Action: Until you know the ad director's intention for the meeting, it's not a good idea to schedule the appointment. Does he only want to pick your brain for ideas he can give to his existing agency? Is he bringing the advertising "in-house" and does he now want some free consulting from you?

Determine his true intentions before committing to a meeting. If his agenda is not in your best interest, don't schedule the meeting.

Jeremy Rawitz

Sales Strategy Corp.

Sandler Sales Institute

347-385-8500

Too often sales people put their focus on being liked. "If the prospect likes me, they will buy" becomes the motto.

Instead of focusing on the real added value they can bring to the table, salespeople often put their effort into being friends. In this day and age, being liked is just the ante to get into the game. The world is filled with well-liked sales people that can't close a deal.

A salesperson's goal is to make money not make friends. While being likable is a huge advantage, it rarely closes the deal all by itself.

Many prospects will not buy anything from a salesperson simply because they like them. Every person in the world has people they like. However, they wouldn't necessarily buy a product or service from those people.

Parents like and love their children. However, most parents wouldn't put a lot of credibility into what their child suggests they buy. This is because they lack expertise and credibility to support their suggestion.

We teach three rules: People buy from people, people buy from people they like, and people buy from people like themselves. While this is true there has never been more of a press to commoditize what we sell. So we must continue to work past simple friendship to include return on investment, differentiation, and real value.

We have to sell to our prospect's pain. Pain and action are linked. Pain brings about commitment to change. Show the product or service in a light that shows how it solves a problem or benefits the prospect. Don't just strive to be liked. Strive to discover why your product is the best fit.

A prospect will buy if they see a solution to their problem but won't necessarily buy if they simply like us. In an ideal world, we will be able to get the prospect to like us. However, that is only leverage to find the right reasons for the prospect to buy.

People will buy from people they like, but only if the salesperson positions the solution the right way.

Jeremy Rawitz

Sales Strategy Corp.

jr@salesstrategycorp.com

© Sandler Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. -----------------------------------------------------------

Situation: You have been pursuing the print media advertising business from a local up-scale retailer for some time. Your previous efforts have been met with "We're already working with an agency. Send me some information about your company and I'll get in touch with you if the need arises."

Not ready to give up, you once again call the advertising director. This time he tells you that he is open to meeting with you. He says, "We're always looking for fresh ways to promote our stores." He informs you that they have a new store opening in a few months and he is particularly interested in any ideas you have for a grand opening promotion. He then says, "let me switch you to my secretary and set up an appointment." What should you do?

1. Consider yourself fortunate and schedule the appointment.

2. Keep him on the line and gather some information about the new store opening and any expectations he may have about promoting it and what he'd like to see from you.

3. Keep him on the line and gather some information about existing advertising agency relationships and why he is open to talking to you now.

Answer tomorrow.

Jeremy Rawitz

Sales Strategy Corp.

Sandler Sales Institute

jr@salesstrategycorp.com

The last thing I want to be good at is discounting.  In sales, if I have to get business through discounting, then its only a matter of time before someone else can do my job for a lot less money. Wait a minute, I am not talking about discounting my products or services, its the other discounting that gets me in trouble.....

When is a discount not helpful?

Did you ever get that sinking feeling after you spent all the time fixing one of your sales people that, after a great week of selling while you were watching, they began to slide back to their comfort zone over the next couple of weeks? What is it about sales people that, even thought they know what to do, they don't always do it? Ever wonder why?

Part of the problem is that human beings often do a lot of discounting. We discount problems by not even noticing they are there. Ever see a sales staff with a high turnover but no one really noticed because they were so busy recruiting the next potential superstar? Ever see a business owner who says proudly: "Sales are just fine!" without even knowing what his sales could be if the organization paid attention to the sales team? We discount reasons for the problem by coming up with excuses. We spend lots of time trying to figure out why problems happen instead of coming up with solutions to the problem. Excuses are always discounts.

Another discount is discounting the significance of a problem. "We don't really have a sales problem. We just have to weather the business cycle. We can make it through this. We always have before." Ever heard that? Another familiar discount is discounting the solvability of a problem. "You know, you just cant find good sales people. We've tried to develop our sales people, but it never works." No confidence that the problem can be solved leads to ineffective behaviors.

The last discount is the most debilitating: discounting people, either other people or even ourselves. We discount people when we don't listen to them. We discount them when we think our thoughts, our beliefs, our needs and wants are more important than theirs. "I don't care what they are saying, I want those sales up this month or else." Not that anyone in your organization would ever say things like this, but they're out there.

All this discounting, which is a belief, leads to ineffective behavior. And ineffective behaviors never help improve sales. I wonder -- how often do our discounting beliefs result in poor sales performance? Probably more often than we are comfortable in admitting. (Which is a discount itself.)

Jeremy Rawitz

Sales Strategy Corp.

1375 Broadway, 3rd Floor

New York, NY 10018

jr@salesstrategycorp.com

Salespeople usually dread hearing a prospect say that they don't have the money. Whether you sell to individuals or corporations, they can find the money if they want (or need) your product or service.

If you are with the right decision makers and they claim they have a budget problem, what they are probably saying is that they aren't convinced your product can help.

Not having money is not a deal breaker, but it could signal that they have a lack of conviction as to how what you are selling can help them.

The right decision maker can shift budgets around to create money in a large corporation. Small-to-medium sized companies have business loans available. Loans and credit cards are always available to individuals.

In most cases, money is available if they want to buy. If a prospect claims not to have the money, it is our responsibility to find out where we may have failed to show them the value of our product or service.

Ask some follow-up questions. In the worst case, you'll discover you may have erred in the sales process. The best-case scenario is that they will reassess the value of your product or service and take action to get the money.

Jeremy Rawitz Sales Strategy Corp.

www.ssc.sandler.com

jr@salesstrategycorp.com