Become the Doctor of Sales

As a salesperson, you need to know the correct questions to ask your potential client. The right questions can help diagnose your prospects needs. They say sales people must think like doctors-they ask relevant questions to diagnose the situation and problem before presenting a solution. Knowing what your prospects needs and problems are allows you as a salesperson to know what you can offer to help make their business operations a success! The following questions are from the SPIN questioning system:

Situational Questions: These are data-gathering questions that uncover facts and background information about the buyers business. Many of these questions can be answered from the prospecting process. It’s important to only ask essential situation questions since they may quickly bore the prospect. Examples are:

-Do you purchase or lease?

-Who is involved in the purchasing decision?

-Who are your current suppliers?

Problem Questions: These are questions designed to identify a customer’s problem and needs explicitly.  They better further identify specific difficulties, developing problems, and areas of dissatisfaction.

-How critical is this component for your production?

-What are disadvantages of the way you’re doing it now?

-How difficult is it to process orders with your present system?

Implication Questions: These questions follow and relate to the problem questions. They help the buyer in thinking of the potential consequences of the problem and understanding the urgency to resolve them.

-Does your overtime expense increase when your equipment goes down?

-What happens when your supplier is late with the shipment?

-How does this affect profitability?

Need-Payoff Questions: These help to build up the value of your proposed solution in the customer’s -mind. They are to propose a solution and develop commitment from the buyer.

-Would more frequent deliveries allow you to increase productivity?

-Would you be interested in increasing productivity by 15%?

-If we could provide you with increased reliability, would you be interested?

The "Fast" Pitch!

Catching the owner or the decision maker of a company is about 70% of the battle for a salesperson. What do you do when you finally catch them, but they only have a few minutes to hear what you have to say and then they're out the door? How do you grab their attention enough to have them take time out of their busy schedule to set up an appointment with you? The term used here is “Elevator Pitch” which means giving a pitch during the length of time you would be stuck in an elevator with someone. You want to make this pitch as conversational as possible. Here are a few tips to peak their interest in what you have to say!

1. Start with a “Hook” statement. Don’t start off by telling them your product or service. Instead, start off with a simple sentence stating how you can assist or serve them. This leads the potential clients asking themselves, “How can they do this?”

2. Stop talking! Let the client actually ask how you can assist them? From there, do NOT just start into a pitch and tell them everything. Leave a little mystery to what you can fully do for them. This leaves them wanting more and wanting to set up an actual meeting with you. The meeting is where you can hit a homerun and listen to what they need, so you can provide them with the best service!

3. Relax! Don’t look so tense! Staying relaxed keeps you from mumbling! Nobody wants to listen to someone they can’t understand!

4. Smile and use your personality! A potential client is more likely to want to listen to you if they like you! Use your personality to win them over!

Using these tips can leave a good first impression on your potential client! Let them know you are there to help them in a simple statement or two to peak their interest. From there, let the conversation flow and have fun!

It's All About Attitude!

If there was one thing that could make or break a sale, it’s ATTITUDE! Many sales people underestimate the power of a positive attitude when it comes to meeting a prospect. One of my favorite quotes for this profession comes from W. Clement Stone, “Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman - not the attitude of the prospect.” Attitude is one of the most contagious things we catch from other people and don’t even notice! The more excited, pumped up, and optimistic you are about your product or service, the more excited your prospect is going to be! The following are a few suggestions to help keep your attitude more alive and spunky for your next client!

Find A Pump Up Song: Finding a song you love that leaves you feeling energetic is a key ingredient to starting your day off on the right foot. With my past experience, I not only listened to my pump up song right when I woke up, but if I felt even the slightest bit of my energy fall throughout the day;’ I’d take a 4 minute break and go listen to “I’m Not Afraid” by Eminem. (I may or may not be listening to it right now…)

Find Your Favorite Quotes: Quotes can be very inspirational. If you finding the right quotes and keep them with you everyday, you’ll be surprised how much they affect your ways of thinking.  When I was interning with Campus Special, I had post-it notes posted everywhere in my car that I could read while driving to my next appointment with a potential client. "If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves." is one of my favorite quotes. It makes me feel like I can do anything and leaves me feeling more excited to make my next pitch.

Never Let a “No” Keep You Down: Never walk into a meeting with a prospect feeling down about getting a “no” from your previous meeting. Guess what? The prospect you are meeting with now has NO idea your previous meeting didn’t go like you had planned. This is a new business, new prospect, and a fresh start! Walk in energized and ready to help your next prospect!

These are just a few tips that always worked for me in maintaining my positive attitude with my experience in sales. Always remember that attitude is 100 percent in your control, so why not make it a good one?

In Sales We Trust

Trust is the key to any relationship including the relationship between a salesperson and their client. Trust-based relationship selling requires that salespeople earn customer trust and that their selling strategy meets customer needs and contributes to the creation, communication, and delivery of customer value. This means it’s crucial to determine what the value is for each clients, as they will all be different. Customer value is determined by the customer’s perception of what they get in exchange for what they have to give up. As with value, trust means different things to different people. With this in mind, there are 5 types of trust builders:

Expertise: This is the ability, knowledge, and resources to meet customer needs. It’s important for salespeople to convince clients they are dedicated to the task of influencing their client’s bottom line objectives in a positive manor; and they are capable of providing assistance, counsel, and advice that will positively affect the ability to reach objectives.

Dependability: This is the predictability of a person’s actions. Salespeople have to remember the promises they make to their client or prospect.  Once a promise is made, clients expect the promise to be honored.

Candor: This deals with the honesty of the spoken word. It’s NEVER good to stretch the truth, but instead use sales aids to actually show the positive affects of the product or service such as: testimonials, third party endorsements, trade publications, and consumer reports. A good salesperson knows “doing anything to get the sale” will eventually damage the relationship between the buyer and seller.

Customer Orientation: The act of a salesperson placing as much emphasis on the customer’s interest as their own. It’s important for a salesperson to work on the client’s long-term needs instead of their own short-term needs.

Compatibility: This is the salesperson’s commonalities with other individuals. Buyers don’t trust everyone they like, but it’s hard for them to trust someone they don’t like.

Good salespeople know they won’t earn a commitment from a buyer if there is no trust. If you work to building trust through the 5 trust builders mentions previously, you and your buyer will have a healthy relationship that will last for years to come.

(Ingram, LaForge, Achwepker, Williams., SELL, Student Edition, pg 25-43)