Inside Our Head

Your prospect signed on the dotted line! All your hard work... the sales calls, the meetings, the sales presentations... it's a done deal! No it isn't!!!

Have you ever noticed your customers who are the most enthusiastic and pleased on day one are the most likely to suddenly be dissatisfied on day two? What precipitates this plunge from paradise to purgatory?

The root cause of most customer dissatisfaction is a difference in perception between buyers and sellers. For most sales people, the sales process comes to an end when the customer says "yes." For most buyers, the sales process is just beginning when they say "yes."

To keep customers for life, you must change your frame of reference, Get Into Your Customer's Head, and see things from the customer's perspective. You must start seeing the "close" of a deal as the beginning of a new sales process.

People in sales should know the importance of making a good impression: without it you can't earn the right to do business with people. Each customer contact provides us as sales people the opportunity to make a good impression. Remember the maxim in sales and marketing: the prospect must be touched five to ten times with high-quality, compelling messages before business is transacted.

If you don't make a good first impression, what makes you think your prospect will want to see you again?

Business letters--to ask for an appointment or other reasons--are so important in making good impressions. Make sure your sales proposals are well-written. Take time to check for spelling and grammatical errors. Ask your sales manager or a colleague to proof your letter. Often times someone else can see errors the writer often misses. Even Hemingway needed an editor!

Sales proposals and business letters are critical. Think of ways of making your communications shine. Remember, every contact you have with your sales prospect is an impression.

Make a good impression every time you "touch" your client, and you will close more sales.

The role of the Therapist in sales is to understand and resolve the buyer's fears. Here is the Therapist's Four Step Treatment Process to help the customer work through the fear of buying:

1. Be sensitive and observe
2. Explore concerns
3. Empathize with feelings
4. Discuss alternatives

You cannot resolve a buyer's fear until you understand the source. Therefore, exploring the buyer's concerns is the first step. "Tell me more about that." "Why do you feel that way?" "Can you elaborate?" These are good statements along the line of exploration.

Like a Therapist, you can guess out loud to try and bring information to the table. "I sense you are concerned about the reliability of the technology." "Are you concerned about our ability to support you technically?"

Note that the first concern verbalized by a customer is usually a smoke-screen. You have to dig deeper to get to the real issues in sales. Keep asking open ended questions until the real concern emerges.

Spend less time trying to close the sale -- and more time positioning your solution as the customer's best choice.

If you don't know by this point in the sales process at least three reasons why your customer should buy from you -- reasons that have been connected to explicit customer needs (so you know they're important to your customer) -- then you have no right to ask for the business. If you have done your homework, however, now is the time to put your understanding to the acid test of preparing a convincing proposal or presentation.

Enjoy greater customer satisfaction and increase your sales by changing your approach to match your customers' changing perspective throughout the sale.

If you don't know your customer's buying criteria, or if you find yourself guessing, consider it a signal that you haven't placed enough emphasis on uncovering customer needs. You will have added significant value to your customer's buying process if they come away with a better understanding of their buying criteria and with a greater awareness of important issues they had not previously considered.

If you want to achieve greater sales success, you have to participate in the creation of a unique sales solution that meets your customer's needs. When the solution you design for your prospect includes certain buying criteria that you are uniquely qualified to address, you have set the ground rules in your favor. But, in order to achieve this result, you must, again, resist the temptation to pitch your solution too soon. Instead, design a customer-focused solution that locks out your competition.

Years ago I was selling an office equipment solution to the CEO of a 100-person company. I was selling to him the way I had been taught: I established comfortable conversation while building trust, asked questions to diagnose his needs, then presented my solution as an answer to his needs. Everything, seemingly, appeared to be going along as planned. Suddenly he leaned forward and asked, "Aren’t you going to close me now?"

Why is it that customers know more about selling techniques than most salespeople know about buying behavior? That’s not right. An understanding of buying is where selling should start. We need to redefine "selling" to mean helping people buy. As a sales manager, this should be an important part of your sales training.

People who recently bought from you after scouting the competition are a rich source of information. It's worth talking to them to see what they can tell you about how your product or service compares to the rest of the market. Ask them if they would explain why they chose you, what strengths they perceived. If you know them well, ask if they will send you copies of your competitor's proposals.

Often times, professional salespeople overlook the importance of current clients. These past clients are more likely to buy from you in the future... ask them for more sales! Your sales training initiatives must include sales training for current clients. This is a great method for building the great sales team you want and need.

Negotiating power plays a major role in every type of sales negotiation, whether it's a labor negotiation, political negotiation, or a buy-sell negotiation. Both the buyer and the seller have power in a negotiation. Power is each side's perception of its strength or weakness in comparison to the other. This perception of power affects the ability of each party to achieve its own goals. The more negotiating power you have in comparison to that of your buyer, the fewer concessions you'll have to make.

In this time of economic struggle, creating a unified sales force with a common sales language and single sales message becomes imperative if your company is to achieve its goals.

When you bring together different sales cultures and levels of sophistication within a newly-merged organization the result is often reduced sales, erosion of trust with customers and ineffective sales coaching of the sales process.

Your sales force is your frontline of contact with your customer. They carry your corporate message, your philosophy, and deliver the value you offer. They are the implementers of your marketing strategy. It doesn't matter who you are, if your sales team is giving conflicting signals, rather than a consistent message, you erode your name and what you stand for.

Without a common selling language, companies may find they are fielding "bands of selling nomads," salespeople that complicate, rather than simplify clients' lives.

This is particularly true if your company has national accounts with multiple client locations, and multiple salespeople calling on that account. Varying communication styles, standards, and levels of expertise can cause clients to go elsewhere if another firm is more coherent and efficient in its sales approach.

Words of Wisdom from Lou Holtz

You must understand they every person you will meet for the rest of your life will ask three questions. Every customer, every spouse and child is going to ask these three questions. It is absolutely imperative that you be able to answer "yes" to each of these three questions.

1. Can I trust you?

Without trust you cannot have any relationship. People must be able to trust you. The only way to establish trust is to follow rule number 1, which is simply: Do Right. Do what’s right and avoid what is wrong. If people trust you, they will respect you, and if they respect you they will buy from you.

2. Do you want to be good?

You demonstrate your desire to be good by the preparations you make, and the standards you live by. Today, everybody talks about their rights and privileges. Twenty-five years ago people talked about their responsibilities and their obligations. As part of a sales organization you have obligations and responsibilities, and every decision you make is going to affect everybody else in the entire organization. When you go in for a sales call it is absolutely imperative that you be totally prepared, that you know everything there is to know about that customer and about your products. No matter what you do, do it to the best of your ability, not because somebody’s looking, or because somebody’s going to praise you, but because that’s just the way you live. Rule number 2 is: Be committed to excellence.

3. Do you care about me?

Do you care about your spouse, your children, your customers? Your company is going to want to know: Do you care about us? Show people you care at every opportunity. Constantly ask yourself, "How can I show these people that I genuinely care?" Not because you’re gonna sell 'em something, but because you genuinely believe in them as people. There is a strong tendency in this world to think that you are the only one who has a problem. I’m gonna tell you something and I don’t want you to ever forget it. Every person you meet has a burden. Every person needs encouragement. Show 'em you care and you will have wonderful relationships. Rule 3: Genuinely care about people.

If you will live by these three rules, I guarantee you will enjoy tremendous success.

WINNING EVERYDAY: The Game Plan for Success
by Lou Holtz