Posts Tagged Tips

5 Tips To Guide Buying Clients To Buy Your Product

The first stage of the sales process is to make sure you are speaking to a buying client. There are methods to convert a non-buying client into a buying client. There are also ways to speak to a non-buying client to increase the odds that he or she will become a buying client in the future. This article focuses on moving a client who wants to buy something to buying your product. More to the point, it focuses on moving the client to the position where your product is the only alternative available. By doing this, you can set your stress management techniques to the side, and focus on turning the selling process into the buying process. You may not be able to use all the fancy techniques you have learned in that expensive sales presentation training you have taken. But the point is to make a sale, not prove that this or that tip from sales negotiation training is the most successful.

1. Begin by letting client know that your goal is to determine their goals. Buying customers are most probably defensive because their perception is that you are trying to sell them something they don’t necessarily want to buy. So put your client at ease – and get him or her to lower their defense shields – by telling them up from that you are going to help them define their needs and goals. You can explain that this will help them decide what product or service will help them the best. While this is going on, you should be tieing whatever the client is saying to everything you have learned in all the sales training courses you have taken. But you are not selling yet.

2. Begin by letting client know that your goal is to mutually decide that your product or service is their best decision. At the same time, be real clear to the client that part of the process is to decide if your product or serviced is the best fit for the client. Be honest with them that you have a stake in this beyond mere profit. There is your reputation. There is word of mouth. There is the relationship you are establishing with this client. So if you sell the client a product that is not want the client wants, you are shooting yourself in the foot.

3. Listen to what problems the customer has, and brainstorm solutions. Spend some time having the client list his or her problems. These may be the problems the product or service will solve. They may be problems personal to the client – like buying the product that guarantees his or her promotion. You are establishing a relationship with the client. You are helping the client bring down those defensive shields lower and lower. And you are learning the tipping points for the client to buy what you are selling.

4. Make sure that your ideas all are provided by your product. As you are brainstorming solutions to the problems the client is listing, make sure your product or service can provide those solutions. Don’t make this obvious. Don’t say “Well, our product does XYZ.” Instead, say “So you need to do XYZ to solve that problem?” Write it down. Better yet, have the client write it down. The degree of subtlety with which you can do this is what distinguishes the Salesperson Of The Month from Salesperson Of The Year. Here is wher you may use anything you have learned in all the sales presentation training you have had.

5. Customers buy benefits, not features. People are selfish. People have pressures to perform for themselves or their company. They do this by buying solutions. So, unless your client has the time and the inclination to figure out how Feature A of your product or service helps him or her to solve Problem B, it is your job to point this out. Explicitly. Hard. Repeatedly. Let’s say a company is deciding on hiring a new law firm. Law firm A pitches their multiple offices, many lawyers, diverse areas of expertise, and commitment to technology. The customer hears “Law firm A has a huge cash outlay that they want ME to pay for.” Law firm B pitches multiple internal resources to draw from as customer problems arise, levels of experience to use the most appropriate billing level for the task, ability to use areas of expertise as needed, and technology to minimize costs and maximize ease of communication with the client. The customer hears “Law firm B is set up for me.” At this stage, you may use your sales negotiation training to overcome specific objections.

Once you have determined that a client is ready to buy something, your next step is to move the client to your product. Notice so far you have not asked the client to do anything. Even though the point of your sales training courses is to sell the product, the real point is to give the client no alternative. Getting the client to make the purchase is an entire step and process in itself. This stage is to get the client in a mindset that there is no alternative to your product. This is where you want to be. When there is no alternative to your product, then your client’s only choice is buy your product or continue the pain of having an unsolved problem.

5 Tips TO Prevent Stress From Killing Everything You Learned IN Your Sales Negotiation Training

Every salesperson will you that the hardest and most stressful part of the process is the closing. Sealing the deal. Getting the client to commit. But in reality, everyone sells and closes deals every day. Even convincing your friends to go to your choice for lunch is a sales process. So how can you make the formal sales process easy and stress-free? Here are 5 tips to get the best return on all that sales negotiation training.

  1. Understand that not every interested client is a buying client. People will often tell you right up front that they are gathering information for a decision that must be made in the future. In this situation, focus on establishing the relationship. Move from what you learned in the sales presentation training to what you’ve learned from establishing personal relationships. Let the client know that they can come back to you as decision date gets closer. You tell them that your role is to help them make the best decision possible, and tell them that the best decision possible is what you are selling. Always look for openings to have them make a purchase to “lock in” a feature or a price. And look for ways to keep the sales presentation brief. But always use language of inclusion (“When we have our monthly meetings..” as opposed to “We offer you monthly meetings…”).
  2. A buying client simply needs to be guided to your product. Right off the bat, let the client know that your goal is to learn their needs and requirements, and to mutually decide that your product or service is their best decision. Listen to what problems the customer has, and brainstorm solutions. Make sure that your ideas all are provided by your product. And remember – customers buy benefits, not features. Let’s say a company is deciding on hiring a new law firm. Law firm A pitches their multiple offices, many lawyers, diverse areas of expertise, and commitment to technology. The customer hears “Law firm A has a huge cash outlay that they want ME to pay for.” Law firm B pitches multiple internal resources to draw from as customer problems arise, levels of experience to use the most appropriate billing level for the task, ability to use areas of expertise as needed, and technology to minimize costs and maximize ease of communication with the client. The customer hears “Law firm B is set up for me.”
  3. Move the customer to the point of action. Customers will signal their willingness to purchase by asking specific questions (“What license would be needed for my location?” or “What would be the first step?”). Don’t give a direct answer. Give a vague answer – “We have several licensing options, depending on the size and growth potential” – and then lead into asking for the sale.
  4. Ask the customer to take a specific action. To continue the example above, your next statement would be something like “we can conduct a specific analysis of your needs as part of the contract.” Or even offer it free (if you have the authority). Sometimes, the specific action is to arrange a presentation with the decision maker. Sometimes the specific action is to reach and draft an agreement and send it to the lawyers (with a sticky note: “Make this happen.”)
  5. Have responses to objections prepared. Customers can tell when you are making stuff up on the fly. But if you have put yourself in the customer’s chair and realize that he or she has to sell it to their company, you have a pretty good idea of what the customer needs to know. Sales training courses too often focus on helping you sell to the customer, and not enough on educating the customer to sell the decision to buy to his or her company. Your responses should relate back to each point you have already discussed. If the customer brings up a competitor, don’t put them down, but do point out why you are a better match for the customer.

Too often, you and your sales team have gone to countless hours of sales seminars and sales presentation training. These are usually led by a cheerleader, who is really modeling a particular sales process. Because their job is more to sell their companies’ sales products and really expensive sales training courses than to make you a better salesperson.

If your attitude from the beginning is that the sale is inevitable, it is easier to get the sales presentation into a conversational mode as opposed to a sales mode. Isn’t that what is taught in sales negotiation training al the time? People do not want to be sold. People want to buy. They don’t want to be sold a solution. They want to buy something to make their pain go away. And the more stress-free you can make this conversation, the easier the sale will be to accomplish.