The Selling Newsletter for Sales Professionals
SALES QUOTE
“Not succeeding brings us to the ground, to look outside our shell, to even use the small word we are afraid to use: help.”
–-Natalie Goldberg, writer
For Salespeople…
At some point in your selling career, you will come to a point in your sales process where you realize that you can’t do this one by yourself. At least I hope you realize that. Thinking that sales is your job and your job alone is misguided thinking. From thinking of new ways to approach a stalled sale to finding a new prospect more easily, your sales process can be made easier with the right people helping you. Who can you ask for help? It’s time to find them if you don’t have them now. Realizing that you don’t have to sell all alone may be a new idea for you. It’s also one which will allow you to keep performing successfully in the tough and satisfying world of sales
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THE BLOG S AND OTHER COLUMNS
I’m now writing The Real Deal, a column on women in business for Allbusiness.com Hope you’ll read more ideas so you can achieve your success in business.
You can get RSS feed for the blog.
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THE SELLING IDEAS FOR THE MONTH TO SELL MORE NOW
Common Sense Can Be Uncommon in Selling
Lots of things in life require common sense. Selling is one of those things. Sometimes common sense is not all that common. Here are some selling situations that have happened that required common sense. Unfortunately, it wasnÕt there and the sale suffered. Don’ t let these situations happen to you.
1. They know when to stop selling. Imagine you are selling a commercial security system for a building. The system sells for $15,000. Your prospect is the decision maker. He starts the sale by saying, “I’ve read the sales literature you sent. I want this. How do we move forward?” Would you say, as the salesman did, “I can’t sell you this until I show you the demo.” The customer quickly lost interest. The salesman lost the sale.
This same situation happened to me. I walked into a sales call knowing the customer had a problem. I started the sales call saying, “I understand you have a problem and I think I’ve got a solution.” He responded,
“Send me 1,000 gallons.” I wrote up his order. We then chatted. He told me that he was testing me. This customer said he’s seen so many salespeople who won’t let him buy.
Insult your customer. Imagine you had a risk-averse customer. These types of customers are often afraid to make a buying decision. As a result they ask question after question after question. Once they get comfortable with all the information they gather it’s only then that they can consider making a buying decision. Great salespeople help these customers by answering their questions. That’s because when working with these types of customers, it’s the salesman’s job to reduce the perception of risk.
On one joint sales call that I made, the customer was considering making a significant supplier change. He asked numerous questions. Finally after twenty minutes of questioning, the other salesperson answered the final question. Why was it the final question? The salesman told the customer, “You don’t need to know that.” You could see the customer’s shocked look. He stopped asking questions, too. That’s because he was no longer interested in buying anything from that salesman.
Thinking everyone can buy. Successful sales professionals do a good job of clearly identifying who an ideal prospect is. They are clear about who is most likely to buy from them. They know characteristics like customer age, size of organization, job title, gender, business driver (something that causes the product or service to be needed), income or other demographic data that relates to their products. Often they can tell you psychographic data or how a customer thinks. For example, they’re looking for status seekers or risk takers.
I know that some salespeople do a poor job of assessing who their prospects are. How do I know? When I ask them to define their ideal prospect I hear an excited, “Everyone’s a prospect!” Well, if everyone’s a prospect then you just don’t have the time to find those needles in a haystack. Even if everyone is a prospect for you at some point in time, you donÕt have all kinds of time to sell to everyone. Now is the time to identify your best prospects so you can focus on reaching them now.
You’re going to get more business when you solve customer problems, help customers understand why they should buy and find customers who can benefit from what you sell. That’s just common sense.
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ACTION ITEMS
1. Are you doing anything to make it difficult for your customers to buy?
2. Who are prospects most likely to buy from you?
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DID YOU KNOW?
Here’s a tip this week for your sales success.
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Programs
You can check for current programs.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Here are some selling tools to help you sell more now. Click on the photo to find out more!
Monday Morning Sales Tips : A book that has quick ideas for you to be more successful in sales. Real-World Selling: A book with selling skills and strategies that work in the real world of sales. Secrets of Persuasion: Audio CD for the clues to use to speed-read people and close more business.