“Forget the sale…simply help the customer”

I guess it sounds crazy for a sales coach to say ‘forget the sale’ but it’s true.

What I mean is that the sales person should concentrate solely and exclusively on what the customer is saying (and how they are saying it too for that matter) without interrupting or jumping to conclusions.

By doing this effectively,they should then be in a better position to sell the customer exactly what they are looking to buy.

Sounds common sense doesn’t it?

Well yes….but you’d be amazed at the number of sales people I come across who seem to solely see people with cash signs above their heads and are so focused on what they understand as ‘selling’  rather than creating the conditions upon which the customer will buy and then asking for the order.

Help the customer -> Create the conditions to buy -> Ask for the order

Now this might still be successful in some cases…but there is a better way!

By helping the customer to see the context.

If you can sum up in one attention-grabbing sentence the overall benefit of your idea, you are more likely to have an interested customer and increase your chances of clinching the sale.

To illustrate this, I mean using statements such as:

‘Great…what I’m about to show you will help you generate an extra £50,000 worth of business’

‘Okay…I want to show you is how I can help you save £200,000 over the next three years’

‘From what you’ve told me I can show you something that will save you the equivalent of one working day a month’

Notice that these statements are all short and concise and specific in either value or time (or both). They set the framework for what you are about to explain and give the customer a specific reason why they should listen to you.

Try this approach at your next sales meeting and let me know how effective you find it.

Good luck!

Most sales people know about the importance of asking open questions. These are questions normally beginning with the words who, what, when, why, where or how and are generally used in order to understand more about the customers situation.

However without a clear end goal in mind these questions can easily become vague and unstructured. We need to help the customer understand the pain or inconvenience they will suffer if they don’t buy (or put off buying) our proposed solution. If we can agitate the issue sufficiently they are more likely to buy our proposed solution in order to avoid future pain. We can do this by using a funnelling approach in our questions.

A funnelling approach has five elements:

• A background question to understand more about the customer’s specific situation.
• A problem question to understand what issues are caused by the current situation.
• An implication question to understand the impact of the issues.
• An agitation question to help the customer understand what could happen should the situation continue. (This is the crucial one..the customer needs to feel the ‘pain’ of not doing something)
• A need question to help the customer understand how you could help them resolve the issue and take away the ‘pain’.

Perhaps the best way to illustrate this is by sharing an example:

If we imagine we are the supplier to a printing company a typical sales conversation might be as follows:

Seller: “How many corporate brochures do you print each year?” (background question)

Customer: “At least a dozen or so main ones I guess”

Seller: “Does the volume of corporate brochure work cause you any problems?” (problem question)

Customer: “Well it can get pretty hectic at the peak times”

Seller: “How does that affect quality?” (implication question)

Customer: “It sometimes means that some brochures have to be more basic to leave us free to concentrate on the design of the more complicated ones”

Seller: “What might happen if this were to continue?” (agitation question)

Customer: “Well I guess we might start losing customers who are not happy at receiving just a basic brochure”

Seller: “If we could find a way of working with you to reduce the workload yet still make sure all the brochures are of a good standard, would that help”? (need question)

Customer: “Well anything that helped us manage the problem would be welcome”

We are then into our presentation emphasising the benefits of our products to the customer. By agitating the problem they are more likely to buy the solution.

Are you funnelling your questions? Are you agitating the problem- making the customer feel the pain – if they don’t take action?

Why not try this approach on your next sales visit and let me know how it goes?

You begin to explain a bit more about your product or service ……..and that’s where the sale begins to unravel.

Lots of sales people get so wrapped up in their product or service that they bombard the customer with jargon and general gobbledigook. Instead of understanding how their problem will be solved, the customer can often reel away a little punch drunk from the sales meeting. In fact you can often see them ‘glaze over’.

A far better approach is to put yourself in the customers shoes and explain clearly the features and benefits of your idea in language that the customer can easily understand and relate to.This sounds obvious but you’d be amazed at the number of times I see this not happening.

Remember…a confused customer is a lost customer!

Whatever value your product or service will offer…and if it doesn’t offer value why are you selling it to them?….make sure you can quantify it in terms they will understand and respond to.

Remember all customers buy what your product can do for them..not what it is!

One of the easiest…but highly successful…. closing technique is to say to the customer ‘So…what do you see as the next step?’

By asking the question in this way the customer should feel as they’re not being ‘sold’ to but ,instead, fully involved in a mutually beneficial idea.

At best they will say : ‘Well I’ll place the order with you’…..at worst, it will flush out the conditions upon which they might buy in the future. And that’s no bad thing is it?

Try this phrase the next time you want to agree a sale…I guarantee you’ll be amazed at the results!

