10 Top Tips for Effective Selling
By Jeremy Thorn Fresh Business Thinking. Com
1. Find out all you can about your prospective customers, all their past
contacts and transactions with your company and their probable needs, before
you ever meet them. You can’t possibly know all that you will need to know
about them in advance, but the prospects you meet will not be much impressed
if you know nothing about them at all!
2. Practice a powerful introduction. If you don’t believe passionately in your
company, its products, and what you can offer, why should anyone else? But
don’t present yourself ‘off the cuff’ each time. Know your products really well
and develop some really powerful, short introductory phrases that work well for
you. Of course your introduction needs to feel spontaneous and authentic — but
all great, powerful presentations take a lot of practice to perfect!
3. Ask questions, as these are any sales person’s very best friend. In doing so,
allow extravert buyers to talk about themselves by all means, but if they seem
rather quiet or retiring, don't fill the silences for them. Introvert buyers in
particular will need time to reflect and consider their answers carefully. While
they are doing so, anything else you might say may at best not be 'heard' and at
worst, will almost certainly make them feel uncomfortable and unnecessarily
pressured.
4. Develop empathy with your prospects and build rapport. So shine the
light on your products and services and what they will do for your customers not on yourself and what your customers might do for you! Most prospects
actively dislike egocentric/egotistical sales people, especially those who don't
listen or don't answer their questions.
5. Hold back on your proposal(s) until you have heard their full story. And then
pause. Too prompt a response to any problem/opportunity may sound glib, illconsidered or pre-packaged.
6. Use customer references, but carefully. Great references from other
satisfied customers can be wonderful, but your favorite clients may not actually
be admired by your prospect for reasons you may never know of. Worse, your
prospect may suspect that if you will talk so freely about your other customers'
details, you may be indiscreet in telling others about theirs! So keep your other
customers' details anonymous unless you have their permission to mention them
by name.
7. Sell your price! Never be 'modest' about your price, but support it and 'sell'
it with the benefits you offer. Any early suggestion that your price is negotiable,
tentative or even in the wrong ball-park will only suggest it may be aspirational
and that you don't believe in it. And then, why should your customer?
8. Never duck an objection. Rather, see customer-objections as potential
buying signals, which they often will be, and welcome them! And remember? An un-resolved objection will always remain an objection. So consider making a
habit of the using the following 5-step process?
a) Clarify the real objection;
b) repeat the objection back in your own words, to show you have properly
understood it;
c) then pause — don’t pounce! However often you may have heard the specific
objection before, don’t let your prospect feel that your response is not going to
value their point of view.
d) ‘Pivot’ the objection into a genuine advantage
e) explore the consequences of your reply and ask for any other objections. .
9. Ask for the order! ‘Closing’ a successful deal is a finely tuned sales skill, and
most experienced buyers will probably know as many professional sales closes
as you do! Each approach to closing may warrant their own place in your
personal armory, but if you have built a sound rapport you really can’t beat just
asking for the order on many occasions, once you have been through the steps
above with a genuinely compelling offer.
10. Know when to go! When you have won the order and confirmed the
details, congratulate them on their decision by all means, assure them they have
chosen wisely of course, but then LEAVE! The longer you stay thereafter, the
more time you may give for buyers to change their mind. I see more sales lost
this way than any other!
Jeremy is the author of the tips booklet ‘115 Essential Tips on Pricing’ and a
frequent public speaker and workshop presenter on business topics to a wide
range of organisations internationally.