The Selling Newsletter for Sales Professionals
SALES QUOTE
“To ask the right question is already half the solution of a problem, psychologist.”
–-Carl Jung
For Salespeople…
You want to make the sale. What’s holding you back? Your customer doesn’t understand why he should buy and buy from you. Now you know the problem. You haven’t asked the right questions. If you had, your customer would have answered with a discussion of what he wants or needs. You would have been able to magnify the pain he’s experiencing. That would have compelled him to act and to buy. Refocus on your questioning strategy the next time you notice that your sale is stalled. Your customer isn’t buying because you’re not asking the right questions to guide your customer to understand why he should buy. Just ask Carl Jung.
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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.
You can get RSS feed for the blog.
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THE SELLING IDEAS FOR THE MONTH TO SELL MORE NOW
Do Your Job of Selling
For every customer that doesn’t buy from you, there might have been a customer who could have bought from you. One reason customers don’t buy is that salespeople find customer problems that they can’t solve. Here’s how to avoid that problem.
What questions are you asking? How do you start the sales call? In the beginning of every sales call, after the small talk (if there is any), your job is to get the customer talking about his business. You’re listening for areas that you might address when a customer buys your products and services. It’s important to have your customer talking, about his business early in the sales call. Then you have to guide your customer to talk about the areas of his business that your products and services can impact.
Have a plan. Some salespeople will ask random questions about customer problems they experience. A better strategy is to find customer issues that you can address with your products or services. Your questions are what uncover these specific issues.
The questions you ask should only be ones that highlight the areas that you can improve or problem areas you address. The reason why you donÕt ask other random questions is that when you find a problem you are unable to solve, what can you sell? Nothing. You may think that you can give a referral to another salesperson, but unless you’re making a commission on that referral, you’ve just made nothing.
The other reason why you have to be strategic with your questions is that in every sales call you have limited time. Asking random questions lowers the probability that you will find something you can do that benefits a customer. Why would you waste your time on questions that produce useless information?
Lead to you being the solution. You have to prepare these questions before the sales call. Write down the features and benefits of your products and services. A feature is a characteristic of your products. Your 25 year company history is a feature. What your customer cares about is the benefit. Your company longevity means to a customer that if they have an insurance claim, you’re going to be there to serve them when they need you. Now ask yourself, what problem, issue or need could a customer have that your company longevity would address? Perhaps it’s the peace of mind that a customer wants when working with a reliable supplier.
Now ask your customer if the nature of their business requires them to work with suppliers who they can rely on? If that answer is yes, you can later talk about your company history and that it contributes to your reliability. If a customer is not concerned with this area, you would move on to another question that highlights an issue that another of your feature/benefit combinations addresses.
Questions are powerful selling tools. Just like all tools they should be used correctly. Asking poor questions is the wrong way. Asking about the areas you can address is the correct way to question. It’s also the way that gets customers to buy. That’s doing your job.
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ACTION ITEMS
1. Write a list of all your products features and benefits. Prioritize them. Which features/benefits have the greatest impact on a customer’s business?
2. Write the questions that uncover needs for your top five features/benefits.
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DID YOU KNOW?
Here’s a tip this week for your sales success.
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Programs
You can check for current programs.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 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.