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Buyers consider a product as a commodity when there is no differentiation between brands or sellers. So what do they base their buying decision on? Price! Buyers pit sellers against each other to get the lowest price on a commodity product. But there are great salespeople who are very successful selling commodity products.

Develop Your USP For Commodity Products On One Component Of The Buying Experience
Image from Pixabay

Break The Commodity Product Mentality

We say there are three components to each purchase: quality, service and price. Buyers can’t get all three but they can choose which two are most important. Commodity products vary by quality. Copy paper made from recycled material is different than that made from new pulp, for example. But the same branded item purchased from multiple distributors has the same quality. So to break the commodity mentality about a product great salespeople focus on service and price….

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It happens. Years of a mutually beneficial relationship come to an end because your company screwed up and caused irreparable harm to the customer. But great salespeople know “I’ll never buy from you again” never lasts forever. Like Yoda, the legendary Jedi Master from Star Wars, great salespeople are wise and patient. They watch for opportunities for fixing a broken relationship.

Great Salespeople are Wise And Patient.
Image from Pixabay

Watch For Opportunity

Time heals all wounds, it has been said. Rose Kennedy had a slightly different take. She said the wounds remain but the pain lessens. Same happens in broken business relationships. Remember, at some point the relationship was mutually beneficial. Great salespeople keep in touch with past customers. They look for opportunities to rebuild the relationship….

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Ever gotten to the end of a sales call and don’t see the next step? Can’t seem to get the information you need to qualify a prospect? When was the last time you lost control of the sales call? Great salespeople know how to ask effective questions and are skilled in active listening. They are skilled at the art of qualifying hard and closing easy.

Active Listening Closes Sales
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Asking and Listening Is An Art

All successful selling is asking good, insightful questions and listening to the response. Then asking more questions and more listening. And again asking and listening until the great salesperson has enough information to make a successful presentation. Crafting and asking good questions is art. But understanding the different types of questions is important to the art of asking:

• • • Open-ended questions
    • Closed-ended questions
    • Reversing questions
    • Clarifying questions

Great salespeople have the skill to use each type of question effectively….

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Have you ever found yourself trying to relate to a decision maker who is anxiously awaiting your direct answer? Or being regaled by tales of adventures when you needed to get qualifying information? Maybe you didn’t realize the prospects communication style was different from yours. All of us enjoy conversations matching our style of communicating. Great salespeople know how to recognize the different fundamental communication styles. And they match their sales presentation to the prospects preferred style.

Great Salespeople Use The Communication Style Of The Prospect
Image from Pixabay

Four Fundamental Communication Styles

Think about a chart with a horizontal axis measuring how responsive a person is. The scale from left to right varies from being quiet, reserved and task oriented to those who are outgoing, gregarious and people oriented. The vertical axis measures from top to bottom how assertive one is. At the top of the scale are those who dominate a conversation while at the bottom of the scale are those who are more amiable. The two scales laid out form four quadrants:

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“Nobody wants to answer the phone!” “I can’t get anyone to talk to me!” “All I get is voicemail and no one calls back!” Any of these sound familiar. The challenge of setting good appointments for sales meetings is not new. Getting the opportunity to meet with prospects has been the professional sales person’s dilemma forever. But great salespeople have an effective system for setting appointments.

Every Sale Begins With Setting An Appointment
Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Who Do You Want To Meet With?

When you have developed a list of prospects who benefit from what you are selling, then you can begin setting appointments for sales meetings. Great salespeople know the characteristics of prospects making them good candidates for a sales pursuit. Referrals from your good customers are the highest priority. Then others who are like your best customers are the second tier. Your boss may have a target list for you or marketing will have prospects having contacted your company.

What’s The Reason To Meet With You?

Great salespeople know the value of the product or service they sell. And they can effectively communicate that to prospects. We all know “everybody is busy!” So why would a prospect want to set aside time from their busy day to meet with you? What do you bring to the sales meeting that will help them meet one of their goals? Great salespeople know how to sell the value of setting appointments from the prospects point of view.

Make A Game Of Setting Appointments

Ok, selling is serious business but adding a little sport helps great salespeople keep their schedule full. For prospects you don’t know the telephone is the best way to get their attention and get on their calendar. By speaking with them you can begin building rapport and gathering qualifying information. Great salespeople are persistent. Here are tips to make the challenge of setting appointments for sales meetings by phone a bit more fun.

• Call everyday until you reach the prospect
• Call at different times of day until they answer
• If the prospect doesn’t know you, don’t leave a voicemail
• Use the companies general number to ask the receptionist to put you through
• Call another person you may know at the company and ask to be transferred to your prospect

Great salespeople rise to the challenge of getting the prospect on the phone.

