Your customers don’t buy what you do; they buy what you can do for them.
You need to sell values, advantages, and benefits instead of features. The benefits need to be sold from the perspective of the prospect. Once you identify what the person wants, you can then present how your solutions meet those needs.
Now, go sell somebody something.
Prospects are the lifeblood of any sales organization. For new salespeople, prospects are the foundation on which to build a career. Most new salespeople don’t receive a long list of existing clients. Therefore, it is important to always build your “prospect funnel.” That is, create a list of potential buyers.
When you have a short list of prospects, you put pressure on those people to buy from you. That is not the reputation you want to create in the marketplace. If you have a short list of prospects, I don’t want to be on that list. Why? Because you are going to call me all the time, you are going to push to meet with me. By always having a long list of prospects, you have more people to contact and you put less pressure on the ones on your list.
A key point about prospecting: you are always prospecting. You are not always selling, but you are always searching for potential buyers.
Now go sell somebody something.
You can’t give away something you don’t possess. Therefore, you must be convinced your product or service is superior to the competition. No, I am not saying that you have to have the perfect solution. Perfect solutions usually don’t exist. However, you must have a deep belief that your solution is the best fit for the prospect’s needs.
Many years ago, I was selling a product I did not believe in. You guessed it, I did not sell it often. The product was dictation equipment. Since I didn’t use dictation equipment for my correspondence, I didn’t have a deep belief in the benefits of the product. Consequently, I did not sell it. However, once I began to use the equipment, I began to see the advantages it offered. It saved time and energy when I produced proposals and letters. I began to believe and I began to sell dictation equipment. You have to believe.
Now go sell somebody something.
Your sales success depends on how you present yourself. Do your prospects see you as a poised, professional individual? Or, do they see you as a person who is uncomfortable and lacking confidence? Zig Ziglar claims that selling is nothing more than a transference of feeling. If you can transfer how you feel about your solution to the prospect, you’ll have a customer for life. The prospect buys you before buying your plan. You must first have that inner belief that you deserve to achieve the sale. Then you must believe that you can assist the prospect in improving his present situation. When you have that inner belief, that inner confidence, that belief you are worthy of success, your chances for success are greatly increased.
As similar as prospects are, they also have major differences. Some people may purchase your solutions for monetary gain, others for prestige, and still others for the convenience and ease your solution offers. It is imperative you uncover the reason a person would exchange money for your product or service.
What do you think?
You make more money solving problems than you do by selling products!
The only time a commissioned salesperson earns money is when he or she assists a prospect in improving his or her situation. It may be assisting the prospect in reducing stress, making or saving money, providing peace of mind, etc.
When you solve problems for prospects, you become a hero to them. You become a great resource to that person. To be a successful problem solver, you need to be others-focused. That is, you must pay attention to the other person’s needs, issues, concerns, challenges. If you can identify those areas and then place the prospect in a position to solve them, the money will follow.
This is one of the essentials of successful selling. Selling is a step-by-step process involving the buyer and the seller. Selling is not one-sided. It is not a process for the salesperson only. It is a methodology of discovering what problem or concern the buyer has, then assisting in solving that problem or concern. Do you have a process that you use?
Several weeks ago, I was speaking with Jay Hellwig. Jay is a top sales professional. Jay said, “Zig Ziglar’s CD’s on ‘Secrets of Closing the Sale’ are my favorite CD’s.”
Since there are over 50 specific closing techniques in this CD set, I asked Jay what was his favorite technique. Jay thought for a moment and said, “Oh, I don’t have a favorite close.”
I asked, “Then how can it be your favorite sales training set?”
Jay said, “That’s easy. Zig didn’t teach me a closing technique as much as he taught me a closing ATTITUDE! The attitude helps me close more sales than the techniques do.”
A closing attitude. Now, that’s powerful.
Have you thought about your CLOSING ATTITUDE lately? Do you have closing attitude? And if you do, what type attitude is it?
Jay is right. The way you feel about closing the order is oftentimes more important than the technique you use. You probably have a number of strong closes. However, if you lack a strong closing attitude, you will never use those closing techniques.What is your attitude about closing? Selling is what we do WITH your prospect, not something we do TO your prospect.
Closing should be the logical conclusion to your selling activities. It should not be the stage of the sales process that is adversarial between the seller and the buyer. The buyer should be as eager for this stage as the seller is.
What is your attitude toward closing? Why do you ask people to buy from you? You ask people to buy from you so that you can feed your family…not your ego. If you don’t want to bruise your ego, you may be hesitant to ask for the order. However, if you do that enough times, you are not putting bread on your family’s table.
What happens when you ask for the order and you get it? You win! But, what happens when you ask for the order and you don’t get it? Well, you don’t lose! You break even! That’s right … you break even. You can’t lose by doing your job.
Your job is to ask people to exchange money for your services. When you do your job correctly you have every right to ask the business owner to buy from you.
When you ask the prospect to purchase from you today, the buyer wants to know that you believe his/her decision is a solid one. You can assist with this if you have a positive closing attitude. You need to exhibit confidence during this stage of the process. If you do, you will be able to expect sales success, not hope for sales success.
Jay Hellwig is right. The closing attitude will close more sales than the techniques!
Now, go sell somebody something!
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