Organizations should use the same process they use to sell their products and services correctly.
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selling
Far too many sales people take the signed order and ride off into the sunset never to be heard from again. It’s a huge opportunity that unfortunately most sales people miss out on!
If we jump straight into selling mode after we get the customer’s name, we are failing the customer. Ever wonder why when asked what brings you in to this store today the customer says something like this, “Just looking…”
What the customer does care about is how this product / service will meet “their needs”. That’s right! How does what we offer help the customer?
Have you ever had customers call you complaining that they are not being taken care of properly? Ever had them say this is not what they agreed to? How about this statement, “I think you need to come pick up your stuff as I no longer wish to do business with you?”
Good morning everyone!
How many times have you been nervous to hear a result? Whether it was a test result from your doctor, that first time you asked a girl out in school, or how about when you sent the price over to a prospective customer and were in the silence which seemed like forever?
Most sales people have gone through this period at least in the beginning of their careers when they get to the fourth buying decision for the customer. It’s when the customer will inform the sales person if the work put in and the price align, or if they are not sold yet. During this buying decision far too many sales people will start spouting off more benefits and features, price dropping, etc. before the customer ever provides feedback.
When we start justifying our price as soon as we send it, we immediately devalue our proposal psychologically. Now the customer has no other course, but to challenge the price. The old saying less is more applies here. When the sales person send over the price, they need to stop speaking. Just like in a negotiation, the first person that speaks loses.
Now I temper that with a statement that submitting pricing is not an us vs. them situation, because we have done all of the steps in the sales process and are trying to serve the customer. What I am saying is that when we submit the pricing, we need to not devalue our proposition to the customer. Now the discussion should be on the customer to decide how to proceed.
Maybe the customer needs a little more information because we did not answer one of their needs that is high value. That’s okay because we can address that need quickly to help them make sure this is the best product / service they are about to purchase. Maybe the customer is in the research phase of decision making. This should have been discovered early on in the first buying decision, but maybe they are trying to budget. Then it is up to us to make sure we identify the next step for them to take and how we can help the customer.
There is nothing wrong with hearing a no right after we have provided the price. This is how we adjust and understand what may be limiting the customer from making the purchase. Just like shooting a rifle from 1000 yards away from a target. Sometimes a small adjustment needs to be made to hit the target in the center. This is our opportunity to correct and address the customer’s needs and help them.
If we don’t sell the product / service right after the first time we submit a price, that is okay. Sometimes there is a better option for the customer, but if we have done a great job, the customer will tell us why we may have lost this sale, but they will tell others how we helped them if we walk with them through the five buying decisions correctly.
As a side note most sales people never go back and find out why they lost a sale. This is valuable information if that happens to adjust the sales approach going forward!
We just need to make sure we do no devalue ourselves, or our offerings while working through the sales process with them.
Have a great day!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
Isn’t it interesting that no matter how hard we try, it just doesn’t seem like some people will not like or trust us?
Last week we finished the fifth and final buying decision for the customer and the work it takes after this buying decision for the sales person to really knock it out of the park. If you haven’t had a chance to read that article check it out here (add link)
This week I want to share some ideas with you as to the extra steps you might try so that your customers are successful for the next 90 days after the sale! Their success is crucial for your future success.
Videos – with the advent of YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc there is a vast array of opportunities to help your customers with video interactions. Videos for top 10 uses for your product / service, self-diagnosis of typical issues that can arise, starter guide on your product / service as a reminder if the customer does not use what you have already taught. Customer testimonials is also another great idea.
Support Groups – Facebook has a fantastic platform for loyal customers to access with questions and success stories. I am on FB groups for a number of programs I have purchased such as the SpeakerLab, John Maxwell Team, Financial Peace University, etc. These groups are great for asking questions and cheering others on. These groups create a Fanocracy that is so impactful, that customers become loyal sales people for your vision. Releasing control of your product / service and allowing the customers to show you how to improve it is also a benefit to doing these groups.
Email – I know we all get too many emails throughout the day with advertisements. Why not flip the script and send out shortcuts and life hacks while using your product / service instead of just trying to sell them? What about using the Facebook group’s ideas to share with your email list of what others are saying about your product. Why not highlight those customers that are achieving the best results and share with your prospective customers? What about meets ups coming up in the customer’s nearby location? Why not use email for more than just trying to sell the customer with another flash sale.
I hope these ideas have helped you with your quest to sales success and what you can do to increase your influence with customers.
I also wanted to give you an inside look at what I have been working on this past summer and what I hope will be ready very soon. I have been filming my sales process uncovered training so that you may be able to use it whenever you want to. No more traveling to events, staying in uncomfortable hotel beds, in different time zones. This training will you faster than just the blogs I write weekly for you. The training will help you become that 1% of successful sales professionals.
As always, I will keep posting blogs for you to add ideas on how to sell more efficient and how you can achieve higher levels of success.
Have a great weekend!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
The customer has now purchased our product / service and we celebrate! Unfortunately, this is where 99% of sales people stop the sales process.
Buying Decision 3 is the part in my trainings where the sales professionals believe they need zero help. It’s at this time that I have to ask participants for examples to show me how they work on this buying decision.
Most attendees start with firing features and benefits in rapid fire, their elevator pitch, or how their product is so revolutionary like they are in one of those late-night infomercials. Unfortunately, this is an incorrect process in selling your product / service. The reason I know this is because I started out selling my products this way which drove my lack of sales. The customer does not care about how many features and benefits we have.
What the customer does care about is how this product / service will meet “their needs”. That’s right! How does what we offer help them? That is the question our customers are asking. Each customer is different and has different needs which means we need to be smart about how we approach them. We can not simply rain features and benefits all over them. We need to sell by answering their needs.
To effectively answer the customer’s needs, the salesperson needs to do the work in the first buying decision by asking great questions to uncover the customer’s needs. By asking questions we are finally able to understand the customer, what they are looking to achieve, and why they are looking to achieve it with this purchase. If we assume that we know exactly what the customer needs we typically miss the mark in sales.
You’re probably asking yourself how do I avoid this mistake? The answer is simple. By making sure that the question I am asking aligns with my features and benefits. That’s right I use the features and benefits of my product / service to roadmap questions for the customer. If the customer is saying yes to those questions, then we know that we are on the right track to help the customer. Simple right!
Below is a simple graphic I use to create the questions:
One more point here and this is a big point!
If the answer is no to most of my questions about my product / service. I quickly understand that what the customer is looking for is not what I offer and I point them in the right direction to meet their needs. That is right, if my product / service will not help the customer I am going to do everything in my power to help them find what they need. Most sales people are shaking their heads in disbelief and they are wrong. See I am playing the long game with selling that builds influence.
If my current product / service does not help the customer and I help them find something that does, I have just solidified my value and gained tremendous influence with the customer. Even if they do not buy this product / service today, they will tell their friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, etc. about the service that I have provided and how I helped them. They will tell those people that they need to come talk to me. It has helped me time and time again with references and grow my sales in the long run.
Yes, this is an internal decision to focus on helping more than just selling our products / service. I chose this early in my career which helped me gain more sales than I could have ever thought possible. Customers have come to me years later telling me that someone referred them to me because I was the best and helped in such a way that they needed to see me first.
Isn’t that where we want to be? To be the person everyone wants to come to for a solution to meet their needs?
To find out how to apply the total Sales Process Uncovered training with your team, follow click here and get moving forward to reaching your sales goals!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
Customers buy to satisfy needs, not features and benefits. It’s a simple concept, but hard to practice sometimes.
When I train sales professionals, I have to make sure that I highlight this fact each time I start the training. We as sales professionals need to stop launching right into a sales pitch too early.
Too many sales people get through the introductions and then jump into pitching their products or service. They use the shotgun blast approach and hope somethings sticks to where the customer will leap towards them with a hug saying thank you for answering all my worries. Unfortunately, the customer is actually put off by this practice of selling. Then the customers immediately decide they are not going to buy from this salesperson.
Meanwhile the salesperson is still shooting off more and more benefits and features while the customer is thinking…“How do I get out of here?”
Most customers will wait for the presentation to end and then thank the sales person for their time before making a way to the exit as fast as possible. People want to feel heard and understood. Too many times sales people leap into action and sell something because we are looking for that next kill. Most sales people think of sales just like hunting for something.
I started selling like this, but quickly learned that sales is actually like farming. We start small and grow our influence with the customer over time. We as sales professionals are not all knowing and understanding of the customer’s needs. We need to stop ourselves and ask questions, a great deal of questions. This starts building influence with the customer because we are showing that we care. We need the customer to buy off on us before they will ever think about buying our product or service. Here’s another point that I need to make, the larger the sale, the longer it takes to understand the customer’s needs.
I have structured multi-million, multi-year contracts and every one of these deals took years to come together. Not one of these customers has ever stopped on my doorstep and said please help me, I need you to sell me your product without growing the influence with them first. I had to grow influence before they would look at me as an option to help them with their larger investments. They gave me opportunities for smaller deals and then as they grew to trust me and trust that I understood them well enough they gave me larger opportunities. Apple has done a great job of getting people to line up for their new products, but back when they started, hardly anyone wanted their products. It took years of the correct leadership, marketing, and sales strategies to get to where they are today.
Each day there are new strategies on how to sell to a new sophisticated type of customer, but most of these new sales strategies are trying to do the same drill of growing influence with the customer. Shortcuts may work for the short term, but long term they fizzle out and influence erodes. I have used the same process for well over a decade to sell to different industries, and in different parts of the world. It’s a simple process and it helps the sales professionals walk through the customer’s five buying decisions that they must answer before they will purchase our products or services.
We have to meet the customer’s needs and then we will be rewarded with their business and grow influence with them.
Have a great weekend.
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”