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You are here: Home / Newsletters / The Selling Newsletter March 2012

The Selling Newsletter March 2012

March 1, 2012 By maurasf

The Selling Newsletter

March 2012

SALES QUOTE

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
xxxxxxxxxxxx-Aristotle

For Salespeople…

Do you have many customers with educated minds? How do you know? They’re not buying. You’re hearing a lot of customers say no. Whether your customer says he doesn’t have the budget, says he’ll think about it or says maybe, it all means no. What this really means is that you haven’t shown your customer the value for spending his money on what you’re delivering. Could you imagine a man with a house on fire arguing with the price of a fire extinguisher? Not likely. When your customers see the urgent need to buy from you now, you’ve probably shown them a reason to buy something.

What can you do to lead your customers to buy? Reexamine your questioning strategy. Don’t tell, ask! Uncover the situations that are NOT working for your customers. Make sure the situation is important and he cares about addressing it now. Without these concerns, you’ll hear no.

So make sure you educate your customers with your questioning strategy on why they need your products. That way you’ll have an educated customer who buys.
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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 Hope you’ll read more ideas so you can achieve your success in business.

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THE SELLING IDEAS FOR THE MONTH

When Customers Are Wrong

You probably know it’s not a good idea to call your customer an idiot. But, what happens when your customer calls you an idiot? It’s not going to happen often. If it does, you might want to reconsider your choice of careers. Yet, situations will arise when customers attack you. You’ve got to be prepared to effectively deal with them.

Sometimes they’re wrong. One heating and air conditioning sales professional had been in business for 19 years. He started out in the maintenance department of his company. He then began working in sales. You can imagine the experience and knowledge he brought to his customers as he recommended products and services for them. One prospect called him to discuss purchasing a service plan.

This was not the typical customer. He was a jet pilot and an engineer. When the salesman got to the meeting, the prospect said, “You know, I probably know more than you do about these things” as he motioned to the unit he was having problems with. “These thinks are like tinker toys to me.” The salesman immediately realized he was dealing with an arrogant customer. Did he push back? Not if he wanted to sell him something.

The customer told the salesman that the issues he was having were probably from one or two causes which he described. The salesman knew that if those were the real issues, the customer probably could fix the unit. Based on his experience, those weren’t the likely causes. The salesman sees hundreds of units each year and with his experience knows the particular maintenance issues each units are likely to have. His customer wouldn’t have that information even if he were a jet pilot.

He told his customer, “You know, if those issues were causing your problems, you probably could fix your unit yourself. But, I’m going to bet that there’s something else causing your problem. I’ve seen many of these units over the years and one problem in particular is one that most owners don’t know about.” He proceeded to show the customer the problem area. Sure enough, he was right. The customer was impressed with his knowledge and bought a maintenance policy.

Letting customers save face is always a key part of making the sale. It’s especially critical when customers are wrong. The customers who are the most arrogant are the ones that need to save face the most. This was that customer.

Sometimes they’re rude. You’ve got to be able to hold your temper when a customer is rude to you, too. One salesman was scheduled to go to a customer for an appointment. The problem was that appointments are made by a referral partner. This partner gave him 15 minutes notice to arrive at a meeting that required 30 minutes of travel time. The salesman called to explain that he would be delayed. When he arrived the customer said, “I’m not doing business with any salesman that can’t arrive to an appointment on time.” The salesman never lost his temper. He didn’t tell the customer he was wrong. The salesman apologized. He again explained that he didn’t control the appointment setting and would speak to the referral partner to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. He expressed his hope that he could do business with the customer in the future. That may or ma y not happen. This time there was no sale.

When you’re put in these defensive positions, the best you can do is treat a customer with respect. They don’t always deserve it. Customers are not always right. They’re always going to be customers. I hope you don’t run in to many of these people in your career, but I know that you will. Consider it warning so you can hold your temper when you do..
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ACTION ITEMS

1. What selling situations could make you angry? Are you prepared with a calm response?

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Programs
You can check for current programs.
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DID YOU KNOW?

57% of people talk more to people on line than face to face.
-Infusionsoft

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Here are some selling tools to help you sell more now. Click on the photo to find out more!
Monday Morning Sales Tips : 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.

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*What was your last “mistake?” Did you make it before? There’s nothing wrong with making mistakes in sales provided you are making different mistakes. (You are learning from them!)

About the principal

Would you take auto mechanics classes when you buy a car? Maura did because she wanted to be able to work on her car. She takes that same approach to selling. She can show you how to get below the surface of selling to learn why and how different strategies work. She will show you which skills to implement that will shorten your sales cycle and increase your sales. She was Mobil Oil's first female Lubrication Engineer in the United States and one of Chevron's top 5 salespeople in the country. She knows what works for sales.

"I would recommend your work to other sales organizations who want to get better results from improved selling strategies."
Jamey Rootes
President
Houston Texans

Sales Expert at Allbusiness.com

Selling is the easiest job in the world. Just ask anyone who is not in sales. Read Maura’s ideas on “more brain…less mouth” selling to make your selling easier and more successful.

Maura’s Allbusiness blog posts

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