02/28/12 by Mark Christie | Closing | No Comments »
This is about the Decision Maker or Buyer who is invisible to us, or out of reach, the one you can’t contact directly because he or she is too distant.
Now, sometimes this distance is due to geography — the key decision maker is located in some other city or country. But other times it’s a result of the buyer not wanting to have direct contact with the salesperson. It’s this challenge we’re discussing here.
It’s Frustrating
It’s extremely frustrating for a salesperson to not have access to the key decision maker, the person who has the final authority to say yes. Trying to make a sale under these conditions is a bit like trying to push a string and getting it to go where you want it to go. It’s difficult but not impossible.
There are many reasons why the final decision maker (FDM) doesn’t want to have direct contact with the salesperson — he’s too busy, it’s too small a purchase for him to spend time on, he’s afraid of being “sold”, he feels he has better things to do, he just wants to rubber stamp the final decision made by the person who is collecting the information, etc. It might be that a buying committee will be making the final decision. Whatever the reason, you’re left dealing with a go-between or information collector who will take your information and present it to the FDM for his or her blessing.
Beyond a doubt, it is much better for you to be in direct contact with the FDM than to have to deal with a go-between. But that’s not often possible. So, let’s go back to the situation where you have to rely on a go-between to carry your message upwards to the senior executive or buying committee.
The person you’re left dealing with, the one who tells you, “Just send me your information and I’ll see it gets to the right person” may sound nice and helpful but it could be a roadblock unless you handle it properly.
Help the Go-Between Sell Your Stuff
Remember, no one can sell your stuff better than you can, so don’t count on this individual making a dynamic presentation to his or her boss… unless you help them do so. Here are some helpful tips:
1. Make sure you take the time to build a good rapport with the person who will be carrying your information upwards. It’s important that he or she feels comfortable with you and what you’re offering. You should be more of a counsellor or consultant than a salesperson. You need to turn this person into an advocate for you and your offering.
2. Everybody listens to radio station WIFM-FM (What’s In It For Me — For Me!) so find out why it’s important to the go-between to have your proposal accepted. The more important it is for her to see your proposal accepted, the stronger she’ll “sell” it on your behalf.
3. Take the time to find out what the FDM considers important. Ask detailed questions.
4. Put everything in writing. Be complete. Remember the FDM may be seeing this information for the first time. Your proposal is your last chance to make a sales presentation, such as it is.
5. If you’re including literature, use a highlighter to make the key points stand out. Use post-it notes to add supplementary information that you would tell the FDM if you were standing in front of him.
6. Find out when your information will be presented and follow up just before to make sure the “presenter” has all the information she needs and follow up afterwards to find out what additional information is needed for a decision to be made.
Improving the Odds
If you’ll take this approach to dealing with the invisible buyer, you’ll improve your odds of making a sale. If you lose, nine times out of ten, it’s because the competitive salesperson was in direct contact with the FDM.
If you simply can’t be in front of the FDM yourself, make sure that your material is the best it can be and the person presenting it is as prepared as possible. Your care and attention to detail will give you a good shot at getting the business.
Authored by Brian Jeffrey, co-founder of SalesForce Training, and originally published in the Targets newsletter.
SalesForce Training & Consulting is a professional services firm and Salesforce.com training firm based in Toronto, with training centers in Boston and Chicago, helping sales people deal with invisible, or out of reach decision makers…and other fundamental elements of successful selling.
Discover why traditional sales training doesn’t work
06/13/11 by Mark Christie | Closing, Sales Techniques | No Comments »
Are you challenged dealing with objections and thus miss closing deals? In my early years of selling, whenever I got an objection, my heart would sink, my stomach would go into turmoil, and my mind would shift into overdrive trying to figure out how todeal with it.
All my early sales training and all the sales books I’d ever read made a big deal abouthaving to deal with and overcome objections. It was as though every sale contained a mountain called Mount Objection that had to be scaled before sliding down the other side to a Close. Even today, any sales training workshop worth its salt, including ours, spends time showing salespeople how to handle objections.
What is an Objection
How many real objections do you actually get? What exactly is an “objection”? Is it a roadblock to be overcome? Is it an obstacle to closing the sale? Is it a mountain to be climbed? Webster’s dictionary defines “objection” as “an expression of opposition or disapproval.”
If you disapprove of or oppose someone or the company he represents, are you going to do business with them? Hardly.
When the customer says your price is too high, or your delivery is too long, or the specifications don’t meet his needs, or he’s happy with his current supplier, does that mean he disapproves of or opposes you? Of course not.
So what you might consider to be objections aren’t really objections at all, but are sales realities or simple expressions of concern on the part of the customer.
Of course, the customer is concerned about the high price because he’s not convinced of the value, long delivery because that will cause him delays or problems and about the specifications because your solution isn’t going to do the job. And of course he’s happy with his current supplier or he’d come looking for you instead of the other way around.