Some Sales People Are Creative

I’ve heard many legends of how great salespeople broke through a barrier to meet with a prospect. If you have the creativity and courage to try an unusual move, go for it. Here are a few stories I’ve heard: A sales rep brings a pig along with him to get attention. The receptionist says to the prospect: “you gotta come out here and see this guy with a pig.” Another great salesperson brought in a birthday cake with flaming candles. When told it wasn’t the prospect’s birthday, he had a clever retort to get an audience with the prospect. A sales rep brings in a box with holes in it and a sign on top: live bird inside. She leaves it with the receptionist to be delivered to the prospect. When opened the prospect doesn’t find a bird but a note: “just like you missed the bird, if you don’t meet with me you will miss a great opportunity.” Most great salespeople get appointments without using creative tricks. But if nothing else works and the potential payoff is worth it, give it a shot.

You Have To Earn The Appointment

Once the prospect answers the phone (or comes out to see the pig!) you need to be ready to convince the prospect to meet with you. Great salespeople script the conversation for setting appointments. Not that they read the script like a bored telemarketer. The script is an outline of the points they want to cover, questions that stimulate curiosity and the value proposition benefitting the prospect. Great salespeople know the reason for the call is to set a time to meet. They do not attempt to sell the product or service when setting appointments. Once a day and time is set, great salespeople, confirm the sales meeting time, thank the prospect and hang up.

What You Can Do Right Now

• Set aside time everyday to set appointments
• Ask for referrals; they are the easiest meetings to schedule
• Be persistent in attempting to reach prospects
• Prepare an appointment setting script to present value in meeting with you

To learn more sales secrets see Chapter Fifteen, Setting Appointments, 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

As a sales manger I used to hear: “Bill sure is lucky. He always seems to land the big ones!” Maybe luck played a part but when you look closely you will see Bill’s “luck” happened where his preparedness met a selling opportunity. Bill understands professional selling is all about applying sales skills.

Professional Selling Is Like Fishing
Image by Dmitry Abramov from Pixabay

Salespeople Have A Basic Sales Skill Set

Great salespeople have practiced selling skills until they are expert at them. They know that successful selling is following a procedure from prospecting to closing. Applying sales skills to build rapport, find an urgent need, learn the budget, understand how buying decisions are made and offering a compelling solution is what great salespeople do every day.

Attitude Is An Applied Skill

Take a look around at the great salespeople you know. I’ll bet they all have a positive attitude. They believe they are winners and act the part. Great salespeople are determined. You see them persistently apply their sales skills to win business. Most of all great salespeople enjoy their work and are happy. High integrity is a trait winners have. They always do their best when applying sales skills. And when great salespeople lose a sale, they don’t take it personally. They use the experience to improve their skills.

Activities Create Winners

In all aspects of life, we do the same things over and over and over again. In the kitchen, we cook, eat, clean up and do it all over again. The fisherman in the picture with this post baited his hook, cast into the water, trolled the bait, hooked the fish, reeled it in lifted the fish into the boat with his net. Then did it all over again. Sales people prospect, qualify, close, follow up, ask for referrals and do it multiple times a day. Not feeling lucky? Take a look at how you apply your sales skills.

Always Be Learning

Great salespeople are always studying their craft and applying new sales skills. They add to their “tool box” of selling skills regularly. Mentors help even the most experienced salespeople perfect their skills and sometimes coach them out of a slump. Great salespeople study their customers’ industries, keep current on the products and services they sell and follow the trends in the way customers buy. By practicing new sales skills they are better prepared to find ways to help their customers succeed which of course wins the work for their company.

And Sometimes It Is Luck

Every now and then I found myself at the right place at the right time. Once when I worked for a metal fabricator we had just gotten qualified to work on a new construction project for a pharmaceutical company. I happened to walk into the office of the project manager one day thinking I would introduce myself and begin building rapport. However he said: “I’m glad you are here. We will need to discuss a contract at some point soon but right now I have work that needs to be done. I’m going to issue a time-and-material purchase order so your craftsmen can start helping me out.”

Lucky? Maybe. Certainly the reaction was unexpected. But I had been following the project through the design and knew there was metal fabrication work needed. And I had used sales skills to get approval from the owner to work on the construction of the new plant.

What You Can Do Right Now

• Evaluate your sales skills. Which ones need a tune up?
• Take a look at your daily activities. Are you doing what needs to be done to be successful?
• Think about your attitude. Do you enjoy your work? Does it show?