Examples of features are:

o Priced at £20

o Red/Blue/Black

o Transparent

o Compact

o Lightweight

o TV advertised

o The market leader

o The latest technology

o Covered by a three year warranty

………All very interesting (or perhaps not!) but of no real concern to the buyer who really wants to know what the product will do for him/her.

In other words, the benefits.

For example: “This promotion will increase your sales (feature) which means that you will get increased turnover and profit” (benefit)

Or…. “The new display unit is compact and eye catching (feature) which means that you will get more impulse sales at the till points (benefit), therefore increasing your profits” (benefit)

Or…”If you order today we will be able to deliver next week (feature) which means that you will have your new car just in time for your holiday” (benefit)

Note that a real quick way of changing a feature into a benefit is to use the linking words ‘which means’ or you might want to use ‘which gives you’….

Never forget….the product features are important but they are unlikely to clinch the sale without making the link in the customer’s mind to the specific benefit they will derive from the product.

That is what the customer is really interested in!

In my experience lots of sellers, particularly inexperienced ones, get a little tongue-tied when it comes to asking for the order, commonly known as ‘closing the sale’. They often forget that if the sales discussion has been persuasive and empathetic to the customers needs then the close is the next logical step in the sales conversation. It’s nothing to get particularly worked up about…it’s just the obvious final step in a persuasive selling sequence.

So I urge you to sell persuasively…and then…ask for the order.

And remember…no-one ever died asking for an order!

Most small business owners are well aware of the need to focus on winning new and repeat business, but often find themselves wrong-footed by negotiation-savvy buyers.

In the elation that follows a declaration of interest, some sellers can even find themselves pushed too far, agreeing to deals that barely cover costs. Other sellers push too hard, or are too inflexible, eventually losing a sale they thought they had in the bag. So, what does it take to be a successful negotiator?

Prepare to succeed

Benjamin Franklin once said that ‘Failure to prepare is preparing to fail’, and he was correct. Tool yourself up with all of the information you need as soon as you start dealing with a prospective client and you are far more likely to hold your own. As you approach the negotiation stage, make a list of all the questions that you are likely to ask and be asked, as well as the assumptions that you will test or address. Making yourself a checklist, although seemingly rudimentary, is a great way of ensuring that you have prepared everything you’ll need on the day.

Know when to walk away, but don’t have your eyes on failure

There is no point agreeing to a deal that isn’t profitable, so in every negotiation, you’ll have a ‘walk away’ point where there is no point continuing. You’ll need to ensure that you stay on the right side of that line and never exceed it. Of course, focussing on your absolute minimum could mean that’s always exactly what you get, so instead, it helps to focus on finding the ‘breakpoint’, where your minimum price and their maximum price meet. Find it, and you should both walk away happy, feeling that you have achieved the very best possible deal.

It’s not all about what you say, but how you say it

Often, a buyer will unconsciously signal how they are feeling about the negotiations well before they make it known overtly. Listen to their word choice: is it positive or negative? If they are nodding, this might signal agreement, while averting their eyes may suggest they have information they don’t want to give away.

There are whole books on nonverbal negotiation cues, but often it is how a buyer’s behaviour changes during the course of negotiations that tells the story. For example, if a buyer relaxes arms that were previously tightly crossed, this could suggest you are close to an agreement or deal that works for both of you.

Creativity saves deals

If you walk into a negotiation with a set package on offer and refuse to budge, you are unlikely to succeed. Similarly, no matter how much planning you do, it is always possible that a buyer will surprise you with new information. For this reason, negotiations need to be fluid not rigid. Be ready to respond with alternatives as necessary, but take all the time you need to think changes through to make sure you’re not getting pushed past your ‘walk away’ point in the heat of the moment.

Don’t add extras for the sake of it

Lots of negotiators open by offering to throw something extra in to help ‘sweeten the deal’. But far from helping you along, it can make the buyer question the value of your offer – they may even feel prompted to ask for more than they otherwise would have. Instead, only alter your offering in return for something of similar value. If they want a price cut, adjust your package accordingly, perhaps removing optional extras, for example.

Wait to say yes

As tempting as it may sound, it’s generally unwise to accept the first offer a buyer makes. Why? Because you run the risk of leaving the other party feeling despondent, thinking that they should have opened with a lower offer. Both parties need to walk away feeling satisfied that they negotiated well and got a good deal, and if that means getting a higher price than you hoped for, all the better!

Aim high

It’s very easy to feel down if things aren’t going your way, especially if you really need a sale, but that’s what your ‘walk away’ point is for. Keep it in mind, but don’t concentrate on your minimum. Instead, concentrate on getting the best deal that you can. If you aim high, you are likely to come out with a better agreement than if you focus on failure.

So there you have it, seven straightforward tips to follow during your next negotiation. Follow them, and you should see a greater number of sales, happier customers and a healthier bottom line.