Softer Side of Selling

Secrets of the Softer Side of Selling

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Sales Skills: Keep Customer Relationships Fresh

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Great salespeople know that “out of sight is out of mind.” They keep customer relationships fresh by regularly meeting with their best customers. One way to keep in touch now that COVID 19 has limited face-to-face meetings is to simply make a phone call. But don’t call to make a sale. Call just to learn how your customer is doing and how COVID pandemic has changed their business.

Handshake showing affirmative customer relationship

Great Salespeople Keep Customer Relationships Fresh
Image from Pixabay

Ask For Feedback

Keeping your customers happy requires good communication and feedback. Don’t be afraid to ask your customers how you are doing. You may find out some very valuable information—like why they keep using your services or products, or that they are unhappy with something that you need to fix ASAP. By speaking with your customers you can find out a lot about customer relationships. How do you think you are doing? Do your customers like you? Why do they keep using your service or business? Or why do they leave? Are you afraid to ask? Do you think that if you ask, you’ll get an ear-full?

What Should You Ask?

Are you wondering how to start the conversation? Here are a few questions to ask your good customers:

  • How did your company originally select us as a supplier? (This reinforces their decision.)
  • What do you like best about dealing with us? (Points to remember when prospecting.)
  • If you could change anything to improve our relationship, what would it be? (Fix the problems immediately!)
  • How can our company increase market share? (Good customers are eager to help and like to be asked for advice.)
  • How does our company stack up against the competition? (You need to know this.)
  • If you were the CEO of our company, how would you go about holding on to good customers like yourself? (They’ll tell you.)

Keep ’em Talking

Did you notice? These are all open-ended questions designed to get and keep the customer talking. Remember, your role as a salesperson is to ask good questions and listen to the answers. Make sure the customer is talking more than you are. When you allow your customer to speak they feel cared about. That’s the feeling you want engender to keep customer relationships fresh.

What Can You Do Right Now To Keep Customer Relationships Fresh?

  • Make a plan to regularly call your best customers
  • Call to thank them for their business
  • Ask questions which lead you to understand how to keep the customer relationship fresh

To learn more, see Chapter 22, Customer Management, 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

The COVID Recession Is Here

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Of course it is. You might not know it looking at the stock market indexes. But look at restaurant closings, retail store bankruptcies, airline passenger miles. We are in a period of poor economic times. But one lesson I learned from my father is his belief that “just because there is a recession, you don’t have to participate.” So what do great salespeople do to survive now that the COVID recession is here?

Chart showing precipitous decline in sales.

Don’t Let COVID Kill Your Sales
Image by Mediamodifier from Pixabay

Listen To Your Best Customers During The COVID Recession

Your customers’ reaction to their markets determines how it will affect your business with them. Keep in close touch with your A list customers. Ask good questions about their outlook. Find out their plans to deal with this business disruption. Share this information within your company so you can adjust your business plans to survive or better yet thrive during this COVID recession….

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Nobody Buys What You Are Selling!

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You are probably thinking: “Crawford, you have really lost it now. This quarantine is getting to you. Of course they are buying what I’m selling. I got the sales to prove it.” Really? It’s true nobody buys what you are selling. Your customers buy because they are convinced your product or service will solve a problem they have. Great salespeople know that to make a sale they first have to identify the problem the prospect has. And they make the sale because they can put the buyer’s mind at ease by solving the problem. The product or service is a means to an end for the buyer, not the end itself.

Nobody buys a product or service. They make a purchase to solve a problem

Find A Problem – Make A Sale

First Find The Pain

All great salespeople have a selling system. The one I use challenges me to find the pain early. Yes, pain. All purchases are made emotionally even though it may feel like a rational approach to the buyer. Salespeople must discover the buyer’s problem and the impact of the problem. Once they understand the buyer’s need for change, great salespeople offer a solution to the problem. Depending on the severity of the problem price may be the least of the buyer’s concerns….

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Sales Skills: Growing Your Sales

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Great salespeople are always looking for ways to increase their customer base. Right now during this pandemic, you might be scrambling to deal with the effect on your current customers. And think you are too busy fighting fires to look for new customers. But then why would this time be any different? More intense maybe but great salespeople are always looking to find new customers. So slow down, take a breath and think about ways to grow your sales.

Look at the four ways to increase your sales

Grow Your Sales In These Four Areas

Where Do New Customers Come From?

Check out the graphic on this post. Growing your sales can only come from four sources. 1. Selling more of an existing product to an existing customer. This might be a challenge during this time of economic uncertainty when your customer might be struggling when demand for their product is falling. Or maybe one of your competitors is faltering in serving their customers and you can move in. …

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Sales Skills: The Pivot

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Great salespeople are always tuned in to when to use the pivot. Over the course of a long sales cycle pursuit things can change. And even in short sales cycle or one-call-close salespeople watch for changes in the buyer. How does the great salesperson know when to pivot? By asking good questions and actively listening.