Are there any real “objections?” Probably. How about, “The last time I bought from you delivery was eight weeks late,” or “Every time I try to get service, no one calls me back.”
Biases and Roadblocks
You can also run into biases and uninformed customers who throw roadblocks in your way because they simply aren’t going to buy from you no matter what. Some people won’t buy because you’re a woman or not a woman, you’re too young or too old, or for whatever reason they don’t like you or your company. These aren’t real objections. They’re biases and you’re dancing to someone else’s tune, the title of which is “There’s No Sale Today, Martha.”
Avoid Objections
So what’s the secret to handling objections? The secret is to manage the sales process so as to avoid them. That’s it. Now, how exactly does one do this? Well, first of all, remember that people buy from people they know, like and trust. So build rapport, be likeable and be trustworthy. Do what you say you’ll do when you said you’d do it. Secondly, listen to your customer’s concerns. Find out what’s standing in the way of his buying from you. What is he unsure or uncomfortable about?
If you’ve spent the major part of the sales process asking questions, probing and qualifying the customer, you will probably have a good idea of what situations have to be solved or clarified before the customer will feel comfortable moving ahead.
Sometimes there’s no simple solution to the customer’s concerns. That’s when the customer will hesitate to move forward. If you can’t find a solution, can you negotiate a resolution?
Perhaps a delayed delivery can be offset in some manner. Maybe no one’s product will meet the customer’s required specifications and your task is to help the customer accept your solution as the closest match he’s likely to find.
Negotiate a Resolution
Whatever it is that’s keeping the sales process from moving forward, it’s your job to identify it and to address it in a professional, non-confrontational manner. You’re not trying to overcome the objection; you’re working with the customer to resolve the situation in a mutually beneficial manner.
When you do this in a spirit of friendly cooperation, you’re partnering with the customer and coming across as a problem solver, not a peddler.
So, by treating what is often considered objections as simple requests for more information or clarification, you can reduce the stress of the situation and keep the sales process moving, hopefully to a successful conclusion.
Two Ears, One Mouth
The final secret of handling objections is to listen. Most salespeople wouldn’t listen at all if they didn’t think it was their turn to talk next! You need to hone your skill at not just hearing what the customer is saying, but understanding what the customer is saying.
Once you understand what is standing in the way, you can work with the customer to pave the way to a smooth sale. The key to handling objections isn’t confrontation; it’s cooperation.
So the secret to handling objections is to cooperate your way to more sales.
Salesforce Training & Consulting is a professional sales training firm and registered Salesforce.com Consulting Partner based in Toronto, with offices in Boston and Chicago, providing sales coaching, sales management consulting, salesforce implementation, sales training and sales personnel assessments.
05/18/11 by Mark Christie | Closing, Sales Techniques | No Comments »
Find What Works 
Here’s a way one successful sales rep we know prepared themselves and conquered their fear of closing. First, they chose a couple of closing techniques that they felt comfortable with. They happened to prefer the Recommendation Close and the Direct Question Close. Then they wrote the actual words that they intended to use on a 3×5 card. They kept this card on the dashboard of their car and, as they drove between calls, they would glance at the card and repeat the words until they had committed them to memory. Then they worked on their attitude by telling themselves that they owed it to their customer, their company, and themselves to at least attempt a close at the appropriate time. The approach worked because they started getting more noes (as well as a few more yeses).
Prepare the Prospect to Buy
They learned something else, too. It wasn’t enough to just prepare themselves to make more closes; they had to prepare the customer as well. And how does one do that? By using trial closes. Many salespeople confuse trial closes with the Alternate Choice Close. A trial close is an opinion‑asking question, the answer to which tells you how receptive your prospect is to making a decision in your favour.
Some typical trial closes might be: “How does that sound?” “If you were to go ahead, when would you want delivery?” “How do you see yourself benefiting from… ?” “How do you feel about all this?” A positive response to any of these trial closes is usually a sign that you should ask for the order. The key is to have one or two trial closes committed to memory and ready to use. Do what this salesperson did ‑ write a few on 3×5 cards.
Remember: In closing, there’s no magic formula. Closing is 70 percent attitude, 20 percent technique and 10 percent skill. Prepare yourself, prepare the customer, and do the deed. You owe it to your customer, to your company, and most important of all, you owe it to yourself.
For more information on this topic, please refer to The Right Skills.
Salesforce Training & Consulting is a professional sales training firm and registered Salesforce.com Consulting Partner based in Toronto, with offices in Boston and Chicago, providing sales coaching, sales management consulting, salesforce implementation, sales training and sales personnel assessments.
05/16/11 by Mark Christie | Closing, Sales Techniques | No Comments »
Do you know the major reason why prospects don’t buy? They were never asked! That’s right,
no one asked them for the business.
Strange as it seems, salespeople use all their superior selling skills to get in front of a prospect, qualify him, uncover his needs, match their product or service to those needs, and then they stand back and wait for the prospect to make a decision instead of taking the final step of helping him make the decision.
