One of the terrifying worries faced by a salesperson is being viewed as too pushy by a customer. We have all heard stories about how people love to shop for their convenience but hate to buy from a forceful salesperson. Customers hate to be a target. So when you are offering to sell in something, do you have a defined approach to avoid this perception? If not its probably the reason why some salespeople think selling is a hard task and struggle with relating to that customer. When it comes down to it, people like to buy from people. When you can get to a point as a salesperson when your relationship with the customer feels more like a general conversation, as opposed to waiting to rattle off features, you know you are starting to make ground. This approach will certainly have a greater chance of resulting in a sale.
Release the pressure
Let’s face it, selling is a very hard job. Positioning a product or service to a customer creates a lot of pressure, particularly when most businesses tend to focus on immediate sales results. To further add to the stress, you may largely depend on your sales bonus for your livelihood. This stress not only affects your mood but also the way you talk to everyone around you, including customers. The burden in your head influences your ability to communicate, and you tend to make mistakes easily. This can result in delivering an over enthusiastic or even aggressive approach.
Unfortunately, this will cause you to lose more sales opportunities than you win. So what do I do? To sell something, you need to talk to your customer with politeness, slowness, and with sincerity. Your body language should portray the same as what you are saying. Be confident and give logical reasons. Tell them why the offering is beneficial, use plain but vivid language, but don’t preach, particularly about features. Add a little humour; it always helps to lighten the mood.
Wellbeing
Easier said than done when you’re stressed right? True, to help with this there’s loads of information out there for reducing stress, including information on your overall wellbeing. Finding the balance between work and play is key. Some of the things to research and speak to professionals about are meditation, sleep, breathing, fitness, diet, exercise and even recognising the signs that you could be stressed. See this video and Australian Psychology Society for more information on means to reducing stress and your wellbeing.
Do not rush
One of the most effective ways of selling and not being obnoxious is giving the whole thing a lot of time. The biggest mistake a salesperson can make is to rush through the entire affair without giving it the time it needs. Being hasty can cost you a sale. It’s like asking for dinner two minutes after lunchtime; you have to wait so that the endgame can be more satisfying. It could cause you to appear as if you are desperate for the sale. Keep in mind that your prospect has to be as comfortable as possible. You should create a strategy which would help you to organise your sales interaction. At the bottom of this article, we have given you seven steps to help you formulate a plan.
Let the opportunity guide you
Don’t let the opportunity appear as too good because that will get the customer suspicious. After all, if it’s good, that will shine through in the offer. Making the opportunity seem casual or underrated will allow the client to think that it’s a good deal. Ask the right questions, let them do most of the talking. When the customer starts to feel comfortable around you, they initiate the talking themselves. Once you gain their trust, they tend to fall for what you are selling, and it may not be just about the product or service, it could be just about you. Honesty goes a long way; you can get a lot from advising the client if what you are selling is not suitable for them. You may miss the sale this time, but gain the trust for the customer to come back to you.
Don’t let the product dominate conversations
The best way to get in the heads of the customers is to focus on their problems and concerns instead of letting your product be the boss. Get to know their interests, get to know the person. Find out their pain points and figure out ways to solve them. Relate your experience, examples of similar clients and how you have alleviated those problems. You will have a chance to talk about the product or service and be able to transfer to them all the relevant product details, but the key is not to let the product dominate all of the conversation.
Seven Key Points for Sales Strategy:
1) SALES MAPPING: Even before you walk in the door, you should know what the customers business is about and who’s who in the zoo. Align your resources with the client’s people. What previous deals have transacted, where and how? Understand the complete picture. Some things can often be ruled out straight away without creating a lot of work unnecessarily.
2) INTRODUCTION: It’s key that everyone knows who everyone is, whether it be in a meeting or any interaction.
3) PEOPLE: Introduce, the right people at the right time to the opportunity. It’s crucial you only bring others to back you up at the right time. Someone sitting in a meeting not adding value only makes it awkward for everyone. Too many salespeople bring people along just for the sake of it.
4) KNOW YOUR OFFER: No one expects you to know everything. However, you should be knowledgeable on at least 80% of what you are trying to sell. As soon as you bring in a specialist, it’s saying, ” I don’t know anymore”.
5) AGENDA: Set the agenda including the main point of the communication. Check with the customer to confirm that the agenda will cover what the customer wants to get out of the interaction.
6) DISCOVERY: Remember the 80/20 rule. 80% listening, 20% guided discovery. You may be the expert and can guide them along, but you should never walk out of a meeting, thinking, gee’s I talked a lot then!
7) SOLUTION PITCH: You must address all the key pain points the customer has revealed in your pitch. Play these points back to the client and then relate how the solution benefits them and address each point. Try and steer clear of features and stick to highlighting the actual benefits that relate to them. For example, “this car has a 240kw Efficient Turbo Diesel Engine”, only talking about a feature. Compared to the advantages/benefits of your offer; “this car is powerful enough to tow a large caravan, without showing any strain on the engine. The high-efficiency engine means you can drive between Melbourne and Sydney and back again on one tank of petrol, costing you around $110 in fuel”.
If you follow all these steps, tips and advice you’ll be able to sell to your customers with a greater degree of success than before.
Author: Sales Professional
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