Please share this Christmas gift with your e-mail list. Happy Holidays!
On the fourth day of Christmas, Mesmerizzzed! gives to you - four sales
methods, three pricing strategies, two engineered products and a focused target
market.
Okay, a little truth in advertising. Today's gift isn't about four distinct
sales methods. It's about mastering the four stages of any sales call.
The four stages are building trust, investigating needs, demonstrating
capability and gaining commitment.
Building Trust
The old model of selling focused on building rapport. Selling today focuses
on building trust. What's the difference?
Rapport is a surface relationship - a connection based on technique,
sometimes even manipulation. Trust is a deeper test - a connection based on real
behavior. Rapport is the foundation for an occasional sale. Trust is the
foundation for a long-term relationship.
How do you build trust? It starts with caring about the other party. It
starts with focusing on service rather than selling. It starts with listening.
Each of these elements - caring, serving, listening - never ends.
Which method are you using on your sales calls - rapport or trust?
Investigating Needs
Let's start with a few famous quotes:
"Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care"
Zig Ziglar
"Telling isn't Selling"
Brian Tracy
"I keep six honest serving men (They taught me all I knew)
They were what and why and when and how and where and who."
Rudyard Kipling
There is only one way to understand what your prospect needs - by asking
open-ended questions. Open-ended questions always start with one of the six
honest serving men - they can not be answered "yes" or "no."
Are you listening?
Demonstrating Capability
Do you speak features or benefits? Features do nothing - only benefits
demonstrate capability.
Have you really isolated the benefits of your products or services?
Here's a test! Take the risk of asking your best customers why they purchased
from you. Listen how they describe the experience. Do they talk about your
features - or the results they experience using your products or services?
Follow the lead of your best customers. They know why they buy.
Gaining Commitment
In golf, you drive for show and putt for dough. In selling, you demonstrate
capability for show and gain commitment for dough.
Are you asking for the order after you've built trust, investigated needs and
demonstrated capability? Are you still facing objections when you do ask? Are
you walking away while they think about it?
There are no objections - only questions, concerns and conditions. If your
prospect has a question, answer it! If they have a concern, address it. If they
have a condition, resolve it - or move on!
Changing Your Sales Results
What are you doing every day to improve your sales methods? Here's a
prescription - work on improving one method each day:
Monday - work consciously on building trust
Tuesday - work consciously on investigating needs
Wednesday - work consciously on demonstrating capability
Thursday - work consciously on gaining commitment
Friday - see if you can put it all together
Repeat 52 weeks in a row and watch the impact on your sales results!
© 2006 Mesmerizzzed! All Rights Reserved.
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