Some of you are not going to like this one.

"Does Tuesday at 9 am or Wednesday at 3 pm work better for our appointment"? "Would Red or Blue be the better color for you"? "Once this is installed how is it going to make your life easier"?

While we know these "techniques" or "tricks" in selling still work to close a sale. Most of the time your prospect sees them for what they are , tricks! Sometimes they loose you the deal, and almost every time they mark you as someone trying to sell something rather than someone that is solving problems.

If you do not want or need your prospects and clients to see you as a trusted partner, you probably do not need to hear more from us, if you do want to grow your skills and improve performance, read on.......

Many selling techniques, traditionally taught and typically employed, tend to be manipulative. They are designed to get the prospect to do something he or she is not already inclined to do. Some techniques back the prospect into a corner. Others are more subtle. The result, however, is usually the same: The salesperson pushes; the prospect pushes back. The salesperson requests action; the prospect responds with objections or stalls. The salesperson enumerates the pros; the prospect lists the cons. It is a "tug o' war" until someone gives in or walks away.

Developing a selling opportunity should be a process that leads to a logical conclusion - a yes or no buying decision. While the salesperson's objective is surely to obtain a yes, reality reveals that sometimes it will be no. It is counterproductive to try to compel a prospect to say yes when his or her decision is no.

At the beginning of the development process, establish an agreement with the prospect that the ultimate objective is to reach a yes or no buying decision - yes would be nice, but no is also OK. You will eliminate both the need for closing techniques and the need to deal with the "I need to think it over" stall. 

Jeremy Rawitz

Sales Strategy Corp.

347-385-8500

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.

jr@salesstrategycorp.com

© Sandler Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Salespeople always strive to show the prospect how they are different from their competitors by talking about competitive pricing, quality service, and their years of experience.

Your prospects have no way of knowing who has the best solution for them. It is up to us as salespeople to help them discover and understand why our product or service is a good fit for them.

The first step is to find out how we can specifically match our products with a prospect's need for that particular product. That means we have to ask them questions. (One study actually shows that after they had decided not to buy, 83% of prospects cited Don't think the salesperson understood my business as the reason they had not bought!) We must ask questions in order to better understand their specific needs and wants, and to show how we are different.

If you can discover what your prospect's needs are and the best way to implement a solution for them, you will almost always overcome your competition.

A firm understanding of a problem coupled with a great solution is worth a lot more than competitive pricing, quality service, and years of experience. This is how you can differ from your competition – which sets you up as the obvious choice and makes you a valuable asset instead of the same choice among many options.

© Sandler Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Jeremy Rawitz Sales Strategy Corp.

jr@salesstrategycorp.com

Building Rapport with a prospect is step 1. Conducting a good sales interview is step 2. However, step 2 is about "UNCOVERING PROBLEMS". Often that is not an easy conversation to have. People do not want to talk about problems. That is, unless they are seriously looking for a solution. As salespeople we have to have enough backbone to ask the hard questions.

Often salespeople answer every question the prospect has yet we walk on eggshells, hoping not to upset them. We certainly want our prospects to feel comfortable with us, but a sales call doesn't necessarily always have to be pleasant.

Our job is to discover a gap between what they are doing today and how our product and service can make it better for them – finding their "pain." We have to make our prospects feel a little pain to discover how much our product or service can help to ease that pain.

To uncover the pain means the prospect will be more motivated to buy. The better you understand their situation, then the better equipped you are to help them to solve this pain. It turns out to be a win/win for both of you.

On the other hand, if you try to find pain and there isn't any, then you know you can't help them and you can move on to other prospects.

Make your prospects deal with their pain instead of trying to make everything pleasant for them. The better we are at finding what a prospect needs by discovering their "pain," the better we sell.

Jeremy Rawitz

Sales Strategy Corp.

jr@salesstrategycorp.com

Is your business different from all other businesses? Probably so, if you are an owner your business will take on your personality and beliefs. If you work for someone else the actions you take within that business will take on some of your beliefs and personality as well.

Is the selling process different? Certainly some differences in market, customers, and industry specific stuff, but selling your product or service is exactly the same as any other business. We find out what your prospects need, how bad they need it, what they can pay for it, and how they will make a decision.

When hearing about a success in another business, most salespeople have found themselves thinking or saying, "That may work in other businesses, but not mine." Don't ever let yourself fall into this trap. This is generally nothing more than an excuse not to change. Are there differences in a business? Sure there are, but when it comes to selling, the process is the same for most of us. Find prospects, manage pipeline, win business, and retain clients. No matter what you are selling this is probably your outline.

Within this process there are many successful strategies and techniques. Don't ignore any of these by using the excuse that your business or industry is different or that a certain strategy or technique "wouldn't work for you".

Why is this a dangerous myth? It is dangerous because we act on our beliefs. Beliefs, whether positive or negative, will determine action. A belief that our business is unique is a license to stagnate. It gets us into a habit of making excuses for not being as successful as we can be. Instead of looking to excel, we start to look for reasons why we can't excel. If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten. If you come across techniques that are working for others, adopt them. It might take some tweaking to fit directly in your business or industry, but try it.

Don't allow yourself to believe your selling situation is unique. People buy for the same general reasons: either to get more of what they want more of, or get rid of what they want less of. All this myth accomplishes is cutting you off from useful strategies. Instead, find ways to tweak any good strategy you come across to fit perfectly to your business or industry. A belief that your business is completely unique only offers the benefit of deceiving yourself in an effort to make convincing excuses.

Jeremy Rawitz

Sandler Sales Institute

jr@salesstrategycorp.com