Sloppy methods in any business produce failure. Lack of system may not make a person fail entirely, but unless a person is systematic she is subject to a tremendous waste of energy and money.
System means success; saving time; carrying out your resolves; having a definite time each morning to start to work, and starting; planning your work for a day, a week, or a month ahead; establishing regular habits of diet; doing things when you are not busy; keeping a personal cash account; having no time or strength to waste in dissipation of any kind.
There are, of course, