The Basics of Successful Selling

Selling without a system is like taking a tough exam without studying for it. You may get a few questions right but your total score will probably be abysmal. To succeed in sales, you need to follow a basic plan. So here it is.

CALL PREPARATION

Lay the groundwork for your sale by qualifying your prospects, planning your approach, and preparing for sales tremors – objections and problems – before meeting with your clients.

The four basics of call preparation are finding prospects, qualifying prospects, planning your approach, and adapting your attitude.

Finding Prospects: Use all the possible methods you can identify for locating potential customers.

Contact existing customers about other products your company offers. Call inactive customers about new or improved products. Get referrals from satisfied customers. Develop leads from business directories. Read newspapers and trade publications for potential users of your services. Ask service and repair people to act as scouts for you. Keep in mind that many people have influence over potential buyers. Speak to them. And don’t forget the Internet with all its resources, including companies that are in the business of supplying qualified leads for any industry.

Qualifying Your Prospects: Don’t waste your time with unqualified prospects. Your initial telephone contact should clarify the prospect’s needs, their position within the company, and the company’s purchasing process. Make sure the person you plan to call on has the authority and the budget to buy. This is also a good time to determine if more than one person will be involved in the decision.

Before you call your prospect, make a list of standard questions that will get you information on the prospect’s specific interests, needs, and expectations. During your qualifying call, try to obtain background information about the company, the purchasing process, financing, and special problems with past products and services.

Planning Your Approach: Decide on the objective of your call, the amount of information you need to cover, and when to end the call. Next, develop a list of questions so you’ll be able to target your product benefits to the customer’s needs during the call. When preparing your questions, list the information you will need and develop a list of customer benefits.

Adapting Your Attitude: Recognize that you have to alter your attitude according to the prospect’s characteristics. Look for such personal cues as body posture and rate of speech. Speed up or slow down according to the prospect’s speaking habits. Remember that maximum flexibility leads to maximum results.

OPENING

First Impressions: Always be neat in your appearance. Fit the prospect’s image of a successful salesperson, whether you’re selling stocks on Wall Street or garden supplies at a nursery. Stand tall and sit straight.

Open with a benefit statement – explain how you can help with specific needs, cost savings, increased productivity, or better staff morale. Refer to any previous conversations – research you’ve done on a question or needs that the prospect has already mentioned.

Nonverbal Signs: Read beyond the smile. Hands clenched, legs crossed, arms held close to the body, or the prospect leaning away from you, all suggest that your prospect is not so open. Ask questions to uncover problems before moving on with your plan.

Pay attention to changes in posture. If the prospect is relaxed and suddenly becomes tense and closed up, a) probe to find out what the “hot topic” is, b) evaluate your own nonverbal signals, and c) remain open and relaxed.

UNCOVERING NEEDS

Questions: Questions that require more than a yes or no answer give the prospect an opportunity to participate actively in the selling process. Try these requests for information to uncover needs.

1. “I understand that you’re not completely satisfied with your present sources of supply. What problems are you having at the present time?”

2. “You’ve mentioned that reliability is very important to you. Can you tell me exactly what you mean by reliability?”

Listening: Many salespeople take listening for granted. That’s because they believe talking is more important in sales. Unfortunately, when they don’t hear what their prospects are saying, they may talk about the wrong products, features, or benefits.

Prepare yourself to listen before the sale and evaluate your performance after a call. But while you’re there, listen for content, expression, misunderstandings, and gaps in the prospect’s information. A two-step process of asking questions and listening to the answers will help you discover what prospects really need.

To show prospects that you understand what they’ve said, summarize the main points and ask for confirmation.

PRESENTATIONS

Illuminating Body Language: Pay attention to what your body language says. When standing, place your feet one foot apart, with your weight slightly forward. This position gives you a good sense of balance. When sitting, rest your arms on the chair or in your lap and keep your hands open with the palms facing up. And smile.

Special Effects

Pauses: The best way to convey confidence is to begin and end your presentation with a few seconds of silence. It shows that you are in control and sure of yourself. And it gives your audience – whether it’s one person or 100 – a chance to prepare to listen.

During the presentation, add pauses between key points and after complicated explanations. Tape record your next presentation. You’ll be amazed at how many times you could have sold more by using the persuasive power of pauses.

