The Easy Guide to Selling
The process of selling has been well documented over the ages, with books and experts aplenty. However, as I continue to work my way through a number of organisations, large and small, private and public, I find that there is one consistent weakness which continues hamper their ability to reach their potential. Namely their inability to optimise their potential to make sales. So I’ve drafted up this simple, stupid guideline for everybody in any organisation to adopt and which will, without question in my humble opinion, improve their ability and their potential to make and close sales. I do, of course, add the usual disclaimer, that it always comes down to an individual’s commitment and choice to pursue the opportunity to make a sale, and that if they don’t want to, then they probably won’t. However, I challenge anyone from the receptionist and lowly clerk, to CFO and CEO to adopt these simple guidelines and see for themselves how easy it is to generate revenue for their organisations.
The Right Frame of Mind. Adopt a psychology that every time you talk to or engage with someone, both inside and outside your organisation, this presents an opportunity to generate revenue. The concept of selling is so off-putting for so many people that they fail to spot the opportunities to generate revenue when they are just staring them in the face. Generating revenue and opportunities to make a sale are not just about getting someone to buy your products or services then and there. It’s equally about the knowledge and market intelligence you obtain from every transaction with people, so learn to absorb, evaluate and assess every conversation you have in the context of whether or not it could influence the likelihood of a sale as a result. Be disciplined with yourself and make it a challenge each month to see how much more knowledge you gained from the previous month. Enjoy the experience of listening and talking to different people and eventually the process of identifying revenue opportunities will become instinctive.
Anatomy of a Sale ? A sale is a commercial transaction that occurs when somebody buys into something they value. Winning or losing business is rarely about the price, although most of us choose to believe that pricing is often the maker or breaker on any potential deal. It isn’t. The price that someone will be prepared to pay for your product or service is ultimately linked to the value they perceive they are getting, so if the pricing appears to be uncompetitive it’s going to reflect the lower value they attach to your offering versus that of a potential competitor. Value is the premium you attach to your products and services and you must therefore articulate that clearly and sincerely. However, if you try to deceive them through trickery, deceit and dishonesty and you can kiss any possibility of sales goodbye. There’s a simple mantra to any sale. Believe in yourself and your customer will believe in you.
Getting Started. Most conversations start with that...”So what do you do moment”. It’s when all those first night fears, jitters and insecurities kick in and you mumble something completely incomprehensible in response, immediately losing the opportunity to strike up a valuable and meaningful conversation as the moment is lost. The answer is to have a short and succinct elevator pitch of approximately a dozen words, which says who you are, what you do and spins the value you provide in a clever and creative manner. So, for example, I might introduce myself as Nigel; I’m a dentist and I make people smile. Smiling and dentists are not necessarily an obvious pairing, so it’s more than likely that the person I’m talking to will want to know how I, as a dentist, make people smile. That’s the beginning of a positive and meaningful conversation, particularly if I happen to get a patient who needs crown or implant work. We might never had got beyond the introduction, had I just finished by introducing myself as just a dentist.
Preparation Overkill. It is often the case that too much preparation is done prior to a customer visit. Organisations throw huge amounts of time and resource into preparing presentations and collateral to validate their right to be there and to persuade prospective clients that they can and should be trusted. This is completely the wrong sort of preparation, because organisations sell to organisations, but people buy from people. So complete your due diligence by all means, as you should prior to any meeting, but concentrate instead on building a rapport and developing trust with your prospective customer. Making them feel at the ease, is one of the simplest and most effective processes towards engagement and trust and the best way to feel at ease is to start by talking about your favourite topic; namely you. Talking about you will immediately create the opportunity for them to start talking about themselves and they will then begin to feel at ease. The more you talk to each other about each other, the more you will learn about them and they about you; and the more you know about them, the better your chances of a positive commercial outcome.
K.I.S.S. Keep it simple, stupid or keep it short and simple. It all comes down to the same principle. Over complication and irrelevance are two most common contributors to a lost opportunity. When the conversation eventually gets around to the thorny topic of your proposition, there is often a tendency to try and get in everything in the time allowed. This is driven by a belief that it’s somehow better to tell them everything whilst the door is ajar, because there might not be another opportunity to do so. However, all this really serves to do is to confuse the customer and turn them off. Clarity about the purpose of your visit; confidence in your offering and simplicity in delivery will provide you with clear evidence as to whether an opportunity is immediate or longer term. When a customer expresses interest, don’t jump straight into a sales pitch. Ask their permission first, to talk to them in more detail about your offering; then keep validating your conversation with more questions, to ensure that you are providing them with useful and relevant information. Always check how much time they have and do not attempt to over-sell or overstay your welcome. Their interest will be further validated when they ask you to come back.
Reacting to NO. Always expect every conversation you have with a customer to provide you with more knowledge than you had before. If they decide not to buy from you then and there, always have some supplementary questions to ask them, which may help you make a sale at some later date either to them or to a competitor. Recognise that when someone says NO to your proposition, they will feel bad about it and will want to end the conversation on a positive note by giving you something else in return. Usually this is in the form of an acknowledgement that it’s OK to call or visit them again in 3 months, and that’s where the conversation often finishes. However, this opening is frequently an opportunity which most people miss because of their disappointment and low self-esteem in missing out on a sale. Settling for an innocuous and inconsequential follow up is to miss the chance to dig deeper into your customer’s business, their issues and concerns, opportunities and threats and personal and professional challenges; all of which enables you to leave with more knowledge about the dynamics of the business as well as the individual, than you had before. In addition to this, there will be those rare occasions, when you will know your customer well enough to offer yourself as an informal mentor and consultant to them to help them understand, interpret and perhaps even validate the processes they may be going through with an alternate supplier. Informal hand-holding not only shows support for your customer, but it also demonstrates a personal self-assurance and robust belief in your own offering, which provides your customer with an added level of protective insurance, should anything go wrong.
