Implementing a sales program to bring in more business takes planning that the average company normally does not provide to the activity. Too many companies are just sending people into the market with a basic understanding of the products or services to be sold, a few techniques on how to find and approach the prospect and hope that this energy will snag a new customer. It is a waste of time!

The approach to selling has gone through a number of iterations in the past ten to fifteen years. First it was product sales through introduction. Gosh, every one needs soap, so why not buy some. We then saw competition come into the market so we started to brand our bar of soap and define some benefits you can have by using our soap. When everyone started to show the same benefits we decided to have soap as part of a consulting initiative where there was a technique for using our soap that made it that much more effective as soap and the results to you were clearly visible. At this point we have evolved to consultative sales techniques. As competition started to also be consultative we put more sophistication into our selling and called it “strategic selling”. Our soap became part of a broader strategy that if used in combination with other products such as perfumes, and special water treatments, our soap now made a longer term fit in the customer’s requirements. So strategically our soap has developed a sophistication value and became part of the whole portfolio theme. This is where the twentieth century ended for our soap guys. Not all products have the characteristic simplicity of soap, however.

With most products and services, selling at the business to business level, selling into the global marketplace requires different definitions for where the market really is and different standards for measuring our success in getting into this market. We have to realize that no company can afford to be all things to all people. This means that our marketer must focus. To focus we must define who and where the top tier customer is and how do we get there as our first step. The top tier customer is that person who is willing to pay for the value added we can produce (i.e. give us the margins we want) and will normally repeat that sale if this is important to us. Once we know who we want, we need to fine tune the message we provide and set standards for ourselves around how many steps it will take to secure each sale. This message confirms the “customer promise” (what the customer expects) and defines the value proposition that our business must deliver (we set up centers of excellence behind the value proposition). The standards define the resources we need to get the results we must have. The next article in this series will describe how to hook that customer.

Customer “Hot Button” is a term that describes the important information we must find and retain during the questioning or discovery process. Without these hot buttons we cannot even begin to offer a product or service. Why? Because we don’t know what they need. We may think we know – but we really don’t. Not yet. This important information we are looking for can be separated into two categories: Absolutes and Primary Motivating Factors.

Absolutes are the specifics the customer wants from your product or service. It may be timely delivery, competitive value, or quality. This can be determined simply by asking a great open question like…

“What is important to you when selecting product x?”

Primary Motivating Factors are the real reasons the customer needs your product or service. These are the emotions behind the logic or the reason why they want your product now. We learn and understand primary motivating factors by asking another good open question like…

“Why is that important to you?”

After we completely understand the customer’s situation through good questioning and careful listening, it is important for us to summarize back to the customer what we think we have just heard. The final step during the discovery phase of a sale is to confirm with the customer that we truly understand their situation. We do this by repeating back to them what we have learned and asking the customer whether or not we are correct. The discovery summary shows the customer that we are listening and paying attention and concerned about his/her needs. It also commits the customer to an unspoken contract.

“If you meet these needs, I’ll give you my business.” The Discovery Summary

If you follow this simple format, your discovery summary will flow nicely and sound very organized to the customer. Keep in mind, up to this point in the conversation you have been listening at least 60% of the time...so this should be no problem – right?

1. Introduce the summary: "Let’s review what we talked about to make sure I understand your situation…"
2. Bridge into summary: "Your current situation is…"
3. Bridge into desired situation: "The right product would allow you to…"
4. Confirm your summary: "Does that accurately sum up your situation? Did I miss anything?"

Finding the true needs through simple open ended questions combined with the power of a discovery summary can really turn up the heat for your customer. If you have done a good job digging for the real needs and summarizing then you are ready to ask for action.

Hectic schedules and busy workdays eat away at our time. They eat away at your prospect's time, too. When you land a meeting or a phone call, the most important thing you can do is say “thank you for your time.” Here are a few tried and true methods for saying “thank you” that will keep you fresh in your prospect's mind:

1. Send a quick “thank you” email. The secret is in the system. Save the text of your “thank you” email as a draft so you can quickly copy and paste it into a new email composition. This way, you can quickly send out emails to prospects after phone calls or face to face meetings. You want to sound polite and grateful, and you also want to remind your client about why you're qualified to do the job. Here's the email I send out after phone meetings:

Hi {{NAME}},

Pleasure talking with you today; thanks for your time. Keep me in mind if you need informative copy written in an engaging, accessible style. Experience working in the marketing and creative departments of a software promotions firm, as well as my years of experience as a copywriter means I understand audience and have a strong command of language. Please view some samples of my work at: www.wonderworkingwords.com.

I look forward to working with you down the line. Best of continued success.

