The Sales Training Series: The Right Way To Sell

How Will This Buying Decision Be Made?

Three-quarters of the secret to professional, strategic selling boils down to asking the Best Questions and listening carefully to the answers. Most of the Best Questions have to do with uncovering the crucial, underlying needs your products or services might serve. But you also must know how to sell to a particular account. Using the same strategy for all customers is a big mistake. The issue is: how do you compete for this customer’s business?

How do you know the right way to sell a customer? You ask.

For instance, you need to know when to time your sales calls, who to call on, what to present to each individual or group who will influence the buying decision, and how the decision ultimately will be made. How do you learn all of this? You learn these answers by asking questions early in the game.

Competition: Whom are you competing against for this sale? Once you know, you can ask targeted questions to draw out specific needs that you can resolve but your competitors can’t. And when presenting features and benefits of your products, you can lead with your specific competitive strengths.

Time Frame: When does the customer expect to make a buying decision? More importantly, when does the customer want to begin to reap the benefits expected from the purchase?

Buying Influences: Who controls the budget? Who analyzes the technical aspects of your product? Who will be responsible for making your product work correctly in the organization? This information tells you which features and benefits to stress to which audience.

Buying Process: How will the buying decision actually be made? Who must be “sold” before the transaction can be completed? Which criteria will be most important in the decision?

By getting clear answers to these questions early in the process, you can develop a strategy that will shorten your sell cycle, allow you to anticipate and defuse objections that otherwise would arise later, and make a lot more sales.

In The Field:

Veteran salespeople are often astonished (and a bit embarrassed) by the brave new world that opens up to them after they learn to ask the Best Questions.

The day after an Action Selling Sales Training Workshop at Eaton Cutler-Hammer, the southern regional sales manager received an excited voicemail message from one of his account executives.

“I put one of the selling techniques of Action Selling to work today on a sales call and was amazed,” said the account exec. “By knowing how to ask the Best Questions, I uncovered additional opportunities that I never knew existed!”

Duane Sparks is chairman and founder of The Sales Board, a Minneapolis-based sales training company that has trained and certified more than 200,000 salespeople in the system and skills of Action Selling. He has personally facilitated more than 300 Action Selling training sessions.

In a 30-year career as a salesperson and sales manager, Duane has sold products ranging from office equipment to insurance. He was the top salesperson at every company he ever worked for. He developed Action Selling Sales Training while owner of one of the largest computer marketers in the United States. Even in the roaring computer business of the 1980’s, his company grew six times faster than the industry norm, differentiating itself not by the products offered but by the way it sold them. Duane founded The Sales Board in 1990 to teach the skills of Action Selling to others.

Contact The Sales Board for more sales information or sales training that’s been documented and research-proven to help you sell more! 1-800-232-3485

Positional Authority

Those who have authority based on the position they hold in the community have Positional Authority. This includes your boss, the U.S. President, or a police officer.

A landmark study conducted by Stanley Milgram at Yale University illustrates just how powerful Positional Authority can be. In his experiment, Milgram had some participants pose as “teachers,” while others portrayed the “learners.” The “teachers” were told they were going to help the researcher test the learning levels in the “learners” by giving progressively more intense shocks each time a “learner” answered memory questions incorrectly.

Of course, no real shock was administered, but the “teachers” were not aware of the false premise, and the “learners” were instructed to act as though the pain were real. It appeared as though the “learner” were suffering intense pain. The purpose of the study was to see how far the “teachers” would go in obeying the head researcher’s authority, even if it meant inflicting great pain on a fellow human being. The results were astounding: Two-thirds of the subjects delivered as much pain as they could (450 volts), pulling all 30 of the shock switches, even when the acting “learners” pleaded, begged, and even screamed for them to stop the experiment.

This experiment strikingly demonstrates the concepts we’ve made about Positional Authority. Consider the following key points: First of all, the “teachers” were noticeably uncomfortable with what they were doing. In fact, they hated it. Many of them asked the researcher to please end the experiment. But when he refused, they continued on, trembling, perspiring, and some even laughing nervously. In spite of their extreme discomfort, almost all of the “teachers” continued to obey the head researcher until the experiment was over. The converse is also revealing: When the scripts were reversed and it was the “learners” ordering the “teachers” to deliver more shocks, while the researcher protested, not even one single person obeyed! One hundred percent refused to obey the “learners” over the researcher. After obtaining the shocking results of this experiment, Milgram wrote, “It is the extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority that constitutes the chief finding of the study.”

