Archives for March 2018

The value of your product or service varies from customer to customer. Some like the variety you provide. Some buy because of the convenience. And some people become customers for reasons you and your marketing consultant didn’t foresee in your market planning sessions. The fact is that value, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, or in this case, the prospect or customer. So when you are trying to sell value instead of being the low price, don’t look inward at the product or service you are providing. Look outward at the prospect. Your service will only have value if it solves a pain that the prospect cares enough about to spend money to fix. The fact that you have 30 years’ experience in the business may mean nothing to the prospect if she is looking for new, fresh ideas that have not been tried before.

Uncovering the prospect’s compelling reason to buy requires conversations that go deeper than “What do you need” or “What do you want”. My observation is that many salespeople in the discovery phase of the sales cycle act like snorkelers. They stay near the surface of the conversation. They are satisfied with answers like “we’d like to increase throughput by 15%”; or “we are not happy with our current supplier”. Like snorkelers in the lake, they are afraid to go deeper lest they “run out of air” so to speak. The Optimal Salesperson knows that the true compelling reason to buy lies several layers below the surface. So, like SCUBA divers, they head into deeper waters in order “to get to the bottom” of why exactly the prospect wants what they want and what the ramifications of not getting it are. They are not afraid of “running out of air” (i.e. getting stuck) because they brought plenty of air (read selling skills and product knowledge) with them. They are not satisfied with knowing that the goal is for throughput to increase by 15%. They want to know why 15% and not 20% or 12%. What happens if they don’t achieve 15%? How does failure to achieve that 15% affect the production manager who is buying the product or service. They want to know why the prospect is not happy with their current supplier. Is it delivery time, technical knowledge, or responsiveness? Does it have something to do with the product? Or, is it the salesperson they are unhappy with? So the main point here is to go deeper. Ask another question. Ask why. In other words, act like a SCUBA diver not a snorkeler on a sales call.

Everyone could use more money. If you are in sales, you can give yourself a raise. Here are some ways you can do it:
• If you make 10% more sales calls every day, on average assuming the same market conditions and constant sales ability you will make 10% more money on average.
• Change who you call on. Calling on larger accounts or higher in the organization. You can’t abandon the people you are currently calling on but mix in a larger account once in a while and eventually your income will rise. Once you see there is no more effort to close a big one than a little one you will find your client base consisting of all big ones.
• Start applying a fundamental principle or sales technique that somehow have gotten away from you over the years. In other words, recommit to the basics and your income will rise.
The basic message here is that your income is mostly within your control. Do a little more and do it a little better and you can count on having more money to count.