2. Follow your email with a “thank you” card. Pick a card that's eye-catching and artistic. A lovely card is more likely to hang around your prospect's desk space or be displayed on a tack board; learn to think of a card that's not immediately thrown away as free advertising. Handwritten cards are best, as are hand addressed and stamped envelopes. Details like this tell your prospect you care.

3. Follow your “thank you” card with a phone call. Remember, anytime you send your prospects something in the mail, you have a ready made excuse to make yet one more touch and keep you and your product or services fresh in their minds. Did they receive what you sent them? Do they have any questions you can answer? You communicate your availability while creating a positive experience for them to associate with you.

Employing these few tips, you'll be leaps ahead of your competition...and that much closer to making the sale.

1. Create an irresistible offer. You have to give McDonalds credit for the “supersize me” offer. It may only generate another 40p or 50p per sale, but because it's such an irresistible offer, more than 30% of customers will say yes. And that 40p or 50p is almost all profit, as the company's fixed costs have already been absorbed in the price of the smaller item. The scale of the offer must be relative to the purchase, but once you have acquired the customer you can start to create lifetime value.

2. Add point of sale purchases. Those associated purchases or impulse buys that the supermarkets put by the checkouts aren’t an accident. Small low-price items that are perfectly positioned will face the least resistance from a buyer who’s already decided to make a purchase from you.

3. Get them hooked with a free sample. Prospects that test your product or service risk-free will hopefully recognize its value and continue purchasing what you offer. Or even better, your prospect will get "hooked" on your product or service and won't be able to live without it. And the fact that it was given away free will compel them to return the favour by continuing to purchase from you. This principle is called the "Law of Reciprocity". Simply stated, people naturally feel an obligation to return favours as a way of expressing their thanks.

4. Educate them if they could use the product differently; benefit more from using associated products in conjunction; buy this much, get this one free, etc. Remember the famous story of the shampoo company who doubled their sales with the simple phrase “rinse and repeat”.

5. “Other customers who bought XYZ also bought…” This clever approach is used by many online retailers to position more of their product lines in front of customers who might be interested. Where key components like batteries aren’t included, make sure you offer them.

6. Communicate with customers more often about your full offering as part of your sales process. This could take the form of newsletters, emails, mailshots, letters, advertising and PR, events, brochures and literature.

7. Consider what else your customers buy that you could sell. The more you know about your customers, the more back-end products and services you can provide. This means that their main purchase simply becomes a foot-in-the-door, and now you can increase the frequency of purchase and average spend

8. Offer incentives and discounts. By understanding the lifetime value of customers, i.e. the total value of their spend during their time as a customer, you can decide how much you are prepared to discount to get them back through the door

9. Position yourself as an expert to gain their trust and confidence. Through your PR, direct communications and website, you can provide information, reviews, reports, and details on your specialist area. Customers often don’t know the right questions to ask, so help them out

10. Review your ordering process to see if you are making it difficult for people to buy from you. Look at your website cart abandonment rate or try a mystery shopper service

11. Are you focusing on the benefits? Customers only care what you can do for them. Benefits build rapport by demonstrating that you understand their point of view. If you don’t know what they are, ask your customers. You can never know too much about why people buy from you.

12. Are your staff selling? By testing, measuring and analysing all your marketing and sales processes, you can see where the majority of initial sales and back-end sales take place. Are your best people in place to exploit those opportunities?

13. Do you have enough stages in your sales process? Constantly chasing prospects after they've shown an interest can be soul-destroying and border on pushy salesmanship. But by having a longer sales process, prospects are moved from one stage to the next over a period of time, constantly informed and educated, and reminded of your services. Just because they didn’t buy doesn’t mean they’re not interested in what you sell, so ensure you have at least seven stages in your sales process, including emails, mailshots, brochures, PR, web downloads, and phone calls.

You’re probably wondering, is this some new technique or gimmick? The answer is an emphatic, no. Techniques and gimmicks are part of the problem not part of a process that leads to increased sales, and long-lasting relationships that bring additional sales plus new sales from referrals. After all, wouldn’t you rather talk to a referral than place a cold call any day? You can develop a referral based business and it begins when you make a commitment to stop selling and start helping people to buy.

When you hear the words “sales person” what comes to mind? The car salesperson who asks, “What will it take to sell you a car today?” The real estate agent that tries to convince you that this property is perfect for you even though it doesn’t meet your essential criteria. Perhaps you think of the insurance agent that tells you that you can’t afford not to buy this insurance if you care about your family, even though they haven’t asked you a single question about your perception of the value of this insurance to your family. You know that you do not want to be this “sales” person. You know that while these sales tactics may work, they will never help you to grow a base of loyal customers that come back to you for repeat sales and freely send referrals to you.

