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Use simple and logical steps when selling

September 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment

sales process leads to sales successAny sales opportunity whether you are selling to one person, a panel or a group of people must have some structure and process to it. The golden rule for sales success is to keep it simple and logical. here is the process we use when selling:

Clearly define what you goal is.

Is the opportunity to learn,  inform, educate, build relationship, make the sale or a combination of all five? Be as specific as you can, your clarity will determine your success rate.

Establish a structure

Based on you goal, work within a structure to keep you focused on achieving the goal. keep it as simple as you possibly can, this will prevent you from loosing your place or going off on an unrelated track. We use a three step process:

1. An introduction – This needs to be strong and to the point to create impact. Your introduction will be the one thing that leaves a significant impression. Introductions are your defining statements of what you are about to discuss. Keep them brief and to the point, avoid unnecessary “filler” words to manage the time you have.

2. Content (aka your sales speil)

This is the art of the sale, here is where the real magic happens selling your products and services. The content must not only contain facts and features, it is IMPERATIVE that the benefits are highlighted, discussed and points made on how they affect the customer. Use questions to deliver your content and create the need for the sale in the mind of your potential customer. Questions also assist you in assessing how interested the customer is in purchasing from you and allows you to clarify any areas of uncertainty or objection along the way.

3. A summary

The summary need to capture the essential key points to your content, it must be short and to the point and reconfirm the benefits for buying from you.

Finally we work by the mantra “don’t leave the office unless you are going to make a sale” this one thing helps us to always clarify our goals when selling opportunities present themselves.

 

Cheers

 

Sue

 

Filed Under: Sales, Uncategorized

Are you frustrated by inconsistent results?

August 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Are you frustrated by inconsistent results?There are four things you can do to make business easier for you and transform the business to get the results you want:

1. Consistent marketing activity
I’m making a huge assumption here but you have a great business idea/product/service right? Then you need to tell your ideal market that you exist.  Marketing is an activity that needs to occur on a consistent basis so that your customers know you exist and can buy from you. Most business owners don’t engage in marketing activity for three reasons:

A. They don’t know the what works and the how to’s
B. They think it’s too expensive and
C. They want instant results or expect one activity to do all the work

Consistent marketing activity contains:  
•    A marketing plan – what do you want to achieve and how will you get there?
•    A budget – how much are you willing to or need to spend?
•    A time-line – when will you implement and evaluate the activities
•    Expertise – know what works or test and trial
•    Variety – normally to get great results you need a variety of activities one alone will not generate all the sales enquiries you will need to meet your sales targets
•    Time – ensure activities are consistent and give your activities a chance to work

2. Consistent sales process
Sales is an everyday activity, to transform your business for consistent results your business sales process needs to be consistent. You will need to consistently take action on the following for a successful sales process:
•    understand who your ideal customers are, and more specifically what are their frustrations, fears, wants and needs
•    work to a sales budget
•    have a clear understanding of how much each sale costs you
•    know what marketing activities are driving enquiries and where your customers are coming from
•    schedule sales activity time each day, week, month – calls, follow up, appointments, database management, networking
•    develop a cost effective fulfillment process
•    use your time in a dollar productive manner
•    a reward system (after all didn’t you start your business for an easier life?)

3. Consistent networking

When I first discovered the term for what I had naturally always done – networking it was from networking expert Robyn Henderson she had just published a book called “Be Seen, Get Known, Move Ahead”. For me that statement says it all for business owners today.

Many people mistake networking as a individual activity to simply meet people and/or contacts, when in fact networking is a powerful and valuable asset to your business. If you want to transform your results then you must view networking as an integral asset of the business and “Be Seen, Get Known, Move Ahead”.  If you have difficulty with how to network then take time to learn – take it from me it’s very easy and can be very rewarding. Networking is a bridge to sales results!

Take action today, then do it consistenty each and everyday of the week!

 

Cheers

 

Sue

Filed Under: Marketing, Networking, Sales Tagged With: , , , , ,

Are you afraid of selling?

July 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I remember the first job I had selling I had very few sales, in fact I was the worst person on the sales team – I had spurts of sales (usually the ones that wanted to buy despite my involvement!) and sometimes I would even make my budgets, it wasn’t all bad I did have the one key that I needed, that was great relationships with my customers. I was fine with building rapport with people – I didn’t even have a problem making an appointment, however, when it came to selling I turned into an utter babbling goof! My heart would race, my palms would sweat and I would have ringing in my ears so loud that I could hardly hear anything the person I was with was saying.

I would hear myself saying things that were not my words or beliefs and I would procrastinate on the list of “possibles” sometimes for days. I would go over that list thinking – “I wonder if they would be interested?” or “They already have X why would they want to buy from me” or “What if they don’t like me?” or ” What if I don’t know how to answer one of their questions?”or “They might not need it” “they might think it’s too expensive” and the list went on and on and on……

I had actually built an image in my mind of selling that was based on experiences I had encountered while I was buying products or services …the image of the car salesman that sold me a car that cost me an additional $2,000 in repairs! …the image of a telemarketer trying to sell me a timeshare on the Gold Coast that I had no interest or desire in …the salesperson that tried to bluff their way through some questions I had when I was buying a new stereo …the image of the salespeople I worked with.