When someone has a higher position or more authority than you, the automatic trigger is that whatever that person says must be true. The FAA found that many errors by flight captains were not challenged or corrected by other members of the crew. This blind obedience to position and authority resulted in catastrophes. One airline, concerned about this evidence, tested their own flight crews via flight simulators. They created conditions that would lead to mental overload and emotional stimulation. The captains (in one study) would make fatal mistakes at a critical moment. The airline was shocked to find that 25% of the flights would have crashed because the subordinates did not take corrective action and challenge the position of the plane’s captain.

Learning how to persuade and influence will make the difference between hoping for a better income and having a better income. Beware of the common mistakes presenters and persuaders commit that cause them to lose the deal. Get your free report 10 Mistakes That Continue Costing You Thousands and explode your income today.

Kurt Mortensen’s trademark is Magnetic Persuasion; rather than convincing others, he teaches that you should attract them, just like a magnet attracts metal filings. He teaches that sales have changed and the consumer has become exponentially more skeptical and cynical within the last five years. Most persuaders are using only 2 or 3 persuasion techniques when there are actually 120 available! His message and program has helped thousands and will help you achieve unprecedented success in both your business and personal life. If you are ready to claim your success and learn what only the ultra-prosperous know, begin by going to http://www.PreWealth.com and getting my free report “10 Mistakes That Continue Costing You Thousands.” After reading my free report, go to http://www.PreWealth.com/IQ and take the free Persuasion IQ analysis to determine where you rank and what area of the sales cycle you need to improve in order to close every sale!

15 ways to kick your sales into high gear

If your sales are a little on the slow side, you need to polish
your promotional skills and fire up the marketing machine. This
is the first of a two part article with a total of 30 tried,
tested and proven techniques to kick your sales into high gear!
Here are the first 15 techniques.

1. Use a PS and PSS after your signature. In the PS, summarize
the key benefit. In the PSS restate the bonus or reason for
ordering right now. Only your subject line is more important
than your PS!

2. Vary your subject and medium. If you send out a monthly email
promotion, vary the subject line. One month, your subject line
could read ‘Hi! It’s Jake.’ The next month it could read $1.99
special for the first hundred responses. With your ‘Hi! It’s
Jake’ subject line you could send an article with tips that will
help your customers with common problems. Your ‘$1.99 special’
could be a direct ad. By altering the format that you send,
(article one time, ad the next) you will get more prospects past
the subject line and into your email.

3. Mail your customers on a more frequent basis. If you send
your customers a promotion once a month, double it. Send them a
promotion every two weeks.

4. Use add-on sales. The best place to get an add-on sale is
just before your prospect places their order. Include two
buttons or links at the bottom of your order form, one for
ordering just the product and one for ordering your product with
an add-on. Here’s a quick example. You are selling an ebook you
have written called Marketing. Your add-on is a Lifetime
upgrade.

a. At the bottom of the order form you include a text link that
says ‘Click here to order Marketing for only $19.95.’

b. Directly underneath, you place a second text link that says
‘Click here to order Marketing, including your Lifetime Upgrades
for only $29.95.

c. Place a short paragraph after the button, explaining all the
benefits of ordering the Lifetime upgrades as well. After the
paragraph, place the Lifetime Upgrades order link again.

5. Upsell to a better product. If you are offering free
autoresponders, upsell your customers to a better version of
your product. Quick example. You offer a free, quality
autoresponder which sends a single message. If your customer
upgrades to a ‘Gold’ autoresponder for only $2.95 per month,
they get an autoresponder which can send up to ten, time delayed
messages.

6. Use current events to propel your sales. If the inflation
figures have just risen again, offer an ‘Inflation Buster’ promo.

7. Offer additional products. After you have sold your main
product (with an add-on) keep in contact with the customer and
offer additional products. You can sell more add-ons or upgrades
that compliment the original purchase, or completely new
products.

8. Offer a payment plan. If you are selling a big ticket item,
offer to split the payments into three or four easy
installments. Installments can be spread over weeks or months,
depending on the size of the purchase.

9. Offer special promotions. Holidays like Christmas, Easter,
and Valentine’s Day are perfect for special promotions.
Anniversaries and birthdays also give you a perfect excuse to
contact your customers and offer them a special promotional deal.

10. Include a deadline. By including a deadline, customers are
more inclined to make a purchase sooner. It is human nature to
leave things to the last moment, so make sure your deadline
falls within a short period of time after you send your offer.

