Sales: The Number One Top Tip

Prospective buyers are unlikely to come straight out and tell you what they want from your product or service. If we are going to sell, or help a prospect with their buying decision, we need use an effective 'technique' to uncover their real reasons for buying.

There is only one way to effectively find out what is going on in our prospects head… ASK QUESTIONS!

As I have said before… "Good questioning technique is the most important (and powerful), competence that salespeople can develop. FACT: People are usually SKEPTICAL ABOUT WHAT THEY ARE TOLD however, they generally BELIEVE WHAT THEY SAY. "

So…. If salespeople ask the right questions they increase their chances of uncovering the prospect's real desires or wants. The additional benefit is they usually end a with the prospect believing that they are credible and that the salesperson's product information or ‘sales’ claims are truthful.

Remember before you start asking a prospect questions you should ask for permission to do so. A good basic start is, "In order to help you find what is best for you do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions". It's all about good communication and human relation skills.

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SALES - 3 MORE QUICK TIPS - FOR SALES MANAGERS

DECISION MAKERS:

Have your salespeople send you a list of names and positions of the people they contact and see how many secretaries, purchasing officers, clerks and other strange characters they are talking to. If they have developed a “milk run” just to keep their call rate up remember the experts tell us (last time I heard) it costs about US$220 per call. That’s a lot of money to smile at a secretary who can’t approve any purchases.

NO FEAR:

Sales people need to overcome their fear of rejection and have no call reluctance. They need to understand risk in their profession comes from developing too few customers and prospects, not from having too many. They have to accept rejection as part of their life and do not allow a prospect’s rejection to effect and control their mental attitude. Fear can be reduced by planning, being prepared for every step of the selling process backed by solid product knowledge. Even a well developed prospecting script with prepared responses to all of the major questions and objections they might encounter can help.

DESTROY THE SALES SCRIPT… DON”T PITCH

Selling, or more correctly helping the prospective customer through the process of deciding that what you have to offer is a worthwhile solution to satisfy his or her wants (or needs if you must) should be a conversation not a one, two, three (or ten) act play. If you or your salespeople are using a script (and many still do) you are probably not listening to the customer you are just pitching. You need to let the customer explain what he or she wants and then know enough about your product or service to explain how it provides the solution or benefit desired.

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PEOPLE BUY BENEFITS NOT PRODUCTS!

How do we discover the real benefits of our product or service? The best way is to complete a FEATURES/ADVANTAGES/BENEFITS analysis.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines a feature as a - ‘distinctive or characteristic part of a thing’ and an advantage as a - ‘better position, superiority, favorable circumstances’. A benefit is defined as’ ‘do good to, receive benefit (by thing)’.

Product features should be fairly obvious to anyone selling their product for more than a few weeks. If you have staff that has been selling a product for some time and they don’t know its features you really should (no offence intended) advise them to change their profession. Acknowledging that some products are more complicated than others the fact remains we can’t sell what we don’t understand.

To start have your sales staff list down six to ten of the most important features of your best-understood product or service, (ask them just for fun). Then check that they only have features listed buy checking if what they have written qualifies under ‘The Concise Oxford’ definition above. Examples may be, it has two handles, it is conducted over 3 days, it has a 3-litre engine, it has river views, or it has a 1000-meg ‘Pentium’ chip.

Then have them give each of the features at least two advantages. In the Pentium chip example the advantages could be, faster processing, quicker programme loading, superior movie viewing or quicker web browsing.

The final step is to review the features and advantages in light of the definitions and turn the advantages into real customer benefits. To do this it is best to line the three headings up side-by-side and turn the three categories into a sentence joining them with the words (feature) “which means” (advantage) “which gives you” (benefit). An example is… this computer has a 1000-megahertz chip…‘which means’… faster file processing…‘which gives you’…an increased work output over a shorter time period. In the case of the two handled pot it could be ‘this pot has two handles which means it is better balanced when being carried improving your chance of getting from A to B with out spilling the contents.

ONLY BUY COMPLETING THE THREE STEPS WILL THE REAL BENEFIT BE FOUND.

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PEOPLE BUY FOR THEIR REASONS NOT OURS

If this is true (and it is), then it stands to reason that if we are going to make a sale to someone, we best find out his or her reasons for buying. One useful technique for doing this is to look at a useful motivation reference point that is common among many buyers. There is an old but useful benefit buying guide that can give salespeople at least a start in understanding a potential buyers basic motivations…

Buying Criteria Guide:

S - Security/Safety
P - Performance/Power
A - Availability/Appearance
C - Comfort/Class
E - Economy/Ecology
D - Dependability/Durability

These BENEFITS are often referred to as the SPACED benefits and with a little thought the criteria can be applied to all products and services. As an example if the prospect wants a fast car don’t try to sell a safe green one… or if a prospect wants a ‘cheap’ computer don’t waffle on about a Pentium sixteen with 50,000 meg of ram and a 45 inch screen…

DO THE SALES STAFF KNOW THE SPACED BENEFITS OF WHAT THEY SELL? IF NOT BEST INSERT A ROCKET WHERE IT WILL DO THE MOST GOOD…

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THEY DON’T WANT TO BUY, SO THEY TELL A WHITE LIE!

Often prospective buyers will give false reasons for buying (or not buying) and if sales staff cannot get to a prospects real buying motive they may miss the sale. For example to justify the purchase of say a Mercedes Benz buyers may say, “the only reason I buy a ‘Merc’ is to keep the family safe”, however if this were true why not a 4 wheel drive or a Volvo, both of which are cheaper and arguably safer. If truth was always part of the buying process many Mercedes buyers would, I suggest own up to the desire for status.

As people by nature will not come straight out and tell salespeople what they want from a product or service, salespeople need to develop a technique to uncover the truth. Perhaps they could carry a gun or bottle of truth serum however this could hamper the sale at the closing stage. What can salespeople do to find out what the potential customer (or prospect) really wants? There is only one way... ASK QUESTIONS!

Good questioning technique is important (and powerful), as people are usually SKEPTICAL ABOUT WHAT THEY ARE TOLD but generally BELIEVE WHAT THEY SAY. So if salespeople ask the right questions they increase their chances of uncovering the prospects real desires or wants plus have the prospect believe that they are credible and that the salespersons product information or ‘sales’ claims are truthful.

DO YOUR SALES STAFF KNOW HOW TO ASK A CUSTOMER QUESTIONS TO MAKE A SALE OR DO THEY JUST PITCH PITCH PITCH?

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