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Due credit for this phrase goes to Brian Bieler who I came across at Salesgravy
To start with the phrase just made me smile, like one of those oxymorons, but then two thoughts struck me. Read full post »
A new sales rep, Mickey joins the Ferrari dealership and gets put with the seasoned pro, Sue, for training.
Mickey asks Sue, “these cars are so expensive, I don’t understand why people buy them”?
Sue replies “well you need to understand what we’re selling. Its not five wheels, and engine and a gearbox. It’s not the top speed of 170 mph. or the 0 - 60 in 4 seconds. It’s not that prancing horse badge representing one of the most famous brands. It’s not even the fact it’s so expensive, if you need to ask the price you can’t afford it.” Read full post »
Are you going to get that sale?
Maybe, and maybe not. The best way to evaluate your chances, and improve them, is checking for some critical elements. The more of these you can honestly say “yes” to, the more likely you are to win the deal.
If you can’t say “yes” to some, then get to work and turn the “don’t know”s into “yes”. If you can’t turn the “no”s and “don’t know”s into “yes”s maybe you’d be better off spending your sales hours on something else. Sales professionals call this technique “qualification”.
When a customer says “I want to negotiate” that usually means “I want a deal on the price”. We all understand, because we all do it sometime. Nobody wants to pay more than they need.
For the salesman this is definitely a pain in the rear. It means he’s between a rock and hard place, again - the rock of a customer; the hard place of revenue and margin. If he’s followed the guiding principles, he’s only arrived at this situation when the customer is ready to sign. Here it feels even worse. All of the hard work is done, the cost of sale spent, and at the last minute the deal’s at risk again.
We talked elsewhere about the benefits, to the seller, of asking for the order and the way it drives out objections we might not know about. There other ways we can use closing as a technique, for handling objections, and for more closely defining requirements. One such technique is generally known as the conditional close. Another technique straight out of the sales professionals arsenal is known as the trial balloon.These two techniques are very closely related and the distinction between them doesn’t mean anything as long as we achieve the desired result. However a few minutes spent looking at examples of their use may help to illustrate the power of employing them in the right way. Read full post »
Asking for the order can be a hard thing to do! It puts pressure on the prospect, because it asks him to make a decision. A decision, not necessarily whether to award the order but, about how much of his thinking he’ll declare to the seller. Basically whatever his response, the seller will know more about the situation from this point on. Read full post »
When we’re selling we always want the customer to feel good about his decision to buy from us. He’s suddenly made a commitment based on our proposal. If he feels good about it, achieving customer satisfaction will be much easier for us. The best way for us to help him feel good is to demonstrate quiet, professional confidence. Read full post »
Some buyers seem to have a natural talent for taking advantage of poor sales technique. Professional buyers are trained in a tactic they call Salami - it means “one slice at a time”. It describes the way the buyer will keep asking for more discount, or more services after the price has been set. Each request is for something quite insignificant but by the end of the process the seller will have conceded much more than would have been the case in a single negotiation.
In other chapters we outlined the various emotional states the prospect goes through during the sales process - see Ask the hard questions early and Make sure the customer understands what’s in it for you.
During the early exchanges the prospect may be very open with information, helping us to understand how we can put forward our best offer. Questions regarding budget, decision process, his view of our strengths and weaknesses, relative to the competition will answered directly. In this phase the prospect is in charge and won’t feel threatened by our process and the way we deliver our proposition. Read full post »
The heading here seems to suggest the person doing the selling should declare how much his profit, or commission check will be. Actually that isn’t what it means. How the salesman gets compensated is no more relevant to the buyer than his pay check would be to the salesman.What is relevant is the salesman has another interest over, and above just signing the deal.
