Tag Archives for " qualifying "

Get Out Of The Way And Let Them Buy

For most people just about everything you’ve ever been taught about sales or selling is wrong. Things like “Always be closing” or “Close early and often” or “Every “No” is one step closer to a “Yes”” have been taken so far out of context it’s no wonder the average person has a bad impression of sales people.

Too many people trying to sell their products or services don’t listen and think that sales is all about overcoming objections and closing. Well, that’s only if you are doing it the wrong way.

I know I’ve talked about this before but this is vitally important if you want to make more sales without creating pressure or stress for both you and your prospect so I am going to talk about it again.

Stop using old-school battlefield styles sales tactics and start helping your prospects buy when they are ready to buy. In other words; “Get out of the way and let them buy“. The old adage; people love to buy but hate to be sold is true so why fight it. Help them buy.

Ask yourself what problems your clients are trying to solve. How can you help them make the best decision for them? Even if it means they don’t buy now or maybe not ever. What’s best for them?

If you are going make a presentation don’t make it all about you. Believe it or not nobody cares how great you or you company are. What they care about is will what you have solve their problem?

How well do you know you prospect’s or client’s challenges? Can you describe their pain, you know, the problems that have them worried or keep them up at night, better than they can? When you can they will know you understand and that you are the expert.

If you can’t then you need to do your homework and start asking your prospects and clients what their greatest fears and worries are. Then determine if what you have to offer solves the problem. If it doesn’t what do you need to change so that it does? If it does what do you need to change about how you present it so that they know it’s what they need?

How can you help them figure it out? The simplest way is by asking questions and caring what the answer is. You show you care when you listen and ask probing questions to really understand their situation. You prove you’re just a salesperson and that you only care about the sale when you pounce on the first problem they mention and start selling and overcoming objections like it’s an Olympic wrestling match.

If you, or your company, is doing marketing the right way then you should only be working with prospects that are a 7 or better (1 to 10 scale) in terms of being ready to make a purchase. If you determine someone is a 6 or lower they should be put back into your marketing process to maintain top of mind awareness until they raise their hand again indicating they might be ready to move forward.

If you are cold calling you will need to do a proper analysis to determine if they have a need that they want to solve now or not. If they do you move forward if not you move on but you put them into a nurturing process so they come back to you when they’re ready.

You will find that when you align your sales process with your prospects needs instead of trying to get them to align with your sales process you will make more sales in less time with less pressure or stress for both you and your clients.

Share with me what changes you are going to make of questions you have about how you would implement this in your sales situation.

3 Secrets To Successful Follow Up

Did you know that according to recent research 49% of all leads are never followed up on?

Why do you think that is?

From the clients I’ve worked with it seems there are several reasons.

1. Lack of automation – many people are still trying to do their follow up one at a time and when they don’t get to it right away they rationalize that it’s too late so they don’t bother at all.
   • The problem is that a lot of people were specifically looking for what you had to offer and when you rationalize not following up all you’re doing is lying to yourself so you can avoid a perceived discomfort. You owe it to anyone that reaches out to you to follow up with them.
   • Solution: Automate as much of your follow up as you can. Use an auto-responder to immediately reply with the most common information you know your prospects want and a strong call to action encouraging them to take the next step. Then follow that up with a phone call.
2. Fear of rejection – this is one of the most common reasons I’ve found for failure to follow up. This is robbing you and your prospect in so many ways it is really a whole post all by itself.
   • Solution – Change the way you think and the objective you have for the follow up. The fact is the prospect is asking for information. Now, you’re real job is to see if they are qualified for what you have to offer. You are not calling to make a sale so there is no way you can be rejected. If they are qualified, great, you can make an offer. If they aren’t qualified, great, you can help them out by pointing them in the right direction. Either way you win and either way you owe if to the prospect to help them out.
3. Too busy to keep up – This is a great problem to have but only if you have it because you are dealing with more clients than you can handle. Most of the time the only reason this is an issue is because (if you will be honest with yourself) you’re too busy doing busy work or chasing prospects that keep putting you off but won’t say “No”.
   • Solution – Learn to properly qualify prospects in or out and stop chasing the people that are never going to sign up. In fact don’t chase at all. Get them out of your pipeline to make room for people that are ready to do business now. Put everyone else in an automated drip to maintain top of mind awareness and let them raise their hand and tell you when they are ready.

If you dig deep you will find that there are more reasons people don’t follow up on their leads but I have found these 3 to be the most common. If you aren’t following up on all of your leads figure out why and fix it. You will find that many of the leads you aren’t getting to are the ones just waiting to sign up.

Let me know what challenges you’ve had with following up on leads and while you’re at it tell me what you’re going to do to solve the problem.

What Makes A Great Sales Presentation?

How many times have you been called and the person on the other end of the phone can’t even say your name right and they don’t even so much as ask a qualifying question? Worse yet they just plow into their presentation as if you have to listen. To make matters worse it’s obvious their reading and not all that well either.

Is that your idea of a good presentation?

How about the last time you walked onto a car lot? Did you get swarmed like fresh meat? Then did the salesperson you were with proceed to do their best to get you to test drive something, anything, and then they want you to just see what the numbers work out to be. It’s almost as if they are trained to ignore anything you say as long as they can get you to the table so you can be closed.

Or maybe you’ve had the pleasure of going on one of those timeshare presentations. You know the ones where they bribe you to spend 90 minutes to listen to a presentation that’s supposed to make you fall in love with their offer especially when they grind you at the end and they make you an offer that’s only good today. And the session went past 90 minutes an hour ago.

Does anyone really think these are good presentations?

I sure don’t think so. With a blog called “Healthy Selling” you shouldn’t be surprised to hear me tell you that not everyone is someone you should be selling.

The key to a good presentation is making it to someone that can genuinely benefit from what you have to offer.

The next and most important part of a good presentation is taking the time to find out what your prospect wants and needs really are. Then and only then are you ready to give a presentation based on your proposed solution.

We’ve all heard about the radio station W.I.I.F.M., better known as, “What’s In It For Me”. Well that’s what a good presentation is all about… What’s in it for them.

Many salespeople only get part of this right and what I mean by that is they don’t go deep enough with the qualifying. For instance since I can help someone double their sales I might ask them what it would mean to their business if they were to double their sales. Then when they answer me I will ask them to tell me why the answer they just gave is important. The answer to the last question is the one that unlocks their hot button for me.

Think about what I just said. It is the key to their hot button. This is the way to find out what truly motivates your prospect or clients. Most sales people negotiate on price because they get just enough sales to think that’s the right way to do it. The truth is, if you qualify your prospect properly. Uncover real needs that they agree they’re committed to solving. And your prospect can invest what it takes to solve those problems all you have to do is help them see the cost of staying in their current situation versus the benefit of what you have to offer.

If you don’t quantify their current situation and instead jump into a presentation because you think you know what they need you will be making a poor presentation.

On the other hand if you find out what your prospect is motivated by and you can help them then a presentation built around solving their problems or helping them get what they want is a good presentation. No, make that a great presentation!