SellingPower.com’s article – Help for Your Pre-Call Prep – makes a bold statement in the opening sentence: When you get right down to it, sales are won or lost on preparation. I would argue that sales are won or lost on execution. Give me a salesperson who executes flawlessly any day over one who prepares flawlessly. Again, the context is in terms of where deals are lost. Be that as it may, the article has an interesting statistic found in one of the later graphs. At a time when relatively few initial discussions with a client are progressing further into the sales cycle (40 percent of organizations say only 25… Read More
Continue ReadingPersuasion Through Scarcity And Fear Of Loss
I was a psych major in college which seemed to be the perfect preparation for a sales career. I believe it was. To this day I am still intrigued by the psychology of selling which could truly be described as persuasion. That background helps explain why I found this ManageSmarter.com article completely gripping – Mastering the Psychology of Persuasion. You will have to read the entire article to appreciate the depth of it, but let me pull out a couple of points. First one of the set-up questions: • Are left-handed people more prone to some mental illnesses, accidents, or seeking positions of power? And from later in the article:… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Little r Relationship
SellingPower.com offers up a spot-on short article about maintaining customer relationships in this economy. The pressure on salespeople is extremely high right now in two regards – there are limited opportunities to close new business and the business world continues its radical information shift thanks to the Internet. First off, companies have slowed down their purchasing, but they are still purchasing. I think this fact gets lost in the doom-and-gloom reporting that saturates our senses. The tactical truth is that salespeople are going to have to unhook business from their competition to increase their sales. Many order-taking salespeople will fail miserably in this endeavor. Second, prospects are far more informed… Read More
Continue ReadingPre-Call Prep
I have been in sales since 1992 and have seen the marketplace change in drastic ways. Today, we are in the midst of the information age where knowledge is king. Preparedness is a necessity for successful selling. In all honesty, this trait has never been one of my strengths. However, I have made changes to my approach (in order to survive!). The reason is found in this SellingPower.com article – Pre-Call Planning: It’s More than Just Research. The author shares a frightening sales story: G.A. Bartick remembers the day he called on a large wire house in San Francisco. He’d just completed a project for another brokerage firm that went… Read More
Continue ReadingProbing For Pain
Saleshq.com has an excellent article for any salesperson in any market – Do You Probe For Pain? We use the term “pain” in our discussions though it sounds a bit dramatic. Even so, it is the most descriptive word for qualifying. The article explains why: People are fundamentally motivated in two main ways: 1. What problem or pain they can avoid and move away from 2. What pleasure or benefit they can move towards That is absolutely true. The key here is that people move away from pain faster than they move towards pleasure. As described later in the article: If a prospect feels content with their current supplier or… Read More
Continue ReadingSimple Sales Skill – Attentiveness
Justsell.com offers up a reminder about a critical sales skill that is often overlooked – attentiveness. This skill is less frequent in salespeople who lack empathetic abilities or are overly task-oriented. I have seen this first-hand on a number of occasions. What happens is the salesperson tends to something else during a discussion. Typically, the actions seems fairly innocuous – a cell phone alarm, looking through some notes, checking a text message, even adjusting the height of an office chair. All of these tasks seem inconspicuous, but they are an immediate tell that you are not fully attentive to the speaker. The better approach is to ignore the task if… Read More
Continue ReadingFictitious Selling
Ok, the title is a bit of a minomer. The reference is to a Kelley Robertson post on the S&MM SoundOff blog. He provides 3 sales tips based on a fiction writer’s boot camp he recently attended. Here is an abridged version of those tips (my bold): Start with a hook. The best novels usually start with a great hook. The more compelling your opening statement or question, the greater the likelihood your prospect will listen to the rest of your message. Show, don’t tell. Showing characters in action instead of telling the reader what the characters are doing creates a more interesting story. Show the results your prospects can… Read More
Continue ReadingBelieve In Your Price
G.L. has a great post over at What Would Dad Say where he references a sales book from 1922 titled Modern Salesmanship. Here is the pull quote: Believe in Your Price When a man ask the price, you’ve got him interested. But the attitude of your answer largely depends the sale. Too many salesmen quote their price in fear and trembling—in their own inmost heart they feel it is too high. And the commonest remark in a buyer’s mouth is, “Price is too high. I can buy the same thing for less money.” Pity the salesman who feels that the buyer is right. He’s going to lose the sale or… Read More
Continue Reading5 Keys To Credibility
Selling Power offers a short, but excellent article that provides 5 subtle ways to build credibility. We often talk about establishing rapport with prospects and then building credibility. This is sales 101, but it is surprisingly sparse in sales situations (emphasis mine): Of the five elements which are essential to building genuine trust (character, competence, confidence, credibility, and congruence), a Persuasion Institute poll found 44 percent of respondents said credibility was most important – yet it was established only 11.4 percent of the time. So here are the author’s suggestions: Admit weakness. Nothing’s perfect. Prospects know your company and your product are weak in some areas. You boost your… Read More
Continue ReadingA Quick Questioning Tip
This tip comes from the Selling Power archives: Never ask a question without first explaining why you’re asking. Nirenberg says, “Just asking a question puts the listener on the spot. However, if you let him know why you’re asking, it makes him a partner,” Nirenberg goes on to explain, “People with sales backgrounds often avoid asking questions because they think that the talker controls the conversation. That’s not true because the listener can always tune you out. In fact, you’d be surprised how often you’re talking to yourself during a sales call.” That is a good tip. Asking good qualifying questions is crucial for successful selling. However, most people have… Read More
Continue Reading