Habitually thinking about each of these elements of the sales process, and how each of
them could be improved, is the key to increasing your sales, your revenues and
your profitability.
Prospecting
The
first habit of top salespeople is that they think about prospecting most of
the time. To succeed greatly in sales, you must develop the habit of
“spending more time with better prospects.” You must develop the habit of
prospecting and looking for new business 80% of the time. You must be
prospecting morning, noon and night. You must never relax in your prospecting
efforts until you have so many customers that you do not have enough time left
in the day to sell and satisfy all the people who want to buy from you.
Relationships Are Everything
The
second habit for sales success is the habit of focusing on the relationship before
anything else. You should focus on establishing rapport, trust and
credibility with each prospect from the first contact. The most successful
salespeople, once they have identified a key prospect,
take as much time as is
necessary to establish trust with that client. They ask good questions
and listen closely to the answers.
They
lean forward and take careful notes. They seek to understand the customer’s situation
and needs before they make any attempt to talk about their product or service.
The
rule is this. “If the customer likes you and trusts you, the details will
not get in the way of the sale. If the prospect however, is neutral toward you,
or even worse, negative, the details will trip you up every step of the way.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Identify Needs Clearly
The
third habit of top salespeople is that they make a habit of asking questions
and identifying the real needs of the prospect relative to what they are
selling. Most prospects
are not aware that they can improve their life or work situation when they
first meet you. This is the reason that prospects often say things like, “I’m
not interested,” or “I can’t afford it,” or “We’re quite happy
with our existing situation or supplier.”
This
is normal and natural. Most products and services that you sell are new, different
and offer advantages and benefits that the customer is not yet aware of.
The
more you ask questions about the customer’s situation, and suggest that he or she
could be much better off with what you sell, the more open the customer becomes
to learning about your product or service, and eventually buying it.
The Presentation Is Where the Sale Is Made
The
fourth habit developed by all sales professionals is the habit of making excellent,
logical, well thought out presentations of the features and benefits of their
product. Once they have clearly identified the customer’s wants and needs, they
show the customer that his or her needs can be ideally satisfied by their product
or service, and in a cost effective way.
In
reality, the sale is actually made in the presentation. If you have
identified a prospect who can benefit from what you sell, established a
comfortable level of trust and rapport, and identified his or needs clearly,
the presentation is where you show the customer why it makes excellent sense
for him or her to take action on your recommendations.
Friend, Advisor, Teacher
In
effective selling, you position yourself as a friend, an advisor, and a
teacher. As a friend, you make it clear that you are more concerned with
helping the customer to solve a problem or satisfy a need than you are about
simply making a sale. Once the customer realizes that he or she can trust you
and what you say, the customer will relax and open up. He or she will then tell
you everything you need to know to help him or her to make a buying decision,
or to determine that your product or service is probably not appropriate for
this customer at this time.
In
positioning yourself as an advisor in the sales presentation, instead of
trying to overwhelm resistance, you instead present what you are selling as a
solution to a problem,
or as the satisfaction of a need. You present your product or service by giving
advice that helps the customer to understand why what you sell will improve his
or her life or work situation. You invite comments and you make recommendations
rather than attempting to induce the customer to buy.
Finally,
you position yourself as a teacher by educating your customer in how he or
she can most benefit from what you are selling. The more that you focus on learning
about the customer’s situation, and then teaching the customer how much better
off he or she can be with your product or service, the more the customer will relax
and trust you, and accept your recommendations.
Answering Objections Effectively
The
fifth stage of excellent selling is the habit of answering objections and resolving concerns in a confident, competent manner. You do this by thinking through
all the objections that a qualified prospect might give you, as reasons for not
proceeding with your offer. You then develop logical and complete answers to each
of these objections so that you are prepared if and when they come up.
The
very best sales professionals have thought through every possible objection they
could receive, and developed completely clear “bullet proof answers” to them, so
that once they arise and are answered, they never arise again.
Asking For the Decision
The
sixth part of selling is developing the habit of asking the customer to make
a buying decision. No matter how good your presentation, or how high the
level of trust and credibility that exists between you, there is always a
moment of stress or tension at the making of a buying decision. Your job is to
move quickly and professionally through that stressful moment by asking for the
order in a confident, professional manner, and then wrapping up the sale.
The
very best sales professionals plan their closes in advance. They watch for buying
signals from the customer. They ask questions to make sure that there are no
lingering objections. They then ask clearly and straightforwardly for a buying decision,
and for the customer to take action now.
Here’s
an interesting point: the more competent and confident you are in asking for the
order at the end of the sales presentation, the more motivated and
positive you are
about prospecting at the beginning of the sales process. The better you
get at closing
the sale, the better you become at every other stage of the sales process, because
you develop the habit or the “conditioned response” of anticipating sales success
as the result of your efforts. You become self-motivated.
Ask For Re-sales and Referrals
Finally,
top sales professionals develop the habit of asking for re-sales and
referrals from
each customer. They know that every person they talk to knows at least 300 other
people by their first name. They therefore give good service to their customers
and ask for referrals to similar prospects to the one to the person who has
just bought from them.
The
habit of thinking in terms of resales and referrals is the key to high income
and high
profitability. The most successful salespeople and companies have high levels of
repeat business, and a continuous stream of new customers that come from referrals
from their satisfied customers.
Here
is an exercise for you. Imagine that three months from today, a law was going to
go into effect that made it illegal for you to prospect for new customers.
The only
selling that you could do would be to referrals that you received from your existing
customer base. You would have to organize your time, your work and your
activities in such a way that your existing customers were so happy with you that
they would give you a steady stream of referrals.
