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 to have Maura speak at your next program/conference
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To ensure future inbox delivery of our emails, please add maura@bestatselling.com to your address book.
Here are the instructions for you to add your address. https://memberlandingpages.com/address_book/address_book_add.htm
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The Selling Quote for the Month
“I never lost a game. I just ran out of time.”
Vince Lombardi , when asked at the end of his career what it felt like to lose a game.
I just love that optimistic attitude that Lombardi had toward football. If he only had more time he would win. Do you ever think you could also sell to everyone, but sometimes you just need more time? While believing you could sell to everyone is a pleasant thought, the reality is you just don’t have the time to sell to everyone. You do have to evaluate the current needs, the presence of a budget, and whether the decision making process has been identified to determine the likelihood of a customer buying from you in the near future. If the customer hasn’t identified a need, then it’s your job to help uncover a need that the customer realizes is important. Remember customers don’t know what customers don’t know. They think they’re satisfied, but they just don’t know that your services could offer them a better value for example. If your work to uncover a need turns up nothing, then you have one alternative left. Realize you’re out of time and it’s better for you to move on to the next prospect. Lombardi may have run out of time in some of his games. You don’t have time to waste in your selling game.
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Upcoming Programs
Where: Small Business Development Center
4800 West Park Blvd.
Plano, TX
When : November 10
11.30 AM- 1:30 PM
Where: Small Business Development Center
4800 West Park Blvd.
Plano, TX
What: Negotiating for Business
For more information: 972-985-3749 or
972-985-3758
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Sales Tips to Share
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
Tiebreakers
Imagine you’re at a job interview with a competing job candidate. Your manager recommended you for the job, but gave you only sketchy information as he sent you off to the interview. During the meeting the job is outlined. You’ll be the Chief of Staff’s administrative assistant at the Pentagon. It’s a heady, exciting job and you now decide you want it. The interviewer, a colonel, alternately questions each of you in a tough, thorough interview. The colonel says, “You are both equally qualified.” He then asks both of you his last question-“Who wants the job the most?” You immediately reply, “I do.” That’s how Tom Peterson, who later became an international executive for IBM and Motel 6, uncovered the significance of tiebreakers in decision making. Using tiebreakers effectively can serve you well in selling.
What’s a tiebreaker? Most products and services in business today are effectively equal. Are there huge differences in Mercedes, BMW and Lexus? There are only small differences between them. This makes it more difficult for customers to make buying decisions. The small differences that make what you sell unique become your tiebreakers. Peterson says, “Tiebreakers are always small. They’re easy to overlook. That’s why you have to thoroughly know how and why your products and services work the way they do. Then you have to thoroughly understand yourself.” Peterson adds, “The individual is what adds value to the meeting. It’s more important to be the tiebreaker. Your customer will see your company and your product through your eyes.”
How do you uncover tiebreakers? Start by thinking like your customer. Ask yourself “Why should my customer buy my products instead of my competitors’ products? Which hidden features of my product are important to my customer?” First look at your own uniqueness. Then look for the ways in which you conduct business that eliminate distractions and difficulties for your customers. Your work habits of returning phone calls promptly, solving problems immediately, and sharing both good and bad relevant information with your customers are all personal tiebreakers. These traits indicate organization, a sense of urgency and honesty that could sway your customer’s buying decision in your favor. Just to be sure, confirm with your customers that these tiebreakers are important to them. Peterson adds, “You have to intentionally create tiebreakers. Be interesting. Volunteer. Your experience and knowledge of people are tiebreakers and you learn by doing, not by being a spectator.”
When do you use them? The time to use a tiebreaker is when the customer is about to make the buying decision. Peterson points out that using them too early in the sales process minimizes their perceived value. Read your customer carefully to notice when the decision is imminent. Your customer is ready to decide when he demonstrates a break in listening. He may close his portfolio. His eyes could wander or he could look at his watch. He may put distance between you and him. Perhaps he leans back. Tell your customer why your tiebreakers should be important. A tiebreaker, like being a great listener, will allow you to better serve your customers by better understanding their needs. Being confident will make you a superior problem solver by being more likely to act on your customer’s behalf. Being a student of your own product literature will allow you to answer questions quickly and accurately. These small tiebreakers that make you unique are just enough to push the decision your way.
If you want to know if Peterson got the job-he did. He became the administrative assistant to General Maxwell D. Taylor, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army. A tiebreaker got him one of the best jobs in his career. A tiebreaker might get you one of your best customers.
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Action Items
1. What are the tiebreakers that you, your products or services offer your customers?
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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
If you’re looking for some new ideas to sell more now, why not get 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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