11. Use incremental deadlines. If you run a monthly special,
offer to include an extra bonus, plus a FREE gizmo and a
lifetime upgrade if they order before the end of the first week.
In the second week of the campaign, offer an extra bonus, plus a
FREE gizmo, only if they order by the end of the week. In the
third week, they get an extra bonus if they order by the end of
the week. And the fourth week, they get the product with no
bonuses.

12. Use the take away approach. This works well in conjunction
with the incremental deadline approach. Tell your customer that
if they don’t order today, they will miss out on the fabulous
lifetime upgrade offer.

13. Make the purchase easy. Make it easy for customers to
purchase from you by offering alternative methods of payment.
Some people don’t feel comfortable placing their credit card
number online. Make sure you offer the option to pay by check.
Include a printable fax/mail order form that they can print out
and send to you by snail mail or fax.

14. Give guarantees. Make sure your product comes with a 100%,
no questions asked, lifetime, guarantee. People love to feel
secure when ordering. If you stand behind your product 100%, you
give your customers the security they need.

15. Sell to categories. If your product is selling well with
work at home moms, try selling to Small Office Home Office
(SOHO) owners. If you find that your product is popular with
accountants, try a promotional campaign directed to this
category of customers.

There are an unlimited number of techniques and tactics that you
can experiment with to drive your sales through the roof. When
you have success with a particular promotion, keep polishing and
experimenting until it is worn out and then experiment with
something new.

In the second segment of this report we will look at another 15
ways to kick your sales into high gear.

Good luck and God Bless.

Cold Calling Pressure Reduction

Who likes cold calling?

Most salespeople don’t like cold calling, and do as little of it as possible. There are a number of reasons why most of us don’t like it. One reason is the way we view cold calling. People who don’t like cold calling view each call as do or die. They think of cold calling as a war in which they have to win most of the battles in order to win the war. A sales rep good at cold calling is considered a sales god. A sales rep who is poor at cold calling is a sniveling wimp.

The reality about cold calling is much different. You don’t have to win all nor even most of the battles to win the war. Cold calling is the reconnaissance before any battle begins. Cold calling is not where the sale happens. Cold calling is simply advertising done by sales reps.

Yes, I said that you are doing advertising when you are cold calling.

Cold calling is a means of identifying potential prospects for your sales efforts. And the purpose of advertising is to identify or attract potential prospects - in other words to generate leads.

Think of cold calling this way. Every time you make a cold call, it is as if you grabbed your prospect by the shirt, shoved a billboard ad for your product in their face, and said “Do you want to buy this?”

Obviously, real cold calling is more involved than pressing their nose up to your ad. Specifically, cold calling should be mostly about asking questions rather than a sales pitch monologue.

Just like a newspaper ad or a billboard, all you are trying to do when cold calling is to get someone’s attention. And if they don’t want or need what you are offering right now, that’s OK.

With your new view of cold calling as advertising in mind, you should focus your cold calling goals a little differently. One of the surest ways to get frustrated in sales (and an ulcer) is to take responsibility for things that are beyond your control as a sales rep. You really cannot control whether the person you are cold calling needs or wants your product.

What you can control is how many cold calls you make, and the quality of your techniques while cold calling.

Set your cold calling targets and define your success criteria around the number of calls or dials that you will make. Judge the quality of your calls by how well you stick to a cold calling formula that you have defined in advance.

If your cold calling goal is set as “To Make $300,000 in Sales Next Month”, you are just setting yourself up. This kind of cold calling goal might be useful if you are a tele*sales* person responsible for actually closing business by phone. But in professional business-to-business selling, cold calling is too far removed from the actual close to directly influence such a goal.

Instead, you can backwards plan how many cold calling “advertisements” you need to run in order to make $300,000 in sales next month. Use your own or other sales reps activity numbers to figure out how many sales will result *on average* if you make 1000 dials when cold calling. Then you can determine the time period needed to make 1000 dials worth of cold calling advertisements in order to make your sales goals.

Look at cold calling as one-to-one advertising and focus on the number of dials you have to make and you’ll find cold calling a lot easier to do.

© 1999-2004 Shamus Brown, All Rights Reserved.

Shamus Brown is a Professional Sales Coach and former high-tech sales pro who began his career selling for IBM. Shamus has written more than 50 articles on selling and is the creator of the popular Persuasive Selling Skills CD Audio Program. You can read more of Shamus Brown’s sales tips at http://Sales-Tips.industrialEGO.com/ and you can learn more about his persuasive sales skills training at http://www.Persuasive-Sales-Skills.com/