Far too often money is left on the table by sales professionals because they are so giddy about making a sale. As soon as the paperwork is done, they are running off into the sunset to celebrate their victory. Only the great sales professionals know that if they are truly going to be successful, they are going to understand the customer so well that they can turn customers into partners buying everything they can from us.
You may be asking, what does that look like if I sell houses, or one main product / service.
It’s a fair question, but likely there are other products or services that are overlooked by sales professionals. Are there other solutions that our organization offers to help individuals with financial help, insurance, software, inventory management, etc? We should make sure that when we are at the beginning of the buying stage that we understand all the S.I.R.’s that the customer are experiencing.
S stands for situation. The customer is in a situation that they need a solution to avoid obstacles they are facing or will face in the future. During discussions it will be revealed the full scope and our organization has solutions to not only help with the surface level situation, but uncover the deeper level situation that are not truly recognized yet. Ever been to a therapist to talk about something and they ask questions and by the end you feel even worse because there was a blind spot you didn’t see? That is why we really need to ask a lot of questions at the beginning to dive deeper into the situation for our customers. When we do this, it will open up a great deal of possibilities for us to help them.
I is for issues. The situation that the customer is in has issues tied to it. Something is not working like it should because of the issues that are creating roadblocks for success. Just like the situation there are usually underlying issues that are not totally recognized yet and it is up to the sales professional to ask deeper questions to uncover those issues. When sales professionals do this, they can they help the customer even better than initially thought.
R stands for ramifications. That’s right, ramifications are the results if the issues for the situation are not resolved. It could be profit losses, job losses, or worse death. This is why doctors ask a great deal of questions because the ramifications are life and death. Most likely in sales the ramifications are not as severe, but the ramifications still have huge impacts on the customer’s performance. If the customers do not succeed in finding solutions to avoid the ramifications, they may be promoted to customer from their organization. That’s just a nicer way of saying fired
It is up to the sales professional to make sure they understand the customer fully and deeply if they are going to help them. Most of the time if the sales professional does a great job up front they will make more sales and have a customer turn into a partner buying even more from them repeatedly. We don’t want one-time sales, we want repeat partners buying more and more from us if we are going to be successful in our sales careers. When do we do that well, we will have a better quality of life. Typically, that means larger bank accounts that we can do more trips, family memories, philanthropy, etc. To become the brand of choice we need to serve the customer well through the sales process. For more on that I have created my online member site for learning the sales and leadership concepts I teach without the price tag of having me in person.
“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