In my opinion, the most overrated topic in sales training is the subject of closing. In year’s past, it seems the object of most sales training courses was to fill the heads of participants with as many closing techniques as possible. The logic was simple, if the “Ben Franklin” close didn’t work, you could rummage around in your head for the the “secondary question” technique, the “order-blank” method or the “forced choice” close to tie off your sale. Selling in the old school of training was basically learning 54 or 84 ways to close.
Today, most successful sales professionals know that if you use a consultative sales process, one with a series of selling steps like those listed below, the close (asking for the business) will literally take care of itself. Closing is an integral part of the following; a solid sales process–not a specific stand alone technique:
- Building rapport and trust;
- Obtaining your prospect’s attention;
- Probing for problems, opportunities, needs and values;
- Demonstrating products based on the specific needs you have discovered,
- Asking trial closing questions and answering objections, then
- Asking for the business.
By first building rapport with a prospective customer or client, a sales or service industry professional can create the trust that our research shows is vital to consistently obtaining sales success. Through using an attention getting provocative question and then taking away your offer, you can open your prospect’s mind to answering your questions and later accept the suggestions that you make in your sales presentation. By asking open-ended, probing questions, you can learn about hidden needs and problems that can be solved by your products and/or services. Through effectively demonstrating your products and/or services, answering objections and asking trial closing questions, you then set the stage for closing the sale. All that is left in this process is to ask for the business.
In my self-directed learning manual entitled Sales Success Strategies, (see http://www.TheSellingEdge.com/manual1.htm) I explore the steps that must precede a successful close. This unique learning guide won’t give you a dozen closing techniques to memorize, nor a list of power words that will impel your prospect, client or customer to sign on the dotted line, because these words and closes simply don’t work with today’s sophisticated consumers. If you take time to review them and apply them to your daily sales activities, the ideas discussed can make a significant difference in your ability to regularly generate business for your company or professional firm.
By: Virden Thornton
Posts Tagged ‘Logic’
Closing Sales Is Not A Problem, It’s A Process
April 17th, 2010Cope With Your Media Sales Jobs and Find New Ones Fast
March 7th, 2010
The most important task that you have to do is to persuade the decision makers of a particular company to advertise within your magazine (I am using print media as an example). While there are volumes written on how to persuade them, I have a neat trick that can actually increase your chances of making the deal without using the mind tricks. Research. Yes, if you can research and know which segment of the crowd reads your magazine and then target the companies which appeal to this crowd then, you have a very great chance of making the deal!
So, how do you know this? For starters, you can see your competitors and analyze which companies they are selling to. Then, all you need to do is call up the companies that are competing with these companies! In case, you are unable to find any other company, you can even contact these companies which are advertising and can get them a better deal!
Apart from this, if you are able to appeal to these people and make an irresistible offer then, you can close in more sales than you ever have. These people generally receive a lot of cold calls from people who wish to get them to advertise them in their companies.
There is one major understanding that you must develop before you approach these people. A human being chooses something because of logic and then tries to justify his purchase by logic. While most of the people that would be cold calling these companies would be trying to sell their benefits, you can actually get many more sales by selling your benefits and then backing them up with logic. What could this logic be? This could be anything but one of the easiest way to appeal to these people is to show the estimated ROI report of the people that have advertised with you or something like that. The reports would be easy to make and would be deemed official!
Now that you start building clients, the best way to do business would be to retain as many of them as possible. It is much easier to do business with people who are already your customers than it actually is to find new customers.
So, what you can do to retain them is to provide them more value. This can be done in many ways but the best (in my opinion) is to provide them an incentive to stay. This could be slightly reduced rates or detailed information on the market that they are reaching out to. Sometimes, you may need to take the initiative by working a bit harder to over deliver but, I can assure you that it is well worth the effort later as your job hours are drastically reduced.
By: Kelly Osborne
Can You Get a Sales Engineering Job Easily?
January 18th, 2010
If you get the company to believe that you truly are capable of reaching outstanding height then, the company will actually hire you at the entry level and will train you at their own expense. This is normally down by teaming you up with an experienced sales engineer first and then, a sales manager.
The best part of the job of a sales engineer is the fact that you would never have to pitch your products. In fact, most of your clients are generally a large group or an organization that are already willing to buy your product. All that you need to do is get them to realize why your product is better than that of another competitor and which problems does it solve.
To get the job of a sales engineer, you must come across as a person who is very analytical i.e. you should be able to solve problems that you face with the help of reasoning and logic. So how exactly can you do this? You can do this by appearing as very logical throughout the interview and always having data to support your claim. This can be achieved f you prepare thoroughly for the interview and go through the routine interview questions. This way when you are asked new questions, you would always have a point or two to let them know about. You can then build more points impromptu.
Developing customer relationships is extremely essential in the case of a sales engineer. Even though you do not have partners to build your relationships with, the customer in this case is worth as much as a partner.
In fact, if you over delver and build relationships with the customer then, you have very fair chances of getting a purchase from them even when all the products stacked in the market are of the same quality. Heck, he can even create new customers for you by recommending you subtly. The power of this kind of word of mouth is incredible!
You can build better relationships by being friends with them (and not just acting as friends!). You could do this by going out of your way when you help. It could be by getting their systems installed quicker than they ever imagined or by getting their employees top notch training and support without asking for anything. These are some of the ideas that you can express in your interview.
Since, the sales engineer earn on a commission basis, most of the sales engineer actually end up working for most parts of the day. There is one little tip that can easily reduce this.
Let us assume that you are selling software. Now, it is difficult to sell it to the public. However, there might be small business owners who might just find this very useful. But then of course they would not be able to buy many copies.
So, how exactly do you attract them without spending more time? The internet. Yes, just like you looked up this information. People would look up for it too! I have given you the ideas. It is up to you to use it!
By: Kelly A. Osborne