Many of you have had extensive “sales” training. The truth is that most of that training was related to product/service knowledge and prepared you to present a scripted presentation intended to have them eating out of your hands. So, how’s that working for you? That’s what I thought. If that alone worked so well you would have stopped reading long before this point.

So how do you stop selling and increase your revenues? The answer comes from learning how to help people to buy rather than selling to them. The most significant difference between selling and helping someone buy is the mental mind set that comes from being an “assistant buyer” versus a “sales person”. An “assistant buyer” doesn’t sell anyone anything ever! An “assistant buyer” is an expert listener and focuses the conversation on the buyer, on their needs and wants. The “assistant buyer” helps the customer to buy exactly what they want in the exact manner that they have told the “assistant buyer” that they like to buy! That sounds remarkably easy doesn’t it? It is, once you’ve learned how to readjust your thinking and interaction with the customer in a manner that helps them to both like and trust you.

Start developing your assistant buyer skills today. As an assistant buyer you will want to: become a net-weaver helping others and making connections, learn that questions are the key to sales, place the needs of others ahead of your own, seek first to understand and then to help, be trustworthy and respected by everyone around you, and realize that you are making lifetime relationships. As you make changes and improvements in your skills you will begin to achieve remarkable sales while building strong relationships that lead to your long-term success with far less work.

Have you ever witnessed a terrible sales presentation? I remember one which was so bad I couldn't look, it was so embarrassing.

James had gone to a lot of expense to travel to another city with his team and rent a meeting room. It was critical that the presentation was a success, because he was looking for half a million dollars of financing from investors.

At 10:00 am the room was full and James walked up to the front. 'Thanks for making it here today, everybody. We've got something exciting to show you.'

Then he clicked on his laptop and . . . nothing. Clicked again . . . still nothing.

'Just a second folks, we've got a little technical hitch'.

Five minutes later, when neither James nor his technician could get anything showing on the projector screen, he decided to try and just describe with words what his concept was about and why the investors should put their money into it.

But he hadn't got a script, it was all in the laptop and ½ an hour later, the room cleared. It was over, an utter failure.

That might be an extreme example, but here is a simple and effective structure you can always use to make a strong presentation. It's easy to remember, PPP and Call to Action.

Problem - Describe a problem that the customer has that you can supply a good solution to. Choose something relevant to the customer and the industry he or she is in, as the problem, of course. Ideally an issue which is expensive / time-consuming / frustrating or a combination of all of these.

Promise - Make a Promise. 'Our product (or service) can fix that problem'.

Proof - Don't just make an unsupported claim, supply some convincing evidence. 'Look at the results that customers are getting using the product'.

Call to Action - 'This is what you have to do now to get things moving ' - and invite the prospect to have a demonstration, book a test drive, place an order, as appropriate for your situation. The call to action must achieve a degree of commitment by the customer, so that he or she is moving closer to purchasing.

Memorize this simple formula and you will find that having a structure makes any sales presentation easier and more effective.

Hey salesman, how much are you going to earn this week? You think it all depends on your luck?

So did I, once.

Then at the Monday morning sales meeting we had to attend, my Sales Manager put me wise to this.

'Robert, how much do you want to earn next week?'

Not having a clue about what he was about to tell me and with a certain amount of bravado, I said, 'One thousand pounds'. This was 1980, so it was about 5 times an average wage.

Ian, the manager said, 'Ok, let's make sure that you do'.

Here is the process he took me through: 'What's the value of your average sale?' 'I replied, 'About 2,500 pounds'.

'And how much commission do you make on that?' I told him, 'My commission rate is 10%, so I'm paid 250 pounds on that order value'.

'Ok, so you need 4 sales this week to make 1,000 pounds commission. But let's say it's five, just in case some of your deals are smaller'.

'What is your usual closing rate?'

I answered, 'I can usually get an order, one out of every three presentations'.

'So that means you need to do 15 presentations this week. In order to get an appointment, how much prospecting do you need to do? How many people do you have to talk to?'

Looking at my reporting sheets, I was able to work out that on average I had to talk to 12 people to get an appointment.

'So if we multiply 15 by 12, you need to talk to 180 people this week to make your big pay day happen. How many days are you going to work?'

I told him, 'Six'.

'Then you need to speak with 30 people every day. Get started'.

So I did. That week I knocked on 180 doors - literally, talked to the people, made the appointments, went back and did my presentations and, with a bit of hustling on Sunday, to bring in the last reluctant order, I made the necessary total.

Next Thursday, my pay of just over one thousand pounds was deposited to my bank account.

You can apply the same formula, too. What's luck got to do with it?