To learn more sales secrets see Chapter Six, Characteristics of Successful Salespeople, 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

There is an old saying where I come from: “Things aren’t like they used to be and they never were.” As Millennials and Gen Z enter the workforce, I’m seeing lots written about how companies need to change their culture to accommodate the “younger” generation. That may be true, but over many generations the sales process fundamentals of professional selling have changed little.

Generations Change But The Sales Process Fundamentals Stay The Same. Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

There Are Always New Kids On The Block

Me. I was a new kid entering business in the 1970’s. Born of parents from the Greatest Generation at the beginning of the post WWII baby boom. My folks had lived through the depression and WWII. Tough times to hear them tell it. They had little and wanted more for their kids. So they spoiled us. We baby boomers were the “Me” generation coming of age in the 60’s protest era and the sexual revolution. As we aged and settled down we produced Gen X: cautious, skeptical and self-reliant. My kids are now bringing Gen Z into this world after giving us the Millennials. Each generation has different characteristics of how we relate to one another, what we think is important and our comfort with technology. As great professional salespeople, we need to know and appreciate the differences.

But How Are We The Same?

My interests in how I view the world and what interests me are very different from my grandchildren’s. (Yes, I’m that old!) But think about how we get what we want. First we decide what it is we need or want. Then we tell someone who can facilitate getting that for us. In my day it was asking, usually at the supper table, for the new bike or an increase in my allowance. Now, I get a text with a link to the web page of what my grandkids are hoping for. When the need is known someone decides where to buy it, what price to pay and how to get it delivered. So, ever since two people bargained over trading things of value the buying process has been fundamentally the same.

Fundamentals Are Fundamental

The laws of physics are laws; they don’t change. They govern the actions of a baseball from the time it leaves the pitcher’s hand until it arrives at home plate. The pitcher through practice learns how to use those laws of physics to make the ball curve or “dance” on its way to home plate. Likewise when the bat strikes the ball the laws of physics govern where the ball will land.

The fundamental purpose of a business is to make a profit. The only way to do that is to find, win and keep good customers. Customers who value your product or service and will pay a price making it profitable for you to service them. Professional sales people know the fundamentals to make good sales: build rapport, find the pain, determine the budget, understand the buying process, make a compelling presentation and follow up. These fundamentals worked for my grandfather, for my Dad, for me and for my kids who are great salespeople.

Communication Skills Change

How great salespeople apply the fundamentals change over time. My grandfather and father’s greatest sales tool was their car. They traveled their sales territory daily meeting face-to-face with customers. Occasionally they used the telephone to phone an order into the office. My kids rely on email, the Internet, and cell phones to contact prospects and to find, win and keep good customers. While communication styles change, great salespeople today still have effective communication skills (in a variety of means, perhaps). They still ask good questions, listen actively to the answers, confirm what they heard, ask for the order to close sales.

It’s Still A Mix Of Personalities Out There

In the world of face-to-face selling people still buy from who they like, respect and trust. The buyer world is populated with folks from all generations today. Some of us baby boomers are still active. Gen X, Millennials and maybe a few Gen Z are now mixed into the workforce. Sometimes in large complex buying situations multiple generations are on the buying team (and hopefully the selling team). Understanding the general likes, dislikes and attributes of each generation is helpful. And the professional face-to-face salesperson has the skill to determine the likes, dislikes and attributes of the individuals they sell to.

What You Can Do Right Now

• Think about your A list customers. Where do the decision makers fall on the generation spectrum?
• Remember the last series of successful sales meetings. How well did you communicate with the buyers?
• Read about the general characteristics of the generations. Are these hints on how to relate to buyers within your generation and across generations?
• Inventory your sales skills. How do these skills need to change to do business with the changing generation mix?

To learn more sales secrets see Chapter Seven, Understanding Buyer Behavior, 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

Scrabble is a board game where players make words from a selection of random letters. Each player builds a new word using a letter or letters off of one previously played. Every letter has a point value and certain spots on the board have point multipliers. A player’s score is figured by adding the total points of the new word to their running total. When all the letter tiles are played, the game ends with the first player to use all their letters. Lois and I enjoy a game several evenings a week.

Selling Is A Lot Like The Game Of Scrabble

Scrabble Starts With 7 Random Letters

At the beginning of a Scrabble game all the letter tiles are placed face down. Each player chooses 7 letter tiles at random to begin then as they use tiles they choose more to keep 7 letters to play with.

This is like prospecting. Great salespeople begin the sales process by choosing prospects fitting a particular profile. Usually only limited information is known about each prospect. As sales are made and deals are closed new prospects are added to the sales funnel. Great salespeople know how many prospects to have in the queue at all times….

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