The Selling Newsletter
The Selling Newsletter
from Best@Selling
A free monthly newsletter of ideas to help make your selling easier.
Selling is the easiest job in the world…Just ask anyone who is NOT in sales! Best wishes for YOUR successful selling—Maura
This issue contains:
-The Selling Quote for the Month
-Upcoming Programs
-The Selling Ideas for the Month
-Action Items
-Selling Tips
-To Subscribe to the Selling Newsletter
-Need an article for your newsletter?
-About Maura Schreier-Fleming
-Contact Information
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The Selling Quote for the Month
“The greatest good you can do for another is not to share your riches, but to reveal theirs.”
Benjamin Disraeli
One of the fastest ways to delay your sale is to always talk about yourself. It’s easy to fall into this trap especially if prospects ask you to tell them about yourself. Who is easier to talk about than oneself? When you go on and on customers stop listening to you. Why not focus on them instead of on yourself? One way to do this is to sincerely thank a customer. What should you thank customers for? Think of all the things that you appreciate. When’s the last time you thanked a customer? Hopefully you said thank you for taking the time to meet with you. Have you recently thanked a long term customer for continuing to do business with you? There are lots of things for which you can show your appreciation. Pay attention so you can immediately say thank you. When you thank your customers, you validate them and make them feel better about themselves. They’ll listen to you better and you’ll make your selling easier. If you want to shorten your sales cycle, get your customers to really listen to you. Thank them and they’ll notice you and listen better. So look for opportunities to thank your customers. And to my readers, thanks for reading my newsletters.
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Sales Programs
Does your trade association or company have a meeting planned? Have Maura speak on selling and business skills and strategies at your conference so you can sell more this year.
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The Selling Ideas for this Month
Inside Your Customer’s Head
Great salespeople help their prospects and customers make the best buying decisions. So how do people make buying decisions, anyway? Here are the elements of their decision making process. Your involvement in the process can help your customers buy and become satisfied customers.
Understand their thinking. Dr. Richard Tozer, an independent consultant to management based in Dallas, focuses primarily on helping business owners make crucial decisions that can make or break the growth of a business or corporation. As a Lecturer in the School of Management of the University of Texas at Dallas, he organized and presents the Entrepreneurial Ventures course in the Executive MBA program. His research indicates that all human beings considering a purchase will check six of their fundamental, personal psychological beliefs: Do I want it? Is it possible for me to have it? Is it ok? Is it safe? Do I deserve it? Am I permitted to have it? Only when all beliefs are in agreement can a customer make a buying decision. Effective salespeople sense their prospect’s beliefs and help their prospect achieve agreement in any of these areas in which agreement may be lacking. Disagreement with just one of these statements will create mental dissonance, customer foot dragging and remorse.
To understand your customer’s beliefs, first ask yourself, “Does my prospect want the benefits of my product or service?” “Want to” is the most basic of human emotions. It’s one that develops very early in all children. If your product represents a benefit or advantage that the customer wants, you are meeting this basic need. If your customer believes “I want this” you are on your way to make a sale. You are even closer to the sale if you hear a customer say, “I want this.”
Follow the rules. What stops the sale? As somewhat older children, parents teach us rules. Beliefs about safety, ‘OKness’, deservedness and permission are planted in the individual mind by parental instruction. Think about your own childhood. You probably were taught the safety rule to not take candy from strangers.
These same rules impact our customers. Prospects make decisions using the same rules they were taught as children. When prospects make buying decisions they’re filtering them through their parent rules of ‘Is this OK?’, ‘Is it safe?’, ‘Do I deserve this’ and ‘Is it permitted?’ Some prospects will not consciously state their concerns so hidden objections will be present. Tozer says, “If salespeople can get prospects to verbalize their issues, then the salesperson can deal with the issues out in the open.”
Tozer suggests an effective questioning strategy to uncover hidden issues. He suggests that a
salesperson ask “What’s the worst thing that could happen? Could you handle that?” to isolate and get the answer to the prospect’s concern for safety. A salesperson could also state “It’s OK for you to do this” or “You deserve to do this” while watching carefully for verbal and nonverbal responses. The statements that trigger responses reflect the beliefs which are creating resistance in the prospect.
Make it happen. Another psychological issue develops around age 15. It’s the issue of possibility or feasibility. This issue causes many people not to buy because they think, “Is this purchase possible?” and they answer, “No. Not for me.” The issue of possibility in sales occurs when a customer doesn’t think it’s possible to buy a Mercedes. Then it’s the salesperson’s job to demonstrate that the purchase is possible. One way to do that is to provide a payment plan that shows the customer how the purchase is possible.
Getting into your customer’s head may be challenging. It’s worth the effort. That’s where the buying decision will be made. When you know what’s in your customer’s head and you influence it, you can make the purchase more likely to happen.
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Action Items
1. During your next sales call set an objective to ask a question to determine if your customer wants the benefits of your products or services. You could ask, “Would (your benefit) be helpful to you or your business?”
2. Look back at your last successful sale. Can you determine what your customer was thinking that persuaded him to buy? Confirm it during your next sales call.
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Selling Tip
Tip 16. Send a client a gift certificate to take his or her spouse to dinner instead of going to lunch or dinner with you.
From Maura’s ebook: 97 Ways to Sell More Now E-Book
https://www.bestatselling.com/selling_tools.htm#5
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Looking for new strategies to improve your persuasion skills? This easy to apply Audio CD will give you many new ideas to easily improve your persuasion skills so you can sell more and close business faster.
https://www.bestatselling.com/Audio_CD.htm
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I’m always looking for success stories and other tips from sales professionals. Please feel free to email me at info@bestatselling.com with ideas that have worked for you.
If you want to build customer relationships for long-term business, you can easily do it using Exacttarget (www.exacttarget.com) and their CANSPAM compliant broadcast services.
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To Subscribe to the Selling Newsletter
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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, Best@Selling (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.com
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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 Best@Selling 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 Best@Selling 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: https://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 752448
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(c) Copyright 2006 Maura Schreier-Fleming. All rights reserved
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