A sales hack to 10 X growth......... #77
- Adrian Dionisio - business737 owner
- Sep 5, 2022
- 7 min read
Updated: Mar 19, 2024
What is your sales method? Your system? Your process? You have to have one because sales is the life blood of your business. Here is a highly effective process you can use.
Firstly it is important to understand sales. Sales is scientific. Like all other business skills it can be learned. It is not sleazy, slimy, underhanded. If your product / service has true value, you are helping people make a good choice.
Don’t be scared of being told no. Embrace the fear, rejection, knock backs and bruised ego. Get comfortable with it because the more it happens the more sales you will get. Understand the process. Sales it the game. The only way for your business to grow and increase profit is to get more sales.
When selling think of yourself as a Doctor.
I enjoy listening to Brain Tracey. Recently I have been listening to many of his audio books while driving. It’s good when learning and positivity are combined. He urges us to view the sales as a logical and well thought out sequential process.
In your mind position yourself as a helper. This will take the pressure off of you and the pressure off your customer too. In the sales process you are like a Doctor.
Examine the patient, make a diagnosis and then prescribe the treatment. The sales process mirrors this. Too many people jump straight to the prescription without any questions, any examination or diagnosis. Imagine your Dr did this! So why do so many people try to sell in such an illogical way?
Let’s now dig a bit deeper.
7 Step Framework for Sales Excellence
Here are 7 steps to guide your sales process and presentation
1. Get in front of the right people
2. Build relationships
3. Ask questions
4. Make the offer
5. Respond to objections
6. Make the sale
7. Get repeat sales & referrals
1. Get In front of the right people
You must prospect properly. Very simple. Who is your target customer? This is who you should be in front of.
Interest is good, but useless if the interest cannot be turned into the sale. A quick example. Too many people over emphasise the importance of social media. Likes and views do not automatically convert into sales. Don’t make this mistake. Marketing and sales are interconnected but two separate processes.
It all starts with finding the people who need what you have to offer and who are willing to buy. Know your customer (read more) and get face to face with them.
2.Build relationships
It is important to build relationship to gain trust, rapport and confidence. The best way to do this is to make people feel heard and understood. They will then have a natural affinity towards you.
People need to be able to trust a business before they buy from them. What this means is that consumers are willing to reward businesses when they work to build trust.
Personalise your interaction. Make that human to human connection. Do it on a much more personal level. It is important to make an effort to create relationships beyond simple transactions. Why? It's because connected customers tend to become repeat customers and repeat customers are vital to business growth, profitability and success (read more).
When you connect deeply, you are much more likely to understand their requirements, resolve their problems, and create a sense of mutual understanding with them.
You build trust by listening. Get them talking by asking questions and listening to the answers. Why is this important? Continue reading below.
3. Ask questions
Ask questions to find out exactly how you can help people out. Ask questions to discover their needs, wants, desires and problems.
How can you help if you don’t really know what they need or want help with?
The purpose of asking questions is to find their hot buttons (wants, needs, desire and problems). Then use these hot buttons to make the sale because you can offer exactly what they want.
Make and let them talk. Remember, listening builds trust.
Ask questions to understand the current situation
Ask questions to uncover the problems and/or pain points from the current situation.
Ask further questions to enable the buyer to understand the impact of problems
Ask questions to help the customer see the value in your solutions.
Whoever is asking the question is in control. Sit back and listen intently, it is here that all is revealed. The mistake most people make is that they do all the talking in an effort to convince the customer. Do the opposite.
Imagine there is a swivel spotlight that shines on whoever is talking. You want the spotlight to be shining on the customer for most of the interaction. Let them talk, let them feel comfortable and understood. Most importantly let them tell you exactly how you can sell them.
Remember classic 4 questions, open ended questions, who, what, why, when . how , which.
· How so?
· Why is that?
· Can you tell me more about that?
· What caused that to happen?
· How'd that make you feel?
· Did it improve or get worse?