The Devil is in the detail. The human psyche has a tendency to distort the facts of a conversation into an intent or perception of a conversation or a meeting, the longer you leave it. Recording your interpretation of a conversation or meeting immediately, will enable you to catalogue important information about the organisation as well as significant personal information such as birthdays, spouses names and anniversaries, all of which may prove valuable in later conversations. However, too much information and too much detail will only serve to burden you down and mask the overall impression that the customer made on you. Persuading people to buy from you starts from taking an interest in them, both personally and professionally and in order to visualise what your next meeting or conversation will look and sound like, you must construct a picture from the detail that you have accumulated.
Service, Support & Satisfaction. A sale or a purchase is not just an order. It’s the start of a long journey towards creating a customer for life and an enduring pipeline of commercial opportunity. However, to achieve that end-point requires a commitment to provide outstanding service and support, coupled with the responsibility of ensuring that your customer remains completely satisfied, to the best of your ability. Taking responsibility for customer satisfaction is too readily discarded, following the successful closure of a sale, in the misbegotten belief that chasing new business is more effective outside the immediate sphere of influence, than within it. This is another common misconception which has been readily adopted by many organisations, mainly because those responsible for commercial revenues are steeped in a one-dimensional perspective of the selling process. And yet, the pure economics of selling and relationship management continue to tell us that the more we sell to existing customers, the more profitable the outcome. By concentrating less on trawling for new customers and investing more time in understanding the dynamics of existing customers you will expend less energy and costs and reap higher rewards. Existing customers are the fruit trees in your orchard. Look after them and treat them with respect and care and they will re-pay you handsomely again and again. Neglect them and you will forfeit the harvest they are capable of.
Is Selling an Art or a Science ? Selling is as much of an art as it is a science. The art of persuasion is the gift of a talented few, whereas the science of persuasion is within everyone’s capability. Those gifted with the power of persuasion have the ability to influence others’ thinking and decision-making directly. They are the breed most commonly associated with sales people; from the stereotyped bully to the softly spoken influencer. It is their gift in life to be able to create plausible, logical and reasoned arguments to support their proposition, and we either intimidated by them, inhibited by them or in awe of them. The vast majority of us, however, fall into the category of selling by persuasion through science. In other words, we enable others to want to buy from us for a variety of different reasons; and it’s often a surprise when they do, because we were probably unaware that we were selling anything in the first place. The science of persuasion comes from operating well within familiar boundaries and a comfort factor that gives the appearance of confidence in the offering and harmony with the surroundings. Take for example, those hard-selling cold calls which come into every home from 6.00 pm onwards on a Friday evening and compare their effectiveness against the understated cross-selling and upselling style of some of the better customer services operatives you may talk to, when enquiring about insurance or making a bank or credit card enquiry. You may be a strong potential customer in both circumstances, however, it’s more likely that you will prefer to buy out of choice as opposed to being sold to. And yet when you find yourself choosing your next car at the motor dealership, it’s a different proposition altogether, as you might prefer to be upsold by the dealer on a better model than the one you’d originally selected. Successful selling is about picking the right approach for the appropriate circumstances.
Continuous Learning. It’s an oft used expression that the more you practice, the better you become; and the better you become, the more enjoyable it gets. Selling is a discipline that is as useful as a life skill, as anything you might have been taught in school, college or in higher education. The psychology of selling encompasses a multitude of different disciplines in a whole host of different circumstances, in both your personal and professional life. From our earliest childhood through to retirement and beyond, the ability to influence, persuade, argue, cajole, collaborate, manipulate, encourage and reason with others are all selling by another name. Sales and selling have become so stereotyped and distrusted over the years, that we have invented other names to call it. People don’t like referring to themselves as salespeople; or being called salespeople in return. However, call it what you will and shroud it in whatever cloak you choose, selling remains part of what we human beings engage in day in and day out. It’s part of our DNA and human fabric and a key differentiator in enabling us to reason both logically and illogically. As long as there people on this planet, there will always be negotiation and selling between them. The challenge, as always, remains to embrace the choices that it gives us with and continue to learn from the experiences that it provides.
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For more Psychobabble go to:
http://realbusiness.co.uk/news/leadership/5662596/dont-fall-prey-to-business-inertia.thtml
http://www.humanresourcesmagazine.com/news/features/opinion/915110/British-Airways-shows-doesnt-understand-its-staff-asking-work-without-pay/
http://www.management-issues.com/charles-helliwell.asp
http://www.management-issues.com/2009/7/6/podcast/the-working-week-108.asp
Other articles include:
Leader or Manager
Who's afraid of your opinion ?
Getting the most out of your people
Just say NO
The most important 15 minues of your life
The personal branding revolution
For more information on these and other topics, please contact: charles_helliwell@bpaudits.co.uk
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