Pause, Read, and React
How many times have you said something without thinking that you later regret? In your personal life? In your work? It is natural for humans to react to things before thinking. Unfortunately, in sales, that natural tendency is a deal killer. When a prospect says something unexpected, a sales person may say something to generate a sale without thinking that they immediately regret. They might pounce too quickly, irritating the prospect. The sales person may not say something bad but they could have said something far better to increase business than what they did say. Without waiting to hear more or properly thinking what questions would be appropriate to follow, they may offer the wrong solution. A critical selling skill is to pause…..read…..and react. Take a moment to process in your mind what the customer said. Determine the most appropriate response. Be the optimal salesperson by exercising self-control when surprised in a sales situation.
Are You Confident Enough To Be Humble?
Confidence in your ability and in your solution is necessary to be effective in selling. However, confidence can be interpreted as arrogance if you are not careful. When you are in the discovery phase of the sales process you need to be humble enough to ask questions with a sincere curiosity to understand the perspective of the prospect. Anyone can uncover the intellectual aspects of the problem that the prospect has, assuming that they have one. Only a person with the humility to understand that they do not know how this problem or situation affects the prospect personally will be effective at uncovering the real compelling reason to buy. Humility is required to refrain from prescribing a solution while they seek to understand the personal pain of the prospect. An ability to anticipate the problems the prospect might have coupled with the humility to ask questions, is essential to earning the trust of the prospect and truly qualify the opportunity.
Don’t ask for the decision maker
Increase sales effectiveness by not asking for the “decision maker”. Ask questions like “who are the people involved in the decision process?” and “what are the steps in the decision process?” You not only may be getting the valuable information you need but the person who is answering the questions may very well feel you respect their knowledge of the organization.
Stop Making Excuses
Optimal Salespeople do not make excuses. They do not consider themselves a victim of circumstances, a consideration which leads to inaction. They do not blame the economy, the sales support team, the competition, or any other factor. They discover what is good about whatever the situation is and they generate sales. They look for whatever opportunities present themselves and they take advantage of them and close sales. Stop making excuses and increase your business. Take responsibility, make a plan, and take action.
It’s Not About You
When most sales people do their cold calling, they think about communicating the features and benefits of their products and services. However, they will never close sales because of the amazing characteristics of what they have to offer. They will generate sales by listening to the prospect’s pain and by offering solutions that resolve that pain. The prospect doesn’t care what you have to offer. They care about what their problems are. You might have the best toaster in the history of the world but if the client has a flat tire, he doesn’t care about toast! Will your toaster repair his flat tire? The optimal salesperson who sells toasters will find a way to fix that prospect’s flat tire. Focus on the prospect’s pain, not the benefits and features of your products and services.
Don’t Stop Listening
There is a big problem with having experience in a given field. You begin to make assumptions. “I’ve heard it all before.” “I’ve already encountered everything there is to experience.” “I know more what a prospect needs than they do.” When sales professionals begin to think this way, they stop listening to the prospect. They are just looking for a pause in the conversation so they can tell the prospect what they need to hear. Such a perspective is a recipe for mediocrity in sales. Every prospect has some nuance or differentiator that makes them unique. The optimal salesperson listens thoroughly to the prospects, looking for every piece of information that will enable the delivery of a truly custom-tailored solution that will close sales and increase business. Don’t stop listening because you think you are so smart.
Don’t Get Sidetracked
Increase sales effectiveness by not getting sidetracked. Sometimes, being sidetracked is good. A railroad system uses sidetracks to enable faster trains to pass slower trains on the same line. Without the sidetracks, there could be no fast trains. Trains would have to use the same track one and a time. The speed of a locomotive would be irrelevant if the locomotive has to wait for a slower train in front of it. However, in sales, being sidetracked is not good at all. It means we are pulled off to the side in our pursuit to achieve our goals to close sales. We get sidetracked from increasing business by our busy schedules. We get sidetracked from our cold calling by a need for others to like us. We get sidetracked from maximizing the use of our selling skills by always serving other people’s goals instead of focusing on our own. The optimal salesperson treats his or her day like a high speed railroad track, moving at lightning speed from one goal to the next, not taking any time to waste time on a sidetrack.
Don’t misuse your product knowledge and industry expertise
The whole point for a salesperson to have outstanding product knowledge and industry expertise is for the purpose of asking great questions. You cannot possibly know what your prospect knows about their business…unless you ask. Selling is not about persuading people to buy your product or service because of your vast intellectual knowledge. Optimal selling is about discovering your prospect’s pain and then customizing a solution to resolve their pain. Product knowledge and industry expertise are tools you can use to discover your prospect’s pain and these tools always take the form of carefully crafted questions. Enhance your selling skills by building up your product knowledge and industry expertise and then fashioning that knowledge into effective questions. You will increase business as your prospects are skillfully prompted by your questions to reveal their pain that your solutions can resolve.
Work on Your Confidence
For many sales people, asking questions and obtaining information from the prospect is the easy part of the sales call. Through those questions and answers, you can discover the compelling reason, the decision process, and the budget, pieces of information critical to closing the deal. However, the success of the entire meeting and your increasing business depends upon your ability to give confidence to the prospect that your solution will solve their pain. With 93% of communication being body language and tone of voice, you simply cannot hide any lack of confidence you may have. The prospect will see your lack of confidence and then have all the reason in the world to doubt your solution. If you don’t believe it, why should she?
Ask Why
A homeowner asks an interior painter how careful his or her painting crew will be. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know the homeowner doesn’t want paint spilled on furniture or flooring. The painter could just assume that is the reason and never ask why. However, the optimal salesperson would, who wants to increase business, ask the why questions.
Why is this important to you? “Because it happened before. We had painters in who spilled paint on an expensive carpet.”
Why is this important to you? “Because I chose the painter.”
Why is this important to you? “Because my wife was angry with me. I don’t want that to happen again.”
The real pain the homeowner wanted to avoid was his wife’s anger. That extra knowledge affords the Optimal Salesperson the opportunity to build a deeper bond with the prospect and deliver all the more excellent service. Optimal Salespeople who want to master sales techniques ask why!