4. Make the offer
Here is where you offer your help. You should by now understand their problems and what they want and need. So now you offer to help them get what they want.
Talk about the change that will take place in the customer’s life. Remember that buying is emotional (read more) Aim to engage and impassion through emotional interaction. Communicate the predominated emotions and benefits associated with your business's offering;
Sales success is based on knowledge, understanding, belief and listening (read more). The number one key in sales is to reduce the anxiety of the person spending the money.
5. Respond to objections
Develop powerful response to each objection. What is the best answer to each possible objection, pre plan the answers.
There are 8 common forms of objection:
1 Unspoken Objection
Ask good questions, let them talk and find out more
2 Excuses
“I can’t afford it. I don’t want it. I’m not in the market. And so on”.
These are instinctive not personal but not really serious either.
Nod, smile, agree and ask a question to take control of the conversation. Say something similar to below:
"Alright most people in your situation felt the same way when I first called on them, but now they have become our best customers and they recommend us to their friends and family."
3 Malicious Objections
People that are unhappy or angry at their current situation may take it out on you. Realise that you are not the target and your job as a professional is remain calm, confident, positive and polite throughout and again take control by asking questions.
4 Request for Information
This is the best type of objection to hear because you know how to answer
This is the best type of objection for you to hear because you know how to answer this as well or better than any other part of your presentation.
Whenever your prospect asks for the results or benefits of your product or service you are moving into an excellent field position to make a sale.
5 Show off Objection
Sometimes prospects like to show you how much they already know about your products and services. They make sophisticated observations or ask you complex questions about your product, service or industry.
When this happens respond by taking the low road. Show how impressed you are about how much the prospect already knows.
"Boy you know a lot about this. I didn’t realize that. Wow".
Flattery is wonderful way to build a good quality relationships. Remember you make a prospect feel important by listening to them and giving them attention.
6 Personal/Subjective Objections
These are aimed at you as a person. Whenever a prospect becomes critical of you, it could be a sign that you are talking too much about yourself.
If this happens it is important to make the customer the centre of attention and the subjective objections will stop. How do you do that? You start asking questions about the customer and listening closely to the answers.
7 Objective/ Factual Objection
These are directed at your product or service offering and at the claims that you make in terms of what it will do for the customer.
If you can answer objective questions like: How does this work? How can I be sure it will do this? What kind of proof do you have? If you can answer this type of objection you can often close the sale. People often ask objective objections when they are just about ready to buy and they just need a little more reassurance.
8 General Sales Resistance:
May I ask you a question? or May I ask you a couple of questions?
When the prospect says yes he has also said I will answer the questions if you ask them. This is an wonderful way to break the ice and lower resistance.
6. Close the sale
One of the most powerful close is the invitational close
Ask “ how do you like this so far?” – if they say it looks ok, say “why don’t you give it a go, give it a try”
If they say no simply ask “why not” and respond to the objection.
Another method is the reverse close;
"if we could take care of that…would you give it a try"?
Then convince them you can take care of that!
The most important word in sales is ASK.
Ask politely, confidently , courteously but ask – don’t be afraid to ask.
Ask and you shall receive
Many sales are missed not because of poor technique- but because of no technique. Ask for the sale! Too many sales are missed because of not asking!
One last point, after you ask make sure you pause. Stop. Buying decisions are made in the silence, so pause.
7. Resales and referrals
These are the key to your future. Remember ask . Ask and you shall receive
9 out of 10 people trust peer recommendations. This is why you want to motivate your customers to become "promoters" of your business. You do this by enticing them to share information about what you do with anyone and everyone they know.
Ensure resale with a fantastic customer experience. Make sure they are happy and your business had delivered over and above the promise
Conclusion
Do you want to double your income? Well you’ll have to double your sales. What's the easiest way to do that? You double the amount of qualified prospects you get in front of. Never forget the most important word in sales. Ask. And finally
You can get everything you want in life if you will just help enough other people get what they want
Comments