The Instant Sales Pro: More than 600 Tips and Techniques to Accelerate Your Sales Success
by Cy Charney
Table of Contents:
The Instant Sales Pro—More Than 600 Tips and Techniques to Accelerate Your Sales Success
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1 – Prospecting
Chapter 2 – The Selling Process
Chapter 3 – Getting on the Customer’s Wavelength
Chapter 4 – Dealing with Objections
Chapter 5 – Convincing Strategies
Chapter 6 – People Issues
Chapter 7 – Closing
Chapter 8 – Partnership Selling
Chapter 9 – Technology
Chapter 10 – Career Effectiveness
Chapter 11 – Organizational Effectiveness
Chapter 12 – Personal Development
Index
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
To ensure that The Instant Sales Pro is relevant to the needs of salespeople today, I sought the advice of a variety of people in the field. These mentors have made an invaluable contribution to the book through their valuable suggestions:
Marc Charlebois, general sales manager of Team 1050 CHUM and 104.5 CHUM FM, Toronto
Elise Jankelow, director of sales, Compugen Inc., Markham
Nahla Hanna, vice-president, sales, AON Reed Stenhouse Inc., Toronto
Max Lissoos, vice-president, sales, Global Materials Technologies Inc., Chicago
Ken Imrie, national sales coach, IBM, Canada
Jack Kahan, retired district manager, QSP Inc. (Subsidiary of Reader’s Digest), Toronto
Irwin Katz, sales and marketing consultant
Michelle Hiltz, sales representative
Nick Garrison, freelance editor
Sue Sumeraj, editor
Preface
This book is for all salespeople. It makes no assumptions about you, your background, or your industry. It does presume that you want to be more successful. And it provides you with a quick resource guide to help you get to the next level.
Since salespeople come from a variety of industries, all of which operate differently, this book offers help to those who are
single-cycle selling
focusing on meeting customer needs
developing long-term strategic relationships
By organizing principles into short chapters and categories, the reader/learner will be able to access information quickly, putting them into practice and achieving results.
Introduction
Meeting Customers’ Needs
There is only one boss: the customer.
And he can fire everybody in the company, from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.
SAM WALTON, FOUNDER OF WAL-MART
Customers are our reason for being. They pay our bills and salaries, and allow us to stay in business. It is imperative, therefore, that we understand what customers need so that we can meet those needs.
These are most important needs that customers have:
Reliability. Customers want you to meet your obligations. They want what was promised, when it was promised. Maybe more, but not less!
Speed. It’s not a question of months. It’s not an issue of weeks, or even days. Things need to be done right away. Yesterday would be even better. Speed is a major competitive advantage.
Salespeople can demonstrate that they understand the customer’s sense of urgency by
returning phone calls within the hour
responding to e-mails at least twice daily
submitting their order, on-line, immediately
maintaining paperwork
Electronic, wireless communication tools can enable you to respond quickly and accurately.
Empathy. You cannot satisfy everyone all of the time. But, you can put yourself in their shoes and understand their frustration or disappointment or anger. Let them know you understand. Then tell them what you will do to reduce their level of frustration.
Knowledge. Knowledge brings respect. It enables you to provide answers and solve problems quickly. It also enhances your ability to sway customers by increasing your influence.
Tangibility. The physical appearance of everything associated with you and your organization sends messages related to attractiveness, neatness, and worth. This applies to your product, premises, dress, and everything else that the customer can see and feel.
Value. People don’t mind paying more if they feel they are getting more. The more reliable, quick, and courteous you are, relative to your competitors, the more you can charge.
Remind yourself daily of your customers’ needs. Whenever you have an unsuccessful meeting, determine which of your customer’s needs you neglected the most. Learn from the experience and do better on your next call.
A formula for failure is simple: anticipate what your prospect wants before you have found out. Never give prospects any information before you have established their needs.
Each customer will have a different priority of needs. For some, it will be value. For others, it will be speed. Although all are important, your probing will establish the current hot button and enable you to customize your approach each time, thereby increasing your ability to be successful.
Each customer has these basic human needs:
the need to feel safe (psychologically, socially, and physically)
the need to be treated as special
the need to feel successful
the need to have things done right the first time
the need to get things done efficiently
Offering to meet these needs will increase your sales.
The customers’ bill of rights
Customers are stakeholders in our organization. They are the most important of the three (the other two being the shareholders and the staff).
Customers are different and unique. Each needs to be treated individually.
Customers are not dependent on us. We are dependent on them.
Customers deserve value. Every process in our organization must have a direct or indirect value to our customers, be they internal or external. Processes that don’t add value should be eliminated or reduced.
Customers have needs and wants. Our job is to find out what they are and fulfill them.
Customers should expect to get our individual attention.
Customers are not an interruption to our work, but the reason for our work.
Customers pay our bills.
Customers want someone to be loyal to — a trusted and respected partner.
Customers reign supreme.
Key point:
The cost of acquiring a new customer is five times more than the cost of serving your existing customers.
Planning and Managing Your Territory
Plans are nothing; planning is everything.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (1890–1969), 34TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Assuming that you have taken over a new territory, here are strategies you can use to manage the new area and its customers effectively:
Analyze the existing situation. Interview people who have managed the territory before to gain their assessment. Find out what has been effective in the past in terms of money, people, and time, and the benefits derived as a consequence. Look for change in terms of
overall sales
gross margins
market share
trends
Find out how performance was influenced by
segmentation of the territory
your organization’s strengths and weaknesses
any external factors
Look to the future. Forecast the performance you expect. You can do this by
extrapolating past performance into the future
looking at new economic data that might cause a change in the ongoing performance
Set goals. Ensure that your goals are SMART, that is,
S pecific
M easurable
A greed upon by all stakeholders
R ealistic
T ime-based and challenging, too.
The goals can cover many aspects of your territory. They can, for example, include
sales, such as
increased sales to existing customers
sales to new customers
increased margins
cost changes
product mix changes
product development, such as
the number of new products/services introduced
the penetration of the total mix that the new items constitute
customer development, such as
the number of new accounts opened
the penetration of the total accounts that the new accounts constitute
Plans are made to achieve the goals. They should state what actions are to be taken, when, by whom, and who needs to be informed/consulted on actions that are outside of the salesperson’s jurisdiction.
Measure changes to ensure that benefits are being realized. To do so, identify the key indicators of performance. These could, for example, include
sales indicators
dollar sales
unit sales
order to call ratio
market share
promotions
number of new accounts
number of referrals
number of new accounts lured away from the competition
effectiveness
percentage of time spent with clients
percentage of time spent on travel
change in expenses
timeliness of reports
accuracy of reports
People, Politics, and Organizations: Who Has the Influence?
If you’re going to play the game properly, you’d better know every rule.
BARBARA JORDAN, AMERICAN LAWYER, POLITICIAN
Organizations are highly complex places. There are many people whose opinions and actions can affect your ability to be influential in their organization. In developing a strategy to be effective over the long term, it is important to know who they are and find a way of cultivating relationships with them. The more they value you, the less likely you will be “blocked” from ongoing and painless sales.
These are the key players to build relationships with:
The Buyer. This is the person who signs the order.
Decision-makers. These people have the power to OK or veto a sale. The buyer merely presents her recommendations to the decision-makers for approval.
Users. These are the internal customers of the buyer and decision-makers. They are the end-users, including the engineers, programmers, line managers, and other front-line staff.
Gatekeepers. These people work directly with the buyer in a support capacity. They include switchboard, secretarial, and administrative support staff. Calls are often routed to them before the buyer. As such, their attitudes can have a major impact on your ability to communicate directly with the buyer.