Lists . . . we love ’em. Here is a good one from justsell.com. 17 things a salesperson should continually be doing during the selling process. I’ll repost them all here with my emphasis: positively expectant enthusiastic asking questions listening qualifying the opportunity (for both parties) discovering hot buttons (what’s in it for them) building rapport establishing trust developing credibility developing a valuable relationship addressing objections planning next action steps confirming understanding asking for referrals seeking additional opportunities to serve & sell evaluating responses & results (positive/negative) affirming decisions (minimizing buyer’s remorse) Obviously these are all important selling activities. When you get down to the brass tacks of selling, it… Read More
Continue ReadingPutting Your Value Proposition in Play
Why Should Customers Do Business with You? provides some guidance in determining your value proposition. A jaw-dropping stat from the opening paragraph (emphasis mine): …business consultant Jaynie Smith could find only two out of 1,000 CEOs who could name their competitive advantages. That’s a stunning figure because competitive advantage, and a company’s ability to trumpet that advantage to the marketplace, is the most surefire way to close deals, retain clients, and stay miles ahead of the competition, says Smith. I realize that CEO’s are occupied with all facets of the business beyond sales, but every company I have worked for has integrated the CEO into large customer interactions. At one… Read More
Continue ReadingSpeaking Visually with PowerPoint
Strangely, I have come across a couple different articles on PowerPoint etiquette this afternoon. I’m an auditory person so I prefer talking, listening and reading for communication. However, I realize that the majority of people are visual so PowerPoint is an important tool for selling (and training). Selling Power chimes in with How to Speak Visually which caught my attention because, first off, I can’t speak well to visuals and second, it is a bit of an oxymoron. The article is a tactical advice column with this interesting tidbit: Open your palms. Open palms represent truth. Practice saying phrases like, Whats in it for you? and What does all this… Read More
Continue ReadingVulcan Qualifying
First things first – I’m not a Trekkie. But there is a good lesson from Mr. Spock in regards to qualifying. Basically, emotions kill good qualifying. What I mean is that salespeople who become emotionally shackled to a prospect or opportunity lose objectivity. Once objectivity is gone, the salesperson tends to abandon their selling system and rationalize reasons without pursing facts from the prospect directly. The best salespeople we have encountered and assessed are the ones who are able to use their empathy to connect with the prospect and nothing more. They are able to build rapport yet stay emotionally detached so that stress, rejection, joy, anger and desperation do… Read More
Continue ReadingSell What You Have, Not What You Hope
I’m fascinated by this behemoth airplane from Airbus called the A-380. I watched a show on Discovery that documented the engineering feats that had to be accomplished to build this thing – quite impressive. Today, I am reading about the delays in delivering this product on time. The plane is overweight which means it won’t travel the distances that the company claimed it would travel. The wings had a design flaw that has been “fixed” though strangely testing has not been completed yet. The plane will need to have a 10 mile gap behind it due to its jet wash which will require special handling by air traffic controllers. Is… Read More
Continue ReadingChopping Down Trees
Monster.com has an amusing, quick-read article about sales demonstrations gone horribly wrong. The example is predictable, but funny nonetheless. Hidden inside this article is a reference to a tremendous Abraham Lincoln quote: Abe Lincoln once said that if he had eight hours to chop down a tree, he would spend the first six hours sharpening the saw. That euphimism is applicable to prospecting for new customers in today’s world. Today, cold calling requires a salesperson to have, at a minimum, a cursory knowledge of the company and their basic business model. Salespeople who cold call without that basic knowledge have sales careers that are already circling the drain.
Continue ReadingQuestions When Hiring
Jill Konrath has a great post about salespeople who come on “like a bull in a china shop” when trying to sell to prospects. Her cure for these salespeople: You need to create conversations with decision makers. And, there’s only one way to do this. You need to ask questions to engage prospects in a dialogue, then shut up and listen. I couldn’t agree more. I want to take that point and apply them to sales hiring. We use the entire hiring process to observe the salesperson in action. We particularly observe their question pattern – are they trying to determine how they would sell the company’s value proposition if… Read More
Continue ReadingReading the (Non-Verbal) Signs
How to Read Your Prospect Like a Book! by John Boe is a quick read article from Sales Vault with some great tips on understanding the nonverbal cues a prospect/client is sending you. He states: …that one of the easiest and most effective ways to close sales is to be aware of the prospect’s “buy signals.” The article gives clues to look for in reading body language, mainly head and facial gestures. For an example: Head Gestures Tilted back = Superior attitude Tilted down = Negative and judgmental attitude Tilted to one side = Interest For those of you that know this information already, it is a nice 5 minute… Read More
Continue ReadingCrafting A Value Proposition
Grab Your Prospect’s Attention by Crafting a ‘Compelling Reason’ challenges War and Peace for length. It is a LONG read, but a good one that covers many selling topics. There are 6 pages to the online article so I will simply hit on some of my favorite points. The author’s main treatise is to define a process for defining your company’s “compelling reason.” Consider it your value proposition to use a different euphimism. He states that you will know you have driven deep enough into your compelling reason when it passes the “so what?” test. When I asked her to list the benefits of her service, she responded with the… Read More
Continue ReadingUnderstanding & Using Communication Style
Here is a different link for a post – a good audio segment on SalesRepRadio. The featured segment this week is a broadcast (is that the right word?) named Outcome Focused Selling. The speaker, Anne Warfield, discusses a different approach to selling. Instead of being focused on solving problems, salespeople need to be focused on finding solutions. When I first heard this phrasing I wondered what is the difference? Warfield went on to say that trying to “solve problems” unintentionally focuses the salesperson on features and benefits selling. I’ve seen this type of selling first-hand and it mostly leads to a data dump of marketing information on an disinterested prospect.… Read More
Continue Reading