There are three main reasons why salespeople don’t ask for the business:
- They don’t know what to do.
- They don’t know how to do it.
- They don’t want to do it.
Let’s take a look at the last reason. We all know why salespeople don’t want to ask for the order. It’s the word “NO!”
Sensitive Egos
Despite impressions to the contrary, salespeople are sensitive creatures whose egos are easily bruised. Like most human beings, salespeople don’t like the feeling of rejection that comes with hearing the word “no.” Our egos are very tender, and when someone steps on it by rejecting our fabulous offer, we’re crushed. After three crushes, we become demoralized, and who needs that. So, as the theory goes, we try to keep our ego intact by avoiding the noes, and we avoid noes by not asking for the order.
What you must keep in mind, however, is that you’ve got nothing to lose by attempting to close the sale. You don’t have the business before the attempt and you may not have the business after. But one thing is for sure ‑ you’ll be one “no” closer to getting a “yes.”
Get More Noes
The first step to improving your closing rate is to remind yourself that the person who gets the most yeses also got the most noes. You need to learn to deal with the potential bruises to your emotional well‑being. This is easier said than done, and the best way to toughen up your emotional skin is through practise. Go looking for noes.
Now, I’m not suggesting that you should ask prospects, “You don’t want to buy this do you?” That will certainly get you a lot more noes, but not more business. You’ll get more than enough noes by simply trying to close sales properly.
The next step to improving your closing rate is knowing how to do it. In our experience, lots of salespeople will say they know how to close the sale but, when push comes to shove, they are more talk than action. When we ask some of them to tell me how they ask for the business, they skate around and say they use the Alternate Choice Close, the Minor Point Close or whatever. But when I ask for an example of the actual words they use, they’re at a loss.
In other words, they know what they are supposed to do, but they don’t know how to do it. For the most part, they’re simply not prepared to attempt a close. Are you?
Salesforce Training & Consulting is a professional sales training firm and registered Salesforce.com Consulting Partner based in Toronto, with offices in Boston and Chicago, providing sales coaching, sales management consulting, salesforce implementation, sales training and sales personnel assessments.
05/14/10 by Mark Christie | Closing, Sales Techniques | No Comments »
#8. Concession Close
Use the Concession Close if you’re prepared to offer a price reduction. Before offering a price concession, ask the prospect, “If I can get this price for you, will you go ahead?” If the prospect says yes, get the price and immediately ask for the order. Note: If the prospect says no, he or she is not likely to buy at any price.
Useful with: Expressive and Driver-buyer personality types
Example
• If you buy today, I’ll throw in a free…
• If you can give me the go ahead today, I’ll hold our old pricing for you.
• I can offer you free delivery on this particular model if you decide to go ahead today.
05/13/10 by Mark Christie | Closing, Sales Techniques | No Comments »
#7. Contract Close
Start filling out your order form or contract. The prospect will stop you if she’s decided not to go ahead. Phrases such as shown in the following examples are simple ways of starting the Order Form Close.
Useful with: All buyer styles
Example
• Let me get down the correct delivery address.
• What is the correct spelling of your last name?
05/10/10 by Mark Christie | Closing, Sales Techniques | No Comments »
# 6. Recommendation Close
Sometimes prospects are unsure of themselves. They know what they want but are not sure how to do it. Some people simply find it hard to make a decision. The Recommendation Close puts a degree of assurance into the situation and helps the prospect make a decision.
Useful with: Driver, Analytical and Expressive Buyer Styles
Example
• What I recommend is that you start with one dozen and see how well they sell.
• I recommend that you start off with a minimum order and see how it works for you.
05/07/10 by Mark Christie | Closing, Sales Techniques | No Comments »
#5. Wrap-it-up Close
Start doing something—anything—that the prospect will have to stop you from doing or she has given permission for the close.
Useful with: All buyer styles
Example
• Start writing up a contract.
• Start phoning your office to check on the inventory status.
• Start filling out a credit application.
05/06/10 by Mark Christie | Closing, Sales Techniques | No Comments »
4. Right Angle Close
You’re at the end of the sale and the prospect asks a question, the answer to which is positive. Instead of answering the question, you go right off at a right angle by saying: “If we can… (do that), will you… (buy) today?”
Useful with: Driver and Analytical Buyer Personalities
Example
The prospect asks if she can have delivery by Tuesday. You know you have a warehouse full of the items and delivery is no problem. Instead of simply saying “yes” or “Tuesday delivery will be no problem” say:
If I can ensure you Tuesday delivery, will you be able to go ahead today?
05/05/10 by Mark Christie | Closing, Sales Techniques | No Comments »
#3. Minor Point Close
Use where you don’t have an alternate choice to offer or when you don’t want to offer a choice.
Useful with: Amiable and Expressive Personality Buyer Types
Example
• Which credit card will you be using?
• I suppose that you’ll want the red one then?
• I’ll arrange to have it there on Tuesday.
• You’ll want us to do the installation, of course?
