Stepping into my 8th year of Sales, I have not had too many privileges of attending Sales Training, but yes I have attended a few, but good ones. Honestly, for any sales professional training is just a way of reinstating ones beliefs in the way one thinks or approaches sales. Its either you Got it in you, or Can never make it. Training or formal education in sales helps to refine thought and gives you a direction of thinking on approaching an account or product. Sales is a passion, an addiction, like smoking cigarettes, you can never explain a non smoker, what you achieve from those dreaded puffs. In this space, I would bring out few tips of Sales which I have gathered and learnt over a period of time. This shall be a collection of such thoughts which are not originally mine and but been presented in an original compilation.
An old saying “You have two ears and one mouth, use them in proportion”, and how true. Listen More and Talk Less is the first step of being a good sales guy. Always allow the customer to speak. Forget fast talking and the gift of the gab – they might help build a relationship but they won’t get someone to buy from you, without some other skills thrown in!
The second step is to provide Accessibility; you should be 100% for your customer and only your customer while in a meeting. Avoid building barriers, like laptops, answering phones, keeping your arms closed, avoid sitting opposite to your client, and try taking a place as same side or round the corner. Your accessibility, attention and body language should be to prove that you have all your customers’ attention. Another interpretation of accessibility is to give the flexibility to the customer to contact you, be it email, phone, sms, fax etc. Be Available.
An early indication to a successful sale is to know the answer to an important question “Will they Buy?” To elevate a prospect to a customer and qualify the engagement, one should have answers to 3 things, a Need, a Desire and the Mean to buy the product or services. If yes, you have a qualified prospect!!! If No, better Move On, you cannot close this one!!
Look for Triggers, to purchase. Greed Guilt Fear Desire Necessity or Image may be a few triggers which can act as a catalyst to pace up the sales cycle. Focusing on the Key Trigger shall help you to touch the emotional hot spot.
Look for opportunities to Open Questions. There are “six wise souls” of questioning, “Who What Why Where When How”. In a sales situation, use the wise souls carefully to encourage your prospect to talk by asking open questions that demand more than one word in answer, such as:
“How are you preparing for the next round of reporting?” “What are the three things that worry you most, and why?”
Avoid closed questions that are easy to brush-off with one word answers such as:
“Would you like…?” “Are you happy with your current arrangements?”
AIDA – Attention Interest Desire Actions, these are the four logical steps which must happen in a buying process.
Assume you are walking through the shopping mall and see a poster in the shop window advertising a jeans sale – it grabs your attention. You wander into the shop and see they sell your favorite brand – interest. Then you try on a pair in your size, they fit perfectly, you want (desire) them, and you pull out your credit card – action.
A lot of time Sales person, often confuse between Features and Benefits. That’s the next tip, for any sales person to understand properly and use them while speaking to prospect. For eg: 250 gigabyte hard disk is a feature on a computer – the benefit is being able to store huge files and databases without worrying about space.
Thus a sales guy should be prepared and confident on their product or services knowledge and its feature and benefits. Use them in sales situations to your advantage. You may use the AIDA model to use to generate attention to action.
Keep your eyes open, because “What you see is What you say?” Observe what is your customer like, stylish, his interest, his office, what kind of a person he is, traditional, hedonist, a family value person, sporty, rational, tech savvy. This shall help you in having a better “meeting mind” cos you always don’t sell in all your meetings; you also make an impression!!!
Along with impression, you also need to earn “Respect”, if you are consultative selling you provide solutions, use your experience to provide optimum solutions, be a consultant to your customer, allow the customer to buy, and do not push everything. It is good to look at the big ticket sales, but then if you need to win respect, you can attempt to look for easy and small sales, earn respect and then use it back to your advantage for multiple orders. Never look at a customer and think, he is one off and let’s make most of it!!
An Agreement Staircase; a logical step by step approach to convert a prospect to a customer. We shall take an Umbrella seller to demonstrate this through this figure. (click to enlarge)
Getting several “YES” responses can be so powerful!
Getting a “NO” is a barrier, and there isn’t much use in turning into a one-way street unless that’s where you wanted to stop!
Design questions which result in a “YES” and watch the results flow! Don’t forget to wait for the “YES” or the nod after each question!
If you follow martial arts, you may know what I mean by Harnessing Momentum. In martial art one of the great skills is to balance yourself, whilst allowing your ‘opponent’ to gain momentum, and then to move aside to let them use that momentum for your benefit (the throw). Similar is with sales, when you probe and ask the right question.
Some magic questions may be
What, in your business, are you most proud of?
What would you do or change, next, if you could?
What is stopping you doing that now?
The point of the first question is to get the prospect chatting, make them feel comfortable, and particularly make them feel on top of the situation. Once they start talking, you’ll have them relaxed, with momentum, and ready to go to…
…question 2, which encourage them to state an objective – something they would like to do well, and be proud of, and (hopefully) something that you can help them achieve. Once they have done this, keep up the momentum, let them visualize the situation, then…
…question 3 simply allows them to prove, to themselves, that they have a need. If you can help with that need, you have turned the situation to one where they need to tell you “why not”, rather than you tell them “why” – their momentum should enable you to make the “throw”
One of my old sales managers jokingly use to say catch the customer by their b***s or they will catch yours, and that turned to be so true in crunch sales situation, whether you want to close or negotiating during a sales process. At times arrogance pays, when you can sense, a customer is just negotiating although he has the budget approved. Never forget to draw the line, cos in an arrogance you do not want to hurt the customer’s ego.
Once a rookie sat with his sensei and complained that his prospects kept giving him reasons why they wouldn’t buy. The sensei quickly explained that, at the traffic signal of life, an objection is a green arrow, pointing out which way you can go and when to go, not a red stop light in the sales process.
When you get an objection, the chances are that it will be about price (affordability/value), product (features), need (need something else), ability to make a decision, or relationship. A good salesperson can take any one of these and find advantage. Thus Welcome Objection and preempt them and then lead a sales discussion towards an objection you want to the customer to ask. But whatever you do, make sure that you smile to yourself when you hear an objection – it is a clear indication of where you need to go to finish your journey!
Be Honest and to do so Analyze what gets results. Always understand the hard truth is: a company admires activities but pay for results!!
Some of the things you know, but would like to measure…
| Do you measure?
If you take a good look at these, you can find out which ones to focus on to achieve maximum boost to your business. | Do you also measure?
These lots are some of the prime inhibitors of your business. You need to cut through them aggressively, with a sharp knife. |
At end of a day, just ask yourself “Am I at peak productivity, or just wasting my time being busy?”
Finally, the best tip to sales is having the Right Attitude. One of my manager always emphasised the respect for No. 1, He said in a 100m sprint, people always remember who come first, and even the second person is fraction of a second slow, people do not recall him. Thus you should always aim of being Number 1. This is how true!!!
The sales message is simple:
If you think you can, then try it, do something, learn from it, improve you performance - WIN
If you think you can’t, then you won’t, and you will LOSE
If you are a Sales Manager and your sales people come to you with reasons why they can’t, you know what to do. Winners simply don’t make excuses for lack of action, lack of effort or lack of results
These are good tips, and handy ones, use them to your discretion based on what kind of sales cycle you are in. It may not be true to all sales process, but good to go for most of them. Bottom line of ABC of sales is Always Be Closing.
Happy Selling!!
The content is an original compilation of thoughts and selling tips gathered over my tenure, I would also take this opportunity to thank all my sales managers in all organizations I have worked to provide me with Sales Training and the sales experience which motivate me to share through my blog. Your contributions are always cherished.
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