Monthly Archives: August 2013

How To Series Episode 5: How to Close the Sale

Posted on by
Reply

Selling is a conversation. At the end of which, somebody gets to make a decision. At the end, we close.

How do you know when that conversation is at its end?

Some training programs will say, close, close, close. Close a million times. Close all over the place. Close every second that you can. In fact, that’s not true. If you close too soon and all of the issues haven’t been fully resolved, in your prospect’s mind, they won’t be able to make that decision. If you force it or in some way try to corner them into it, you get a generic reaction where they will automatically say no and it’s very hard to recover from a point blank No. you can also let the conversation ramble on way too long, spend way too much time, give them way too much detail, not be really clear on what the final aspect that they need to resolve is, and talk your way around the conversation so that you totally confuse them, and then you can’t close because now they are overwhelmed. You need to be really clear about what sort of information they need form which they are capable of making that decision.

So what sort of information needs to be contained in the conversation?

While selling is a conversation and we all know how to converse, it is much more complicated than that and you need to understand both the psyche of the person that you’re dealing with, the content of your product, and how that fits into their current situation or their current… the way they run their current business.

If you are interested in learning how to sell and learning how to close and when that moment is, and how to maximize your calling rate, you really need to understand those facets. We run a training program called Emotions in Selling which clearly identifies how people make decisions. What will get in the way? How to build trust? Because if they don’t trust you, they won’t buy from you no matter how well you explained the product. Finally, when have they had enough content that they can make a stable decision that they won’t freak themselves out the next day or when they talk to somebody else back at the office or at their own home, and see that in fact, they’re not ready to decide? They need to be fully aware of what they are buying and confident before close will stick.

Learn how to identify what the needs are thoroughly and how to have that conversation so that your product answers those needs before you close them.

For more on Sales Training & Coaching, contact Maya on 0407 005 290 today.

Enjoying the series? Check out the next episode: How to Sell

How To Series Episode 4: How to Build Trust

Posted on by
Reply

It’s a fundamental process in human interaction whether you’re building a relationship or trying to sell a product, and the process is exactly the same.

In the Emotions in Selling program we spoke a lot about the mechanisms of fear – and fear is an instinctive and absolute reaction; we are hardwired for survival. And that means that the tiniest, little flicker, of uncertainty or danger, will instantly freeze the person you’re speaking to. And why is that important? Because you can only develop trust in the absence of fear.

So if your friend, your customer, your business partner, is in a state of fear they cannot trust you because you are bundled into the equation. So you have to look at your environment, the really simple attributes of where you’re standing and what’s happening around you, through to how you look, and how you dress, and how you speak, and then to the information that you’re giving, because that person will take the data in from the biggest cues down to the most sophisticated.

So what you say, matters least. If they’ve already been frightened by standing in an environment that’s a bit open, exposed, their fear of being overheard…or you’re wearing something that’s out of context with what they expect of you. So if you’re a professional, then you need to dress like a professional. You need to dress like that person expects of you, not how you expect, or would like to dress. So if you’re a medical professional, you have to look like their vision of a medical professional, not your own. And when selling, same in any important financial transactions, we have this stereotypical accountant or bank manager impressions of the world. People expect, when they go to the bank, to see people dressed like their stereotypical visions of a bank manager. So exactly the same thing applies to the words that you use and the things that you say; what you say has to be congruent – that’s a really big word – it means, it needs to fit in to the context of their current knowledge, including their belief system.

So say if you’ve got a piece of knowledge that conflicts or is incomplete then they cannot accept the truth of what you’re saying. So you may have to start at the beginning and educate them if it is some important and complicated procedure that you’re explaining. Or you may have to have a really long chat about what they currently believe so what you say, is then fitted in with what they currently know. And if it does contradict then you’re able to discuss why it’s still safe information, despite the fact that it doesn’t fit in. Developing trust is the first step in any relationship – it’s the most important in selling.

If you’re in sales I recommend that you explore the Emotions in Selling program and understand how to guide your clients through a simple process of conversation to making stable decisions.

Learn how to build trust with the Emotions in Selling Program blog series.

Call Maya on 0407 005 290 or send her a message on Facebook.

Want more? Watch the next episode in our How To series: How to Close a Sale

How To Series Episode 3: How Resumes are Killing your Business

Posted on by
Reply

Recruiting sales people is the trickiest part of your company.

Recruiting sales people is harder than recruiting any other part of the business because the number of people who can sell is actually quite small. But the number of people who think they can sell and are certainly interested and willing because sales people earn such good money, have flexible working hours and all the benefits of being in the sales department, amounts to a huge level of interest. There’s a larger level of interest than the people who are capable of doing it.

How do you work that out?

Traditionally, we’ve been doing it with resume. Resumes are incredibly flawed as recruitment tools. They talk about the past. They are full of historical facts or historical fictions sometimes. They’ve been edited somewhat but regardless of whether its fact or fiction, it’s about the past and where that has been and what they claim to have done for themselves. It’s totally impossible for you to prove any of it. It doesn’t tell you what they are capable of doing for you. It doesn’t show you the feat between their history and their abilities and your job.

What we do in the Sales Recruitment Process is identify people’s ability to sell and their ability to sell is based on 75 different attributes so impossible for them to articulate that document. We, however, have a sales IQ process that will identify all of that in 30 minutes of their time online before you meet them. Don’t rely on what they say about themselves. Allow us to measure their current ability which is core to their capacity regardless of whether they have already started to learn the skills and have had some experience.

Learning skills and having experience is important, but even how small a population can actually sell, you sometimes don’t have the luxury of recruiting just within the pool of people who have already done your job for another company.

Find out who can sell and whether or not they are sufficient of those attributes before you interview them, not by reading their resumes but by allowing them to do the sales inventory profile assessment.

You can contact us, Corporate Coach Australia, on the details provided below and allow us to help you recruit people who really can sell.

Call Maya on 0407 005 290 or send her a message on Facebook.

Next in the series: How to Build Trust – watch it here.

How To Episode 2: How To Cold Call

Posted on by
Reply

The first part of the process is, can you really do it? It looks easy and many people think that anyone can do it. We all have phoning blitz or a called calling day, get the whole company out there, do a bit every day or have some major function where we all get out there on the street and hassle up some new business – but less than 5% of the sales population, now that’s 5% of the sales population, not the total population, can actually do it.

The first part of how to cold call is to find out if you are able to because you don’t want to spend. This is the hardest part of the sales cycle. Despite it looking so simple, you don’t want to spend endless hours following my instructions first of all and perfecting your script or rehearsing your technique only to find that really you can’t do it. It’s going to slaughter your energy. It’s going to make you feel miserable and dejected and horrid.

First of all, do our Sales Inventory Profile IQ system. It will identify a whole bunch of things about your selling ability and one of those is whether or not you can cold call. If you can cold call, then develop the skills  Then, prepare a magnificent killer script, rehearse it to depth so that it performs naturally and practice it to a whole bunch of people before you start doing it with prospects. Because cold calling regardless of how clever you think you are or how magnificent your product is, take the whole bunch of energy. It’s really emotionally draining.

So, how do you develop a killer script?

There are 3 key components. The first 10 seconds is the most important. In the first 10 seconds, you want to do only 2 things. You want to identify yourself in the simplest, clearest way possible, and you want to give them a reason to listen. A reason a listen so that you can interrupt their current activity. You can bring their attention to you and your content. They will make all sorts of polite noises about whether or not they are listening. You can ask them on what hours they come home, if they’ve got a moment to talk and most polite people will say yes certainly. But what you really want to do is slice through their attention so that you’ll have a 100% of it yourself, that is about what is in their current environment that you can fix. So the first 10 seconds is about knowing what pain your product will address and clearly articulating how in those first 10 seconds.

When you introduce yourself that’s, “Hello, this is Maya.” That simple, right?  That clear. My name is a bit harder than hopefully yours is, but you don’t want to say, “Hello, this is Maya from Corporate Coach. That’s just too many words. And why do you want to listen to me? Because I know how to improve cold call outcomes. That’s the biggest pain that most of my prospects are in, is their ability to generate cold call outcomes. “Hello. My name is Maya. I’d like to talk to you about increasing your cold calling rate.” Those are really clear why they should listen to me and it has identified a specific pain that my business can address.

Next is, how your product does that and the final thing is getting permission to take further action. In the middle is a little bit about your product and how you do that. Then, is the permission to proceed.

What is the next step that you can gain permission for during that one cold call? Is it to meet in person? Is it to send them some information? Is it for them to attend an event? Is it to do some sort of demonstration? Be really clear about what you’re trying to achieve. Introduce yourself and your product and then ask permission to proceed to the next stage.

First of all, find out if you or your staff can in fact cold call, then get really clear about the script and do some rehearsing before you engage with clients.

Lovin’ the series? Check out How Resumes Are Killing Your Business here.