Not one thing in my mind was about the customer, their needs or the belief and passion in what I had to offer. It was all about me and my buying experiences and my PERCEPTION of sales and how to do it! – After all, I had been exposed to many examples good and bad, I’d had sales training, I’d read sales “How to” books and I’d seen the salespeople around me sell and the techniques they used. So what was missing?

Two things 1. Belief in my product and 2. My natural style.

I had doubts about what I was selling and instead of facing those doubts and seeing how they could be overcome I allowed them to cloud what I was doing. And I found myself employing “sales tactics” and using text book solutions, and trying to emulate how others sold. Bottom line, ignoring these two things had created a fear of selling.

Every time I opened my mouth I lost a potential sale, and of course there were all those other factors… the other sales people had better lists, bigger customers, the ecomony was bad, etc, etc. So I went to work for another company that had better systems, etc, etc, etc. Now I had 18 months good experience, fantastic relationships and still the same results. To cut a very long story short this is how I managed to find the key to selling…

Belief in Product
1. I listed all my doubts about the product/service I was offering, then I counter balanced this list with reality. I discussed my doubts with the sales manager and the other sales people to get their PERCEPTION. I even asked potential customers what their doubts were.Now I had a big list that could be assessed logically, I managed to eliminate the doubts and began to get results.

Use Your Natural Style
2. The second and most critical thing I did was I asked my manager to come on a sales appointment with me to give me feedback on “my technique”. Immediately after the first appointment we went on, he simply said “where is Sue Henry today? I have just sat through that appointment with a sales text book, sure you followed the steps to closing a sale, however, you never used words or phrases that you normally do, your tone of voice changed and you looked frightened”.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing – I could clearly see where I had made my mistakes I was trying to be a sales person and close the sale! The next time I went on an appointment, I talked passionately to the customer about what I had to offer, I even discussed all their concerns and yes you guessed it I made the sale. For every sales job after that one and in my own business today I discuss passionately what I can offer and the sale happens naturally.

Cheers Sue

Filed Under: Sales

Questions Are The Answer

July 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Questions can be one of the most powerful communication tools that we have at our disposal. Our challenge is to use them consistently and appropriately.

Here are two keys to using the power of questions..

1. The person who asks the questions controls the conversation

Whenever we are in front of a customer there is the temptation to “talk” and create the conversation. In fact the most powerful communication technique is to ask as many questions as possible and appropriate to discover whether the member actually needs any information. If we are asking the questions then we will have more control over the direction of the conversation.

Start your conversation (after the initial rapport building) by asking a question about the potential need your prospect might have. Let’s imagine that I am keen to promote a new product offered by my company… my first question would be “how have The One Action tips helped you and your career?” followed by “What additional information would you like to see on offer?” or “would you be interested in receiving others that will enhance your career?”

I am aiming to identify what needs the customer has. By doing this I can quickly identify if  the one action can provide the solution or not. If I can provide the solution then I would proceed to ask more questions that are both relevant to the customer needs and the ability of The One Action to provide a solution.

By asking clarifying questions and following those questions with a few brief well directed points on how your company can help you identify any potential for objections.

If you get confused, off track or are not sure what to do next at any point in the conversation simply ask another question, and keep asking questions until you get back to where you want the conversation to go.

Most importantly! You must remember that your customers see you as an expert in the matters of your business and information that may assist them!

Here are some of the different types of questions you can ask.

Reflecting & Clarifying
A reflecting question is where you paraphrase what the customer has told you and you ask a clarifying question so that you can be assured you have understood exactly what the customer is saying. These type of questions will be very useful in ensuring you can deliver what the customer is after.

Probing
Probing questions enable you to drill down for additional information, the premise of this type of question is to keep asking until you receive a specific response. Typical questions start with why, what, how, when, where.

Open
An open question allows for a lot of information to come back to you, here you are seeking to gain a broad response rather than a specific one and open up the dialog so the customer can give you as much information as possible..

Closed
A closed question aims to elicit a simple response usually a question that will invoke a yes or no response.

Leading
A leading question is where you are directing a conversation and ‘leading’ the person you are communicating with to a specific outcome. This type of question could be great for your face to face encounters to understand more about what your customers want.

2. Your own personal question template
Develop your own standard template that you use to quickly identify and qualify the conversation starters and movers.

Here are some of the questions to ask to get conversations going.

  • What is your main objective for being in touch with us?
  • How long have you been a involved in your career?
  • Do you have a career plan?
  • How does that plan help you day to day?
  • Do you have specific goals that you work towards daily, weekly, monthly?
  • What challenges do you face? How do you foresee overcoming them?
  • How could we assist with these?
  • If time was not an issue for you what other products and services would you engage in?
  • Do you have a regular forum that you attend to discuss business problems/challenges?

Note: I wouldn’t always ask each one of these questions, I would select the most appropriate for the customer that I am in front of and usually go with the direction of the conversation. The more you practice your questions the easier it becomes to short cut the process and use the questions that get you immediate qualifying answers.

What questions can you ask in your business?

Filed Under: Sales Tagged With: , ,