, and encourage them to remember we are all human.
Be genuine. Share real-life stories that can demonstrate how you can learn from your mistakes (usually the best lessons are from our mistakes), and demonstrate effective techniques on how to overcome barriers.
Engage your audience. Stories capture the imagination by allowing people to paint their own pictures and images of what you are sharing. Have a beginning, a middle, and end with a clear take-away. Like a good joke, it is all in the delivery of the story and your conviction.
Be conversational. The delivery should be natural in a conversational tone. You are letting your audience behind the scenes with this revealing story about people and events. It can be fun, serious, sad, dramatic — all the range of human emotions. People love a good story.
Source: Sales coach Paul Anovick
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