Analogies: Analogies paint vivid visual pictures. The closer the analogy is to the client’s own work or personal experiences, the easier it will be for you to make a memorable impression. For example, a saleswoman used this analogy to illustrate the need for new telecommunications equipment: “Think of your present equipment as a single weed in a garden. The longer the weed is there, the more ground it will take over, and the more money and time it will take to remove it.”

Spotlighting Customer Benefits: Your clients want to hear the bottom line. “What’s in it for me?” not just “What’s it going to cost?” Features and model numbers aren’t as important as more efficient operation, fewer down hours, or increased employee satisfaction. Instead of justifying the price with features, make the benefits outweigh the price.

List your product’s main features, then come up with at least seven different benefits that you can offer the customers.

OBJECTIONS

Self-Knowledge: An open, sincere, nonverbal stance and a controlled voice can put out all types of fires. Practice leaning forward, nodding, relaxing your facial muscles, and unclenching your hands. Alter a nervous tone of voice by lowering your pitch and volume, slowing down your speaking speed, and allowing some silence between the time the objection is stated and your response to it.

Train yourself to control your “over-responses.” There are four common difficulties in dealing with objections. First, salespeople discuss the problem instead of possible solutions. If you accept the fact that the client is unhappy, you can resolve the objection much faster.

Second, salespeople overreact by blowing the problem way out of proportion. Don’t assume something is a major hurdle until you’ve determined the true extent of the objection.

Third, sales reps assume that the problem has been dumped in their laps and they are the only ones who can fix it. Not so. Customers often come up with their own solutions when asked in a caring manner about their own ideas and suggestions for coming to an agreement.

Finally, salespeople sometimes ignore the customer’s concerns instead of confronting the objection. Deal with problems on the spot so that a smoldering objection doesn’t burst into leaping flames.

Most objections fall into three categories: misunderstandings, stalling, and price objections.

CLOSING

Many salespeople think of closing as the last phase of a sales call. Buyers signal interest along the way by making positive comments or asking questions. By getting agreement on small things before you ask for the order, you’ve started closing in a gentle way. Remember, there are many closing strategies. A few are listed here.

Alternative Closes: Questions that give a customer a choice of two or three options are easy to answer. That’s why they have a higher success rate. Try using these suggestions: How (how would you like these delivered – express mail, UPS, or first class?), Which (which color do you prefer – blue or brown?), What (what payment plan do you like – monthly or quarterly installments?), Will you (will you be paying cash or financing your purchase?), Where (where should we send the order – to the main office or your warehouse?)

Inducement Closes: Last Chance: Stress year-end tax advantages, coming price increases, deadlines for special promotions, and so forth. Just be sure that they are 100 percent true.

Similar Situation: Compare other companies that have purchased your product and are happy with it to those who didn’t buy and have lost profits as a result.

The Best Feature: On the way out, when the customer’s defenses are down, bring up the “Clincher” – that one last benefit or feature that you’ve held in reserve.

Always ask for the business: That’s what you’ve spent your time and your client’s time to do. If you don’t ask for the order, you haven’t earned the right to get it.

FOLLOW-UP

Protect your investment by keeping up with the necessary maintenance of your success building. It is better to find out about problems early than to discover too late that a leaky roof has rotted your structure to the point of collapse.

Thank the Customer: In addition to thanking clients for the order when you close the deal, send them thank you notes. Then contact them on a regular basis to tell them about service or new product options.

Root Out Problems: Ask if your clients are happy. Find out if they have questions. Make sure that everything meets their expectations. Look for problems instead of waiting for them to happen.

Answer Complaints Promptly: Putting off the worst until last creates bigger problems. When you get a call about a complaint, take care of it as soon as possible. Always deal with the worst problem first – they make the rest of your complaints seem easy.

Collect Favors: When clients ask for special treatment – Saturday deliveries, rush orders, personal services – let them know that you’ll be happy to help them. But don’t give away your favors. Let clients know that you’re going above and beyond the call of duty so they’ll feel obligated to do you a favor in return.

Keep Selling: Once you’ve got an agreement in writing for one order, don’t stop selling. Tie the sold product to other needs that you can meet, or simply ask, “What else can I do for you?”

Ask for Referrals: Satisfied customers are one of the best sources of leads. Why go on cold calls when you can get a hot lead from an insider?