Always be closing
If you are always closing, you will accomplish the following undesirable results:
- People won’t level with you — They’ll just say what they think will get rid of you.
- People won’t refer friends to you — Friends don’t give friends’ names to high-pressure sales sharks.
- People will tune you out — If you don’t listen to them, they won’t listen to you.
- You won’t gain your clients’ trust — If you get lucky and someone happens to buy from you, you still won’t have the foundation for a relationship.
Price always carries the day
Price isn’t everything. Price may not even be an important thing. In one survey, buyers said price was the least important of four vendor-selection factors. The other factors dealt with the sales rep’s competence, the ability to buy a total solution to a problem and the quality of the product or service. Low prices do not compensate for incompetence or poor quality.
Selling effectively means ‘trapping’ the prospect
A solid relationship is the most valuable asset a salesperson can have, however high-pressure tactics and cost-cutting offers do not build relationships. How will a customer judge your competence or the quality of your product or service outside of a relationship?
Any reasonable customer will view you with cautious skepticism until you prove yourself. So get the relationship started on the right foot. Begin by memorizing and being able to cite half a dozen or so cases in which your company provided exemplary assistance to a customer.
Always try to outsmart the buyer
Some sales trainers preach manipulation and control. Part of this approach involves asking only questions to which you already have the answers — and using the answers to steer the conversation toward the close. But this is bad advice. To build a relationship, determine what your strategy is for keeping the relationship moving, what your next step is and what your fallback position is. Ask your prospect or contact to do something. It might be as simple as looking at your website — but it should be something that keeps the prospect involved with you. Asking the right questions means not asking the wrong ones. Some salespeople use their own questions as weapons to keep the customer from asking any at all.
You can ‘convince’ people to buy from you
“Convincing” a prospect to give you business falls into the same general category as fighting the customer. Spend less time convincing and converting, and more time gathering information. The more information you have, the better able you will be to offer a solution that meets the customer’s real need, and that is the path to a trusting relationship.
Sales is a numbers game
This old saw is not quite correct. Numbers do indeed matter in sales — but they fall short of the full truth. Sales success is more about ratios. Three things matter in sales: making the first appointment, closing the sale and negotiating the best terms. After a certain point, making more calls isn’t going to affect those critical items. You are probably making all of the calls you can make. Sales success isn’t a numbers game. Instead, address the ratios. Examine:
- The ratios of first appointments to calls.
- The ratio of sales to appointments.
- The ratio of income or profit to sales.
Marketing Automation is for marketing
Marketing automation is a technology that streamlines and automates marketing tasks so companies can increase operational efficiency and grow revenue faster. In other words, companies don’t buy marketing automation to automate their marketing. They buy it to:
- Grow revenue faster
- Generate more high quality sales-ready leads
- Measure and prove marketing ROI
- Save time and money in marketing
