Not Another Salesperson!

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To be a sales person can be a very deflating and demoralizing experience for some people. Let’s face it, dinner conversation often turns to a few wise cracks about the pesky sales person that someone had to ditch at the first possible chance. Before long everyone is joining in on how they too, got rid of a unwanted, pesky sales person!

If you are in sales, you probably would be wriggling in your seat and feeling a bit uncomfortable at that point in the conversation. You may even want to tell them all that, “we salespeople are human too you know…ah I mean those sales people are human”

Somehow amongst the cheering, jeering and great fun of swapping ‘give the stereotypical salesperson the flick’ stories, you probably feel that it is not quite the right time to speak up.

In the defense of the people making these wise cracks, there are some pretty ruthless sales people that call you at home, at inopportune times, and will do anything to keep you on the phone. It is those tactics that give the sales profession a very bad name.

So does it have to be this way?

Thankfully not!

There is a way of approaching people that will make the whole sales experience a joy. The key to the whole problem is actually in the last sentence, ‘approaching people‘. It actually should be the other way around…they should be approaching you.

A traditional retail sales person would not feel the same level of discomfort when people are making quips around the dinner table because people come to them, they are not chasing people. The customer is coming to them because they have what the customer wants? Or do they?

That would be the absolute first place to start a sales conversation, finding out if the person actually wants something or are they just randomly shopping around to kill time.

Typically the question is:

“Can I help You?”

or

“Is there anything in particular that you are looking for?”

Can you imagine if you walked into a shop and the sales assistant starts raving on about, ‘how great these new jeans are, and the material, and how they are made, and on and on’. You would probably think to yourself, “that is great but I am just filling in time while my wife gets her hair cut!”

So the fist question is actually a qualifying question to see if that person has any interest in general and then there will be subsequent questions that are more specific in order to qualify the customer/prospect even further. Why would your waste you time on someone who has no interest? It only makes you tired and the other person annoyed. So as you can see, even if someone is approaching you (aka coming to your website or your shop), you can still blow it very easily.

Never assume that you have is what they want or need.

Let’s take one step back and look at the process of what it takes in order to attract customers so that they are approaching you.

Why Marketing Is So Important?

Marketing and Sales should go hand in hand and really should be a seamless continuum. A great marketing system will do most of the qualifying and the salesperson should only have to deal with interested prospects.

So what is a great marketing system?

There is a lot of talk about the conversation inside your prospects head, if you can tap into that and address their concerns, you got it. On this site, there is a post with a 5 part video series of Jay Abraham, the marketing legend, talking about exactly this. It is in the first video at about the 10 minute mark. The way he puts it leaves no doubt about how important this level of empathy is in your marketing. If you understand your prospective clients problems on an emotional level, then you will be able to connect with them every time. Marketing is sometimes referred to as sales in print.

That being the case, we can approach our marketing in two different ways;

1. The whack them over the head and drill them with messages until they respond, one way or another.

2. Put yourself in your prospects shoes and workout what their needs, wants, and desires are; and then offer them the best possible solution.

The second method is the obvious choice but those great marketing methods can still be sabotaged if the sales skills don’t match. I remember listening to a fantastic interview with Vincent James (he built a $100, 000 000 nutritional supplement business in one year through offline, online and television marketing) and he said that he would tell his tele-salespeople not to sell anything, just take inquiries and handle the orders. As he put it;

“the people operating the phones in the call center could undo all your great marketing work in a matter of minutes”

Here are some points to remember when on a sales call;

1. Always ask if it is a good time to call

2. If you have called them, alway state the purpose of your call and tell them how much of their time you estimate you will need

3. Qualify your prospects on time, money, and desire

4. Spend 80% of the call listening and 20% talking

5. Take the time to find out exactly what they want before you offer anything to them

6. Only when you have understood what they want should you offer them anything and only offer them information that is specific to what they need

Once you have positioned yourself like this, you actually become a consultant rather than a salesperson. Much of it is determined by who finds who first as to how this plays out. As much as possible you want people finding you.

You must think of yourself as a problem solutions provider for your clients. Sometimes you won’t have the ability to help them and so being honest and telling your prospect that, rather than get the sale at all costs will payoff in the end. Never sell something for the sake of getting the sale if it is not a good fit for the person.

Consultative selling is definitely a much more rewarding experience for the buyer and the seller. You can read more about this approach to sales in the book, The New Conceptual Selling. It is a great read for anyone wishing to understand a natural approach to sales.