Seeing is believing. That’s what people say and think. But, what are you seeing when you sell? What you see—or more importantly what you don’t see can impact how successful you are in sales. Here are some ideas to see when you sell so you can sell more.
Are you even looking so you can see when you sell?
Too many salespeople go into each sales call with their prepared agenda. It’s good to be prepared. It’s bad to only focus on your own statements without paying attention to how your message is being received.
You probably know a salesman that keeps talking and talking without getting any feedback. These same salespeople aren’t paying attention to the important clues they could be using to sell. They do not see when they sell.
Listen with your eyes. What are you missing?
It’s most important to pay attention to nonverbal communication. This is what your customer communicates without words. What you’re looking for are changes in behavior. Distance, voice pace and volume and movement are all important nonverbal clues to watch.
Distance, either close or far, indicates interest. Watch when you give your prospect a document or brochure. How close to them do they place it? If they place the document close to them, for example right in front, it indicates interest. Even if they say, “This looks great!” but the brochure ends up far from them at the edge of their desk, they are really not interested. Actions do speak louder than words.
Use your ears to see when you sell.
This might sound strange to think about seeing with your ears. What I mean is that you pay attention to what you hear and what it means. For example, you might ask a customer a question. He hesitates when he replies. That could mean either he wasn’t sure of his answer or it could be he wasn’t telling the truth. You must make that determination because both could mean trouble for your selling.
Most people are not schooled in deception. You can give your prospect the benefit of the doubt. Pay extra attention if he breaks eye contact with you. That’s probably when he’s not telling the truth.
What to see after the sale.
There is probably nothing worse in sales than when you lose a sale. For all too many salespeople the lost sale immobilizes them. They ruminate over the lost sale only to magnify their feelings of failure. They stop selling instead of moving past the failure in a productive way.
Often times I see those salespeople making useless sales calls thinking they are working. They call on existing customers to “touch base.” Any sales call without an objective is not a sales call. Touching base is never a sales call objective.
Look at the failure and examine it with a perspective of doing something different going forward. Think of it as a process. What do you think went wrong? Develop some alternatives in the future that you would do instead. What if you can’t figure out the cause of the failure? Tell what happened to someone you admire and trust. Then ask that person for their perspective.
I’ve always thought that Sherlock Holmes would have made a great salesman. He could be in a room with so many people, yet he was the only one who knew the clues to look for, what they meant and how to use them. You can be like him and see all the clues you can use to sell more.