The Selling Newsletter
SALES QUOTE“You need to dance with the one who brung you.”
Darrell Royal, former Texas Longhorn coach, when faced with a tough bowl game
You’ve probably noticed that the economy has slowed down. This year will present more challenges to meet sales goals as opportunities are fewer. As you set your strategy to gain new business, make sure that you’ve also got a strategy to keep your existing customers. Now is not the time to lose business. Have a conversation about your business with all the customers you want to keep. What do you say? You talk about what you’ve done for them in the past. You ask them how you can help them especially this year. You tell them that you expect to work even harder for them this year so you continue to earn their business. Now is the time to set up the expectation in their minds that you will be keeping their business this year. Coach Royal was right. He kept playing the strategies that worked when things got tough. It’s tough this year so dance on over to your existing customers and make plans to keep their business this year.
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THE BLOG S AND OTHER COLUMNS
I’m now writing The Real Deal, a column on women in business for Allbusiness.com
Being Agreeably Disagreeable
I’ve had a few situations recently where I had to disagree with clients. As an independent consultant, my disagreement was a little easier to deliver than you might experience. My clients are paying me for my point of view and being a “yes man” isn’t what they want. It got me thinking about my years in Corporate America and how many of the guys I worked with expressed their disagreement. Most of the time was when we were in meetings where someone disagreed. There seemed to be two very different types of behavior. I didn’t fit into either camp.
I’m also writing a sales blog for Salesmecca.com.
I’m now a guest columnist for the Dallas Business Journal. My column is called “Customer Connections.” I’ll be answering readers’ questions about selling. Do you have any selling questions? Send them to info@bestatselling.com
What’s sales tip has helped you be even more successful in sales?
Send your helpful tip to tip@bestatselling.com
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The Selling Ideas for this Month
Power Persuasion
Would your selling be easier if you could persuade more effectively? I’ll bet it would. If you want to know how to be a more powerful persuader, here are a few proven techniques and why they work.
If you don’t ask you don’t get. When was the last time a prospect called and told you without a preceding sales conversation, “I want to buy your products”? That’s what I call a sales miracle and it happens very rarely if at all.Most selling will occur after salespeople ask strategic questions and guide their customers to understand why they should buy. Some salespeople wait for a customer to ask them to buy. That’s unrealistic. The salesperson’s job is to ask the customer to buy. It’s also part of a persuasive strategy. If you ask your customers to buy your products you are helping guide them to take action. Recent research shows how persuasive asking can be. In schools where staff asked students “Would you like fruit or juice with your lunch?” they were told “yes” to one of those choices 90% of the time. People tend to accept what they’re offered. Your strategic questions uncover needs and your customer understands why he should buy. After your customer understands he has a need, you should offer your customer the opportunity to buy by simply asking.
Give it away. Another powerful persuasion strategy is to give something away.Why? When you give something to someone they will unconsciously feel the obligation to give you something back. Often that translates into buying something. This principle known as reciprocity is a very powerful persuasion strategy. That’s why the promotional products industry is such big business.There are many salespeople who give small gifts like pens or pads. Reciprocity also works with an intangible gift. Time is an intangible that can be perceived as a gift. Imagine you were at Nordstrom’s and your sales clerk spent 2 hours with you at the dress shirt counter. After two hours of pinning and unpinning shirts for you to see, there wasn’t one that interested you. Would you feel obligated to buy something because the clerk had “given” you so much of his time? Most people would. When you spend a lot of time on a project or getting information for a prospect, certainly let him know how much time you spent. Time is a gift to prospects, but only if they know they’ve received it.It then is the perfect opportunity to get something back—like a sale.
Copycats are a good thing.Think of the last comedy you saw on television. It probably had a laugh track. Like most people you would say the laugh track is annoying. Yet, most people surveyed will rank a show with a laugh track as being funnier. Why? Social copying is the phenomenon of looking to other people to show us what to do.The laugh track shows us where to laugh and we feel better knowing that we’re part of the group. We also eat at crowded restaurants because it allows us to copy the other people who have chosen what we believe to be a good restaurant.Think of all your satisfied customers.What’s one thing they’ve done that you would like other prospects to copy? It’s that they’ve bought from you and were satisfied with the purchase.How can you show your prospects this behavior to copy? Be sure to get reference letters to show your prospects so they can copy your existing customers and buy.
Some people think that selling is a difficult process of forcing products on customers. Instead, with power persuasion, selling can be more like diplomacy. Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way.With these power persuasion strategies, your customers will want your products. Isn’t that a much easier way to sell?
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Action Items
1. What questions can you ask prospects to uncover their business needs or problems?
2. How can you use time as a gift to your customers?
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Programs When: January 23, January 30, February 6, February 13
11.30 AM- 1:30 PM
Where: Small Business Development Center
4800 West Park Blvd.
Plano, TX
What: Master Selling Series For more information: 972-985-3749 or
972-985-3758 @font-face { font-family: Verdana; } @page Section1 {margin: 1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; } P.MsoNormal { FONT-SIZE: 12pt; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; FONT-FAMILY: “Times New Roman” } LI.MsoNormal { FONT-SIZE: 12pt; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; FONT-FAMILY: “Times New Roman” } DIV.MsoNormal { FONT-SIZE: 12pt; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; FONT-FAMILY: “Times New Roman” } DIV.Section1 { }
When: February 20 9-12noon
Where: Great Plains Technology Center, Lawton, OK.
What: Real-World Selling: Influence Strategies To Sell More Now
More information at 580-250-5551 or 580-250-5556.
Here are some selling tools to help you sell more now. Click on the photo to find out more!
Sales Quotes: A book that has quick ideas for you to be more successful in sales. Real-World Selling: A book with selling skills and strategies that work in the real world of sales. Secrets of Persuasion: Audio CD for the clues to use to speed-read people and close more business.
Need an Article for Your Newsletter?
Articles from this newsletter may be used in your free publications or posted on your web when given the following credit:
Written by Maura Schreier-Fleming, [email protected] (https://www.bestatselling.com/). Maura Works with business and sales professionals who want to sell more and be more productive at work. She is the author of Real-World Selling for Out-of-this-World Results.
For free articles, selling ideas and morale boosters
visit https://www.BestatSelling.commore »
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About Maura Schreier-Fleming
Invite Maura to speak at your next conference or sales meeting! Contact: info@bestatselling.com
Maura Schreier-Fleming works with business and sales professionals to make it easier to sell more and be more productive at work. Her [email protected] clients want to create long-term client relationships. They include Fujitsu, Fannie Mae and Dr Pepper/7UP. She has an M.S. in Textile Engineering from Georgia Tech and was Mobil Oil’s first female lubrication engineer in the U.S. With over 20 years of sales experience, she teaches the art and science of selling with a unique hands-on perspective and a great deal of real-life insight. She is the author of Real-World Selling for Out-of-this-World Results (a book filled with ideas to make selling easier and more productive. Her business column ‘Selling Strategies’ appears in the Insurance Record magazine and her column ‘Street Talk’ appears in Jobbers World. You can contact her for seminars at company or trade association meetings at 972 380 0200 or info@BestatSelling.com
Privacy: At [email protected] we take privacy issues very seriously. Your information remains with us and will never be sold, shared, or distributed in any manner, for any reason.
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Contact Information
1. Our Web site: www.BestatSelling.com
2. E-mail: info@bestatselling.com
3. Call: In Dallas 972 380 0200
4. Write us:
6757 Arapaho Rd., Suite 711-183
Dallas, TX 75248
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