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 seminars
-The Selling Ideas for the Month
-Action Items
-Something to Report/What would you recommend?
-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
” Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way.
Daniele Vare, Italian diplomat
Sounds a lot like what selling is, doesn’t it? As you find yourself negotiating with your customers, remember that you can make the sales process a whole lot simpler if your customers want the same thing that you want. To make it happen, you will need to prepare for each sales call. What you have to learn is what your customers’ goals and objectives are. What you can’t find out you can ask during the sales call. Once you uncover their objectives, then figure a way to show your customer how your products and services will help them achieve their objectives. Let’s say your product will reduce downtime. Instead of telling them that it’s in your customer’s best interests to reduce downtime, ask a question so they realize that it is. You could say “What would happen if you avoid addressing the downtime issue?” Your customer will respond with the consequence. Then you follow with, “And if you had a product that would address your downtime concern, ! would that be important to you?” When they say “yes” your customer will sell himself. When a customer sells himself, the sales process gets much shorter.
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Upcoming Seminars
When : June 3, 10, 17 and 24
11.30 AM- 1:30 PM
Where: Small Business Development Center
4800 West Park Blvd.
Plano, TX
What: Master Selling Series
Seminar 1. Secrets of Persuasion
Description: The best salespeople make selling look easy. What they do is know the clues to use to quickly persuade. You can learn the clues so you can more effectively persuade and shorten your sales cycle.
Seminar 2: Consultative Selling: Strategic Questioning
Description The skills for questioning are critical for selling success. You will shorten your sales cycle by learning how to prepare your questions. You can avoid getting customer objections if you develop an effective selling strategy. You will be more successful selling when you question with confidence. When you learn the skills for questioning you drive your sales success.
Seminar 3: Laser Listening: Hear What People Really Mean
Description The best salespeople are the best listeners. Learn to be like Sherlock Holmes and hear the listening clues your customers are sendin! g you. You will improve your sales results when you understand what the listening clues are, learn what they mean and use them in your sales calls.
Seminar 4: Soaring To New Heights: Turning Setbacks into Success!
Description Have you experienced a business setback that sent you into a tailspin? Selling is a challenging career. You can learn to overcome and avoid the challenges you face. In this presentation you will learn how to prevent disappointments from impacting your business and life. When a setback does occur, you will learn strategies to overcome it and use your experience to fuel your success.
For more information: 972-985-3749
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The Selling Ideas for this Month
What do you do?
Many business professionals get asked what they do. Most sales professionals respond in ways that do nothing to help their selling. In sales, your answer to the question “What do you do?” is one tool you can use to make it easier to sell and shorten your sales cycle. Here’s how you can answer this question and promote your selling.
Why is it important? Many sales start on the telephone. If you use the phone to sell, you probably know how hard it is to reach prospects. Once you do speak with a customer, you’ve got to create interest quickly. One way to create interest is to state what you do in an interesting, creative way. Think how you would respond to someone selling to you on the telephone. Don’t you want to know what the salesperson does? That’s why it’s important to have your answer ready.
What do you say? Most people think that if they say their name, company, and job title they’ve provided enough information to create interest. This will work if you’re George Bush, Warren Buffet or Bill Gates. They wouldn’t even have to say their title or company. Name, company and title won’t work for the majority of salespeople even if their company has a recognizable name.
The answer to ‘What do you do?’ is the combination of who you work with and what you do for these people. If you sold collection services to physicians, you might think the answer is “I work with physicians on their claims processing.” While this does say who you work with, it states what you do for your customer from your point of view. It’s more important to state what you do from your customers’ point of view. Your point of view misses an opportunity to create interest. You must know how your work impacts your customer. Physicians today have much more to do than just see patients. Each patient visit generates quite a bit of paperwork. Their staff has to spend a good portion of their time to manage the paperwork and follow up with insurance companies to make sure they get paid properly and timely. Are physicians interested in claims processing? No. They’re interested in shortening their payment cycle. Someone who sells collection services would! introduce himself by saying, “I work with physicians who want to get paid faster.” If you were a physician and heard this, wouldn’t you listen and pay attention? Wouldn’t you want to hear more?
What’s the value? When you introduce yourself with this kind of introduction your prospect will be more likely to take the call and listen. You’ve just given them a reason to listen. Your introduction has other uses, too. Use it at meetings where you introduce yourself. You’ll be more memorable. People will be able to introduce you to other likely prospects using your memorable introduction. You can even incorporate your message into your voicemail message on your phone. When people call you they could hear, “Please leave your name and number after the tone so I can help you get paid faster.”
Good salespeople connect other business professionals with useful business contacts. Part of selling is helping others grow their business so you can grow yours. You can only recommend other people when you know what they do and with whom they work. They can only recommend you if they remember you and know what you do. With your memorable introduction, you make it easier for other people to help you sell.
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Action Items
1. What do your customers really want to achieve? Decide what you do. Remember in the gym, people don’t want to know the dimensions of the machine is. They want to know how it reduces inches.
2. Check your voicemail message. Is it selling for you? Does it clearly and quickly say what you do and encourage someone to leave a message?
3. Listen to other people’s voicemail messages. Is there one you could modify that meets your needs?
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Something to Report /What would you recommend?
What do you do that makes you successful? What advice would you give another salesperson? Send me your tip and I’ll share it with everyone who responds.
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. To thank you, you’ll receive a free subscription to The Selling E-Letter™, a bi-monthly selling newsletter. ($50 value).
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, president of Best@Selling . ( www.BestatSelling.com ). Maura works with business and sales professionals so they can 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 2005 Maura Schreier-Fleming. All rights reserved
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