Softer Side of Selling

Slumps happen. The baseball slugger can’t even hit the pitch in the center of the strike zone. Fish are jumping and being hooked by everyone but you. The rest of the sales team is hitting quota. But there you are wondering what’s going wrong. You are in a sales slump.

Take An Inventory Of Your Activities

Great salespeople know that successful selling is performing a specific set of activities well over and over again:

• Prospecting
• Qualifying
• Presenting
• Closing
• Following up

Measure the sales activity level for each of these. Compare the sales slump activity level against your peak performance. Great salespeople are excellent self-managers. They continually evaluate their performance and make improvements to overcome weaknesses….

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Ever hear these buyer resistance comments? “We are doing just fine.” “Our current vendor is performing well.” “Now is not the time to make a change.” Or a hundred other put offs the buyer uses.

The Need To Break Through Buyer Resistance Thinking

Thomas Williams and Thomas Saine (Tom&Tom for short) in their book “The Seller’s Challenge” recommend using Insight-Driven conversations. These conversations open the recalcitrant buyer’s mind to the potential of change. Great salespeople use facts and historical successes presented as an alternative way of looking at the current situation. These insight-driven conversations gently open the way for the great salesperson to overcome buyer resistance.

An Example Of Overcoming Buyer Resistance

When I worked for a safety products distributor, a railroad company sent a letter asking for a 5% reduction in price. The buyer there considered earplugs, gloves, hard hats and other safety products commodities and sought vendors to compete on price. Good for the buyer, not so good for the seller. Using insight-driven selling, our sales team moved the conversation from commodity pricing to reducing workplace injuries. The national accounts manager asked about the most common injury and found out it was employees being struck by trains in switching yards at night. Lost time and medical costs were significant. So, knowing this was a “pain point” for the safety manager, the national sales manager offered a solution of supplying custom designed highly reflective clothing. By making the employees highly visible, workplace injuries dropped. And the buyer’s mindset was changed from “low price commodity” to “concerned, helpful vendor”.

How Does It Work?

According to Tom&Tom, insight-driven conversations include:

• Create Curiosity – a statement to make the buyer curious enough to join the conversation
• Teach – a lesson which matches a buyer’s concern to your strength
• Share The Pain – show empathy by identifying a threat or negative outcome
• Show Contrast – take issue with the status quo and offer a solution
• Invite Collaboration – ask open ended question to find out buyer’s viewpoint and encourage dialog
• Provide Proof – use history of success with other companies to validate your claim

By using inclusive language and open-ended questions, great salespeople overcome buyer resistance. They realize that insight-driven selling is not a linear, step-by-step process. It includes all the elements but great salespeople know when to engage each element and when to switch to another to overcome buyer resistance.

What You Can Do Right Now

Think about all the “excuses” buyers use to put you off.

For each excuse you regularly hear, write as many ideas as you can for each of the six elements to overcome buyer resistance above.

Practice including them in your sales conversations to create “pain” in the buyer.

Make sure you rehearse so the ideas are natural, not scripted. Great salespeople listen to the buyer and move the conversation toward the outcome they are looking for.

To learn more sales secrets see Chapter Ten, Finding the Pain, in Secrets of the Softer Side of Selling. For even more sales help, join our FREE Sales Club! “See” you next week.

Good selling!
Don Crawford & Lois Carter Crawford

 

Has it happened to you? The phone call from an upset customer. Or your boss gets the phone call and tells you to fix it. Worse yet you walk into a meeting with the customer and he unloads on you. How do you handle the angry customer?

Every Sale Has Three Possible Outcomes

When we meet our customer’s expectations they have a “moment of truth”. The desired outcome from a sale is a “moment of magic” where we exceed the customer’s expectations. But, oh my, the customer experienced a “moment of misery” when we failed to meet their expectations. The challenge for the great salesperson is to convert those moments of misery to moments of magic or at least moments of truth. Great salespeople are mediators when dealing with an angry customer

The First Step Is To Clarify The Concern

When I managed a sales office for a safety products distributor, occasionally one of the customer service reps would rush into my office. An angry customer had called to complain about an order. I asked two questions: “Did anyone die?” and “Was production stopped?” Usually the answers were “no”. So then I would say: “It should be an easy problem to solve.” It is very important when helping an angry customer to be sure you completely understand the problem from their point of view. Great salespeople ask enough questions to completely understand the angry customer’s concern. By getting to the heart of the problem, the great salesperson shows empathy.

Verify The Customer’s Concern

In my experience there are always two sides to an angry customer’s problem. The customer’s expectations and how my company met those expectations. Great salespeople have good relationships throughout their company. If the customer is upset about a missed delivery date, check to see what was promised. When the customer received the wrong items, find out why. Maybe the contract terms were met by your company but misunderstood by the angry customer. Great salespeople find out how and why an error occurred.

Satisfy The Angry Customer

Once the great salesperson knows all there is about the problem from both the customer and seller, they set about solving the problem. Dick Musto was the VP of Engineering for manufacturing company I worked for. We designed, fabricated and installed custom equipment. Since each project was unique there were occasional opportunities for moments of misery. Dick Musto’s question for the salesperson was: “What is the customer’s solution?” Often that was the best approach to solve the problem. And, as Dick Musto reasoned if the solution worked, the customer’s ego was stroked and a moment of misery was turned into a moment of magic. Great salespeople are empowered to find acceptable solutions for angry customers.

The Customer Is Always Right

Except when they are wrong. Misunderstandings do occur. When we were shopping for new car we test-drove a model we really liked. Unfortunately it had already been sold. But the salesperson said he could get one “just like it” from a neighboring dealer. When the new car arrived it was “almost just like” the one we test drove. The price was a little less because of the missing features. We wanted the roof rack as seen on the car we test drove and the weatherproof floor mats. Adding those features to the car we were offered would have increased the price more than we wanted. The dealer offered concessions and we agreed to pay a bit more to get the features to make it “just like” the one we tested. Complex sales are made with comprehensive contracts. How the customer interprets the contract may differ from the seller’s intention. While the seller is “legally justified” in their position, great salespeople work with the angry customer to create a moment of magic.

After The Problem Is Solved Follow Up

Great salespeople know that future business depends on how well the angry customer feels in the end. Was the final resolution a moment of magic? Has the seller’s company made the changes necessary to prevent a reoccurrence? Great salespeople go the extra mile to be sure the relationship will continue for future business.

To learn more sales secrets see Chapter Fourteen, Post Sale Secrets and Activities, in Secrets of the Softer Side of Selling. For even more sales help, join our FREE Sales Club! “See” you next week.

Good selling!
Don Crawford & Lois Carter Crawford

Have you ever lost a big order? Been fired? Had a bad day or week? It’s all part of life as a great salesperson. And they are great because they are mentally tough. Great salespeople go out each day to succeed sometimes to fail but whatever happens, they pick themselves up and do it all over again.

Remember The One That Got Away?

I remember one sale I had worked really hard on back in my early days as a professional salesperson. The order was for five supplied air carts for a safety department at a paper mill. I had convinced the safety manager I had the best product and the best price. He had put the requisition through to the buyer with my company as the vendor of choice. But the buyer had a buddy at the competing company and gave them a chance to meet my offer. I lost the business.

I was angry. First with the buyer who, in my opinion, had no integrity. Then with myself for not building a better relationship with the buyer….

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