Jun 17 2007
The Right To Do Business Has To Be Earned And Never Assumed
Rather than doggedly asking for the business, the very best sales people work to keep the relationship moving towards a sale. They realise the need to identify how to turn their company’s products into real solutions, which must meet specific needs.
Unfortunately, our surveys confirm that the average salesperson drags the customer over old ground as much as 52% of the time - they are unable to provide continuous stimulation and never know when to treat an existing customer like a new one.
Conversely, exceptional salespeople only make such ‘return’ calls for 10% of the time. Above all, earning the right to proceed requires gaining the customer’s trust and top salespeople work diligently to establish a climate in which the customer is willing to share information and feels comfortable doing so. The key here is integrity.
Customers are persuaded when they are part of the process and not part of the audience:
Sales success to-day demands a radical shift from the ‘peddler’ mentality of merely demonstrating products and expanding on their features. It requires treating the customer as a participant. More often than not, a ‘flashy’ sales presentation alone alienates rather than persuades.
The best salespeople regard the sales call as a two-way conversation - not a one sided pitch. They have developed active listening skills. Average salespeople score fairly well in their ability to provide customers with facts and figures, but top performers dramatically outscore the rest when it comes to gathering information.
In addition, how a salesperson collects information still distinguishes exceptional achievers from the rest of the pack. I.e. top performers ask better questions and as a result gain much better information. Essentially, they aim to engage customers in the buying process with questions that require thoughtful answers, that stimulate curiosity and that reveal the customers underlying needs.
Tomorrow, the “JF Guest Author Spot” is occupied by my friend Wendy Weiss - The Queen Of Cold Calling and it is an excellent piece called: “What Is Selling?” - you will enjoy it very much.
Best Leadership Blog 2007:You know that I am going to be pestering you for your vote everyday now until July 6th when the winner is announced. Details in the panel on the left - thank you!!
Enjoy your blog as I was in enterprise software sales but (fortunately) am now more on the technical and business side of things again.
Reading this post makes me really believe that the best sales people are born and not made. I tried various sales methodologies to become better at selling and still don’t think they made much difference to me. I believe I am a good listener but when I see other (good) sales people now they seem to have a knack of what to do and say with prospects.