Road Maestro used the pivot to start a side hussle

Great Salespeople Are Creative With The Pivot

What Is The Pivot?

So there you are great salesperson, moving through your sales process. During a sales call to move the prospect toward the close, you hear an answer you didn’t expect. That’s when you go back to earlier steps in the sales process. That’s the pivot. When you discover the need to move the sales process in a different direction….

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Great Salespeople Understand What They Control

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This is a challenging time for “road warrior” salespeople who like to be in control. The Corona virus pandemic has caused uncertainty in the economy. Businesses are trying to survive stay-at-home orders. Customers we had traditionally met with in person are now working from home. But yet great salespeople understand how to cope and even thrive. They know what they control and what they don’t.

Sail boat in full sail showing how the captain can control the sail but not the wind

Sailors Can’t Control The Wind But They Can Trim The Sails
Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay

How’s Your Attitude?

If ever there was a time in my life to be down, now is that time. Everything I have known and practiced in face-to-face selling has suddenly changed. I should be “bummed”. But I’m not. I have been working on what I can control. Attitude is one characteristic that sets great salespeople apart. They believe they are winners. No matter the barrier, great salespeople find some way to overcome it….

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Sales Skills: Dealing with “NO”

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Great salespeople are expert and dealing with “no”. It’s part of the sales process. Not every prospect is going to want or need your product or service. Sometimes salespeople are dealing with “no” for reasons outside of the control of either the buyer or the seller. Think about a company supplying food to restaurants when they were shut down during the pandemic. Recently the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project was shut down. Something the contractors never wanted to happen but didn’t control. Airplane manufacturers are dealing with “no” aircraft deliveries since airline traffic is drastically reduced. So what do great salespeople know about dealing with “no”.

All great salespeople see NO on the way to YES

Great Salespeople Are Expert Dealing With “NO”
Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

Get To “NO” Quickly

Prospecting is the art of finding good potential customers. Great salespeople know how to determine the quality of a prospect quickly. They are skilled at asking questions and actively listening to prospects answers. As soon as they find the prospect doesn’t have a need or want the product or service, doesn’t have the budget or the decision maker is apathetic about the project the salesperson has two choices. Either drop this sales pursuit and move on or determine how to overcome the barriers to this sale. Great salespeople are expert at evaluating a prospect….

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Sales Skills: The Take Away

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Great salespeople value their time. When you hit a stonewall and feel a customer or prospect is wasting your time use the “take away” technique. Whether it’s a confirmed meeting which keeps getting put off or an offer on the table without a decision a salesperson can take it away.

When great salespeople hit a stone wall. They use the "take away" technique.

A Sales Stonewall Calls For The Take Away Technique
Image from Pixabay

The Value Of The Take Away

Each day we are blessed with only 24 hours. To be great in sales we need to use each of the working hours achieving our goals. Sometimes we find ourselves in a situation where the customer or prospect just disappears. No matter how we try we never get a response. The “take away” is a tool we can use to shake up the prospect or customer. If they respond then we have rejuvenated the selling process. If not we move on and stop wasting time….

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Sales Skills: The Follow Up

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“Nothing ever happens in business until somebody sells something” is the old adage. So until you, great salesperson, close a deal your job is not finished. In these times of disruption of the traditional face-to-face selling process the follow up has a different look. Looking at a prospect on a screen offers a different set of feedback than sitting across the desk from them. But the follow up is still key to finding, winning and keeping good customers.

Great salespeople are skilled at follow up

Great Salespeople Use Follow Up Skills To Close More Business
Image from Pixabay

How Is It The Same In Virtual Selling?

First of all, great salespeople recognize the need for follow up. At the end of each sales call, virtual or not, you need to set the agenda for the next meeting. At each step of the sales process the salesperson seeks to gain insight into the prospect. For long sales cycle work follow up occurs on a schedule. For shorter sales cycle business, frequent follow up is important to maintain sales momentum….

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Sales Skills: The Sales Process

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Great salespeople have a sales process. Whether sitting face-to-face with a prospect or meeting virtually, every successful salesperson has a process to move the prospect toward the close. While each of us may apply the fundamentals differently, we all know following the sales process is vital to finding, winning and keeping good customers.

Sales is like fishing: follow the process to catch the big one

Proven Sales Process Lands The Big Ones
Image from Pixabay

The Fundamental Sales Process

Every sale begins with identifying a prospect who has a problem we can solve. Then we move the prospect through the fundamental steps of the sales process: Building rapport, finding the pain, discovering the budget, identifying the decision-making process, making the presentation, closing the sale and finally post sale activities. Some great salespeople do this one step at a time in sequence. Others may jump around in the sales process. The key is to have a process which is repeatable and successful when applied skillfully. (There are links to other blog posts which more fully deal with each step.)…

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