How can I sell more? How can I make more sales? How can I hit my goals?
These are questions that sales professionals often ask me. They are looking for a quick answer, pitch, or some kind of leverage to get their customers to buy more of their products / services.
Unfortunately, that is the incorrect lens to look through. Simply wondering how I can sell more of my product / service is not the question we should be asking. That makes the sales professional do and say things that are not true, and will likely come back to bite them in the long run.
Sales professionals have gotten a bad rap because of this lens they view selling through. Why do people associate Used Car Salesmen as evil? I’m sure not all of them are evil. Some may be, but the majority are just there trying to make an honest living.
Ever walked into a clothing store and someone ask you what brings you in today? Likely your response like most customers is something like, “Umm, just looking.” That is because we have put sales professionals in a category low trust and to be avoided if possible.
When I talk with organizations and sales professionals, I tell them if they want to grow their numbers, they need to build influence. That is right influence. Influence is the ability to have an effect on others and their decisions. This means that if we want to have influence there has to be trust involved.
If customers trust that we are there to help them with their situation, issues, and ramifications, then they will be open to our help. If not, they will just say, “just looking” and move on. We need to build that trust so that we can have influence with our customers if we want them to buy more of our products / services.
True if we only want a one-time sale we can lie and not worry about building influence, but unfortunately each person that we are selling to has influence over 100-150 other individuals. That means we are jeopardizing a lot more when we just focus on a one-time sale.
If we focus on building trust and influence with our customers, serving them well, then we will have the opportunity at more sales with others in their influence. If we focus on serving customers to solve their situations, issues, and ramifications with a great experience, then they will tell others that they need to deal with us. That is like having our own salesforce that we don’t even have to pay. Who wouldn’t want that?
Here is the interesting thing. I have served customers well with a great experience and they did not buy my product / service. Because I served them so well, I have had others that I have never met reach out to me and bought from me because they were referred by the person that I didn’t make the sale to. I have also had that same person reach out later to buy something else in the future.
To succeed in sales, we need to really focus on serving the customers to the best of our ability. If we serve them well even if we do not make the sale this time, they will remember what we did for them and how we served them. They may come back at a later date, or tell others that they need to deal with us.
Remember Sales is a marathon, not a sprint!
“Businesses wonder why it is still hard to be thought of as the brand of choice with customers. How can our business make more profitable transactions and stay out of the commodity battle with low profits? I equip your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate explosive revenues with greater profits!”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lWIVasmkFsoYL4h0AqIZgH6LC3qaw_gI/view?usp=sharing – client profile sheet
https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Process-Uncovered-Success-Influence/dp/0578421518 - Book