Inside Our Head

Many salespeople are not getting inside the buyer's mind. Too often, salespeople focus on their sales processes and objectives, without carefully considering how people make purchase decisions. Consequently, salespeople proceed too quickly: they push. Buyers hate "pushy" salespeople. Pushy salespeople reap a huge harvest of objections from buyers.

The sales process then becomes a struggle when it might otherwise be a pleasant partnership between two professional business people: a relationship built on mutual respect yielding long-term benefits both ways.

If you change the way you sell to closely conform to how people buy, you will see a reduction in the number of objections from buyers. More than 80% of the objections we experience as sales people focus on the price/value issues involved.

If a price objection arises early in the process, respond by asking history, symptom, cause, complication and cure questions. These questions help your prospect recognize the seriousness of ongoing problems, thus increasing the value of your solutions. By becoming a goodDoctor, you prevent price objections.

Price objections occurring late in the sales process are typically caused by fear, or a desire to get a better deal.

Fear is emotional, not logical. Traditional objection-handling techniques don't work when the prospect is fearful. Better to become the Therapist. Draw out the real fear issues. Get them into the open. Softly and sensitively empathize with the prospect. Allow him or her to work through their own fear.

The desire to get a better deal is natural and understandable. The best way to respond here is to assume the role of Negotiator. Create a win-win agreement!

Finally, another way of responding to price objections, and other objections, is the "verify / feel / felt / found" technique.

This technique has been around for a long time, so avoid using the actual words because you might turnoff the client by appearing to be manipulative. Actually, this way of handling the objection helps both parties discover new issues, or clarify items already covered. Here are the steps you can use:

Ask a question to understand the real objection and derive more information.
Ask if the objection were to be addressed satisfactorily, would the prospect commit?
If they say no, then you don't have the real objection on the table.

Describe a real example of a client who had a similar objection, and the way they finally resolved it.
"Mr. Prospect, I understand your concern. Mary Thompson of Thompson Graphics across town had the same concern when we were talking about a similar system last month. Once she learned about the system's flexibility she decided to go ahead. She discovered that she could do all the things she needs to do today, and have room to grow."

It is a good idea to have materials--such as testimonial letters--to substantiate your claims!

This is just one example of the sales techniques we teach at TopLine Leadership.

Does your company have one or more sales managers who would benefit by learning new selling skills to develop an elite, hi-performance sales team?

Our next Sales Management Leadership Seminar is November 4-5, 2009, at the Peppermill Hotel in Reno, Nevada.

Please note, seating at our sales training courses is limited, and the seminars fill-up quickly.
Cost: 1 Manager - $1,695 each
2 or more (same company) - $1,550 each

Our Sales Management Leadership Seminar includes continental breakfast and lunch plus morning and afternoon breaks. Each participant receives a 200-page participant guide. Walk away with the tools you need to implement immediately, including Select-Quest Interviewing System, Mutual Commitment Performance Management Tool, Tactical Map planning guide, and much more!

We offer a money back guarantee if you are not 100% satisfied with the training.
Click here to reserve your seat today.

Customers have higher expectations, and more buying power than ever. They have more options as well. Therefore, companies striving to be the best have made customer satisfaction and retention the cornerstone of their business strategy. To achieve business success, the best companies add to this cornerstone product innovation and quality, and a productive and responsive group of employees who are encouraged to focus on customer service in a vibrant corporate culture.

With radical, comprehensive and pervasive changes in technologies and markets have come changes in the way sales people achieve customer satisfaction. The days of "hit-and-run selling" are over. Sales people must now act as account managers who are responsible for the ongoing quality of the company's relationships with customers.

The message is clear: to be successful today, sales people must get closer to customers, not just during the sales process, but after it, too. By applying the last role, that of a Farmer, you can solidify your customer relationships for years to come.

The number one killer of customer satisfaction is complacency on the part of the seller. The day you take your customer for granted is the day your competitor takes that customer away from you.

Just because you do not hear complaints does not mean your customer is satisfied. According to a recent consumer affairs study, 96 percent of unhappy customers never complain.

To avoid becoming complacent with your customers, stop thinking "account maintenance" and start thinking "account development." Don't just hold your ground, move forward. The best way to keep the business is to grow your business.

The requirements for a long-lasting and profitable relationship are mutual trust, understanding and value achieved. If you put extra effort into achieving customer satisfaction by becoming proactive with your customer after making a sale, you will be generously rewarded.

Your role as Farmer entails nourishing the relationship with the customer, sowing new applications for your product, cultivating the account, reaping the fruits of your labor, and planning your next season.

You accomplish these tasks by keeping in mind: your customer wants to realize the results expected, that the product is performing as promised. The customer also expects to be treated in a way that makes them feel as important after the sale as before. And the customer wants to be reassured that he paid a fair price.

Achieving this quality relationship with your customer allows you to grow the account, and it allows you to ask for referrals! To truly understand selling you must understand buying, and that's why you must get into your customer's head!

You can increase your sales and enjoy greater customer satisfaction by changing your approach to match your customers' changing perspective throughout the sale. At TopLine Leadership, we teach eight specific roles that match customers' needs at each of the eight buy-learning steps.

Your client has certain expectations of you and your product or service. If their expectations are met, or exceeded, they will be satisfied. Simple.

Not always.

For your product to be successfully implemented into the client's daily working life, the client must move through a learning process. This process can be described through five phases, helping you understand the way people learn, and your responsibility in helping them.

Phase 1 | Unconscious Incompetence | Your customer does not know that he does not know.

Your customer has signed the order, product is delivered and they are enthused. They expect to realize the benefits of this product, benefits you have described and promised throughout the sales process. However, the customer's expectation of benefit is at its highest point right now, and their understanding of the learning required is underestimated. To derive benefit they must learn, you must teach them, but they aren't ready for the learning just yet.

Phase 2 | Conscious Incompetence | Customer knows he doesn't know.

Customer frustration mounts during this phase as they come to realize that change / learning will be difficult. Habitual ways of working must be altered. Productivity may suffer in the short term while people learn to use the new product. The customer may wrestle with a feeling that they are worse off than before.

Phase 3 | Conscious Competence | Customer works hard at what he doesn't know.

With application, the customer begins to learn how to operate the equipment. They begin to seen the benefits in the real work environment. The product begins to make a real contribution, as promised.

Phase 4 | Unconscious Competence | Customer begins to make the new habitual.

The customer has a real sense of accomplishment now that the product is fully integrated into their office and the daily routine. Results are being realized. Everyone is happy!

Phase 5 | Conscious Unconscious Competence | Customer easily explains the new benefits of the new product, and how to derive them.

In-house experts can now train others in the office as the entire team develops an appreciation for the equipment. It has become part of the family.

Other considerations: if the product is complex, expect the learning process to take more time, and expect it to be more frustrating for the customer. Likewise, have these expectations if the customer is inexperienced. Often, the people who actually make the purchase decision are not the end-users. Therefore you may experience outright resistance to the product by end users who did not participate in the buying decision.

Bottom line: meeting and exceeding customer expectations is not easy, but it is well worth it.