What
could you do, starting today, to work “by referral only?” What steps
could you
take immediately to assure that your existing customers supply you with an endless
stream of referrals in the future? What should you do right now to begin this
process?
The
key to success in business is repeat customers. These are customers that
buy from you, buy again and bring their friends. These are people who become “customer
advocates.” They tell everybody they know about how good your products and
services are, and urge them to buy from you.
The Keys to Profitability
In
the PIMS Studies at Harvard, examining the sales and profitability of 620 companies
over a multi-year period, they found that “perceived product quality” was the
critical determinant of the sales, growth and profitability of almost every company.
In
addition, they discovered that product quality was only 20% determined by the actual
product or service itself, and fully 80% determined by the way that the customer
was treated during the sales and ownership process. The nicer, more responsive
and more efficient the people in the company were toward the customer, the
higher level of customer loyalty and the greater perceived quality of the
product or service sold.
Superb Customer Service
There
are four habits that you need to develop to achieve a reputation for superb customer
service. The habit of service orientation toward your customers is the
key to
repeat sales, lower marketing and sales costs, and higher profitability. There
are four
levels of customer service that determine your ranking in your industry.
The
first level of service is for you to develop the habit of consistently
meeting the expectations of your customers. To achieve this, it is absolutely essential that you find
out what customers expect of you. And whatever it is, it is vital to your survival
and success that you meet those expectations every single time.
A
primary source of anger, frustration and negative emotions, both personally and commercially,
is “frustrated expectations.” This is when we expect something to happen
and it does not happen the way that we wanted it to. Whenever you experience
negative emotions of any kind, it can almost always be traced to having been
frustrated or disappointed in a particular expectation. This is doubly true
with regard
to customers, and their dealings with different companies.
The
most successful and profitable companies are those that made a habit of clearly
identifying what customers expect, and then organizing the entire business to
be sure that those expectations are delivered upon 100% of the time.
Do More Than Is Expected
However,
meeting customer expectations is just enough to keep you in business. It is
not enough for you to grow and succeed in a competitive marketplace. To do that,
you must develop the habit of exceeding customer expectations. You must
do more
than customers expect. You must do things that are outside of the range of expectations.
It is these extra things that you do that cause customers to be happy in
dealing with you, and cause them to want to buy from you again.
What
are the little things that you can do better, faster, cheaper and easier that
will make
your customers happy that they dealt with you. Could you offer something extra
to your customers that they did not expect? Could you do something extra for your
customers that they had not thought of? How can you exceed your customer’s expectations,
every day?
As
it happens, as soon as a company finds a way to exceed customer expectations, and
it becomes known in the marketplace, your competitors will copy you and duplicate
your efforts in an attempt to stay even with you, if not get ahead. Therefore,
every time a way of exceeding customer expectations becomes common knowledge
in the workplace, it becomes a normal expectation of customers. From then
on, customers expect to get what was at one time something extra in the normal
course of doing business with you.
Delight Your Customers
The
third level of customer satisfaction is when you develop the habit of
delighting your customers. You
delight your customers when you do something that is so unusual
that it makes your customers especially happy. It can be something as little as
a follow-up call from a senior executive to a new customer. It can be a call thanking
them for the business and asking them for any ideas on how you might improve
your services to them in the future. It can be something larger, like a gift of
flowers or fruit to a customer who just placed a large order. It can be a thank
you card
signed by several people in the company. It can be a personal visit by a key executive
to a new customer. In every case, these little gestures, which are not particularly
expensive, leave a wonderful impression in the customer’s mind and dramatically
increase the probability that he or she will buy from you again.
Amaze Your Customers
The
highest level of customer service is when you develop the habit of amazing your customers. This is
when you do something for them that is so extraordinary that
they want to run around and tell everybody they know. Develop the habit of continually
thinking of things you could do that would amaze your customers. This could
change the whole nature of your business.
Some
years ago, in the midst of the Federal Express advertising campaign, “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight,” there was a major blizzard in Colorado
that closed down the mountain passes between Denver and the ski resorts to
the west. Without reference to his superiors, a Federal Express deliveryman, who
was blocked from fulfilling the promise of Federal Express, charted a helicopter
to fly over the mountains and deliver Federal Express packages to his key
customers.
To
get maximum benefit, he telephoned ahead to find out where he could land a helicopter
to deliver the packages. The story was picked up by the newspapers and eventually
broadcast worldwide. It cost Federal Express several thousand dollars for
the helicopter, but it earned them millions of dollars in good publicity by
their effort
to amaze their customers with service beyond anything they could ever expect.
Love Your Customers
Perhaps
the most important habit that you can develop for business success is to think
in terms of “loving your customers.” Stand back and look at your customers, your
products, your services, your marketing and sales efforts and your business activities.
If you genuinely loved your customers, the way you love the most important
people in your life, what would you do differently from the way that you deal
with them today? What changes would you make in your product or service quality
standards? What changes would you make in your customer service policies?
If you genuinely loved your customers, and wanted to please and satisfy
them
more and better than anyone else, what would be the first thing you could do
to
demonstrate this?
Nothing
happens until a sale takes place. Your ability to put yourself in the shoes of
your customers, to treat each customer the way that you would like to be
treated if
the situation was reversed, is the most important habit that you can develop
for business
and financial success. By developing the habit of thinking in terms of marketing,
sales and customer service all the time, you will become better and better
in every area. You will achieve all your business, personal and financial goals
and lead the field in your business. You will earn the esteem, loyalty and respect
of everyone inside and outside of your business, and become one of the
most
successful businesspeople of your generation.
To
Your Success…
Edited
by: Armand
No comments:
Post a Comment