Hold on to That Sale!
When selling to
someone, we have literally a matter of seconds to make the right impression and
get their attention. Experienced
salespeople know this, but it takes practice to know what to do and how.
One mistake I constantly see myself (and others) making is
to waste those vital first moments with too much detail. I recently had an experience where I agreed
to assist a company in finding a potential market for its product and suggested
to the person introducing them that they contact me direct.
The company did so, but what they sent was a long, detailed
email with attached links to other sources.
My eyes literally glazed over and I replied to the company that a
different approach might be in order in the particular market they were looking
at.
In those instances where we rely on someone else to support, I find that this approach works better:
- Having been introduced by the mutual acquaintance, send
either a short email with basic information (max. ½ side of A4) or offer to call
the person who has agreed to help.
- In that first email/phone call, try to establish what the
other person needs to know to provide initial advice.
- Allow the other party to digest and then one proposes a way
forward.
- Identify potential target clients and a suitable approach
(either with the other party or on our own).
As more people experience more demands on their time both
internally and externally, it’s up to us to respect that time and make their
job as easy as possible.
The key
information they need is:
- What does it do?
- What problem does it solve?
- How does it solve it?
- Why is it better than other solutions out there?
- How easy is it to set up?
- How easy is it to use?
- Who does it help?
If they don't understand what we’re selling or how it works
in the first few minutes, there’s a problem.
These are the questions we need to answer first.
I have spent more than half my life
delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to
“emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in international financial
services around the world running
different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide
solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses,
charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An
international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of
services. For strategic questions that
you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.Labels: Customer Care, Selling
"Subscribers" or "Customers"?
I was recently talking
to the CEO of a mobile communications company when he made an interesting
observation about how one of his competitors described those who used their
services. The competitor referred to
them as “subscribers” whilst the company with whose CEO I was speaking
described his users as “Customers”.
A small difference, but it got me thinking: do the words we
use to describe those who use our product or service reflect how we see them? Do they affect our employees’ performance or
attitude on a subconscious level?
In the UK, Southwest Trains now refers to “customers”, not
“passengers”. How many other examples
can you think of where a company you’ve known for a long time changes the way
it describes the people who buy its product or service?
One of my pet peeves is “Human Resources”, the word used to
describe those who work for an organisation as well as the function responsible
for their general well-being.
It came in
during the late 80s and has stuck ever since, although some organisations now
describe their employees as “partners” or in other terms that illustrate either
their attitude of what those employees are or what they would like them to
aspire to think of themselves.
In a
recent
post I mentioned Sir Richard Branson’s attitude to looking after his people
as this led to them looking after customers as a result.
If someone feels valued, they’ll go the extra
mile and it shows in the service.
The power of words is unappreciated, and yet we use them
every day to encourage people to achieve things, support a project or vote in a
certain way. The basic underlying
emotional appeal of a word is what drives actions.
Do our words reflect the attitude we want to show to
others? If not, maybe it’s time to
change.
I have spent more than half my life
delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to
“emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in international financial
services around the world running
different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide
solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses,
charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An
international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email
. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be
asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.Labels: Customer Care, Leadership, Selling, Strategy
Do I have Something You Want?
This could equally
well be put as, “Do you have something I want?” and revolves around the
question of selling to others.
Many of us will have received “cold” calls from telesales
people who want to share their “client list” (or similar) without even telling us
what it is they do or if checking whether we need their product/service (let
alone use another supplier).
When selling to someone else, the natural tendency may be to
start with a glowing description of the product or service’s features and
benefits and ending by asking the potential customer how many or how much
they’d like. Then the surprise comes –
they don’t want any…
Experienced sellers know to start with questions to the
potential buyer based on a product or
service’s feature and benefits to find out what matters to the buyer. If their needs match, then there’s a
potential sale. A buyer needs to feel
that we're genuinely interested in solving
their problem, not that they’re just a potential target.
What happens, though, if the potential buyer genuinely doesn't want/need what we
have? It happens. Once this is clear, there’s no point in
trying to irritate them into buying – we’ll only lose their goodwill the next
time. The answer is to ask them if they
know anyone else who might need it. This
way, we still have another potential buyer and who knows, the next time we call
the first one, they may need what we have and be willing to listen as we
respected their position the last time. Or
they may even call us…
Some people simply put the phone down when they hear that
Mr/Ms X is calling or that ABC Company is on the phone. This isn’t where we want to be. In short, we need to:
- Know what questions to ask;
- When to stop asking;
- How to ask for a referral.
I have spent more than half my life
delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to
“emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in international financial
services around the world running different
operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide
solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses,
charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An
international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of
services. For strategic questions that
you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.Labels: Customer Care, Selling, Strategy
