The Two Biggest Changes to Improve Your Selling

Improve Your Selling #1 – Forget Selling, Start Building…

Building rapport. Too many people’s selling technique is based around telling people all about the product without considering their real requirements – in fact it some training companies still train people to do this. This lead to the poor image of the salesman and, the typical double glazing / shark comments. What it also led to was a pressured sell that then led to a feeling of buyer’s remorse by the person who had been sold to – damaging not only future sales but also often leading to sales being cancelled the next day. Buyer’s remorse is natural – but your sales technique should not be increasing it but decreasing it.

High pressure sales techniques meant people bought things they didn’t really want (or didn’t even realise they’d bought), then they got angry or upset and probably never bought from that company again. This even led to overseeing bodies / governments changing the rules / laws regarding cool off periods.

So, what was happening was only a little rapport building but lots of selling rather than asking questions then little follow up.

Good sales techniques are almost completely the reverse. Lots of rapport building, very little selling – but lots of questioning (see #2 below) – and then maintaining contact afterwards – why? To reduce buyer’s remorse, to ensure the opportunity of follow on sales and also to help people buy instead of pushing people into the sale. People want to know, like and trust the person / business they are buying from.

So you might be very efficient but are you going the extra mile to help your prospect buy and feel good about doing it?

Improve Your Selling #2 – Questions Are The Answer

The process is simple, stop telling your prospects what’s great about your service or product and start asking questions. Think about it. If someone starts ‘telling you’ stuff – you start doubting it. It’s a bit like this; if I tell you the benefit – it’s a lie, if you tell it to me – it’s true. How do I get you to tell me? Questions. Questions that find out what you want and need. It can be very straight forward;

Example:

Somebody phones yacht charter business asking for a price for a weekend charter.

The person answering the call needs to be smiling when they pick up (old but true). In response to the request for a price you need to ask something like…

“Just so I can help you get best is it ok if I ask you a couple of quick questions?”

This is simply a question to get permission to ask a few more questions – and I’ve rarely heard anyone reply with a no. Then ask a question that does not tell them a benefit but does highlight one, such as;

“Are you looking to be able to leave on the yacht whenever you like and be out to see in 20 minutes or are you happy to wait for the tides?”

This might sound silly but some of the cheaper competitors can’t do this, so it is a benefit. Next we might ask;

“Do you want to use our free secure parking with 24hr guard – if so how many vehicles?”

Another benefit; why? Well in reality most people end up leaving their cars parked in an unsecure marina car park all week / weekend – which if it’s anywhere near a town / city every car thief knows about.

And so on; three / four questions that bring out key differentiators / benefit but do not ‘tell’ the prospect, but do help educate the prospect and highlight to them benefits – any other price they get may even be cheaper but they will know that your price has more value.

So what are you looking for when you ask questions? You are looking to find out what is important to the prospect – but you are also using these questions to continue to build rapport. How do you know the questions are working? Well it’s when they ask you a question back. You’ve caught their interest – they are making a decision.

You may already be asking some questions to enable you to work out a price (like the size of room if you are a carpet cleaner or the type of boiler for servicing). Now make sure you add some questions that dig a little deeper – help you find out what benefits are important to the prospect and help you educate what is so good about your service / product.

NOW…

Watch the quick video to get another spin on this topic and make sure you get the most out of this post…