When attempting to diagnose prospects’ needs, many salespeople make the mistake of asking questions to uncover only problems; that is, they look exclusively at what has already happened. Salespeople who look only for problems are like drivers who look only in the rearview mirror. They are not focused on where their customers want to go. … Read full article
Losing your most profitable sales relationships is a concern for every professional. To protect this relationship, you must help your customers identify realistic and observable indicators of your solution’s value. If you don’t, you’re linking your personal success with dozens of factors that are totally out of your control. The way I like to help … Read full article
As a salesperson, once you have your prospect’s attention, you need to make a clear, concise statement of the problems that you solve for customers. Think about what problems you can help the prospect solve. You need to customize your sales solution not only to your prospect’s industry, but also to that person’s self-interest. Make … Read full article
After you make a sales presentation or deliver a proposal, you must stay present in your prospects’ lives. The longer a prospect takes to make a decision, the greater the possibility that fear will develop when you’re not there. Therefore, to effectively handle your buyers’ fears, you need to regularly talk to them to see … Read full article
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Are you directive, or supportive? A bottom-line driver? Or a cheerleader type? Hopefully, you are a combination of all of the above. Being flexible is the key, and your flexibility needs to be rep-specific. Consider the skill and will of the individual salesperson. What does this rep lack: skill, will, or both? And then ask … Read full article
Your role as a sales manager is NOT to do all the selling. Your role is to develop an elite, high performance sales team. Coach your sales people to continually get better at helping their customers buy. To do that, you need to focus more on developmental coaching throughout the sales process, not just at … Read full article
A common problem for salespeople is getting “go-forward” commitments (specific actions the customer commits to take). As a coach, you need to ask your salesperson what actions the customer has taken. What’s important is not where your salesperson is in his or her selling process, but where the customer is in their buying process. The … Read full article
Stockbrokers and banks know that a client who has a single account is more likely to switch providers than a client who has multiple accounts. The more products and services a customer buys from you, the higher their switching costs and the more difficult it is for them to change suppliers. Banks, for instance, strive … Read full article
To get a quick impression of how you’re doing, ask the customer, “On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being great, how would you rank our solution?” Whatever the answer is, ask, “What would it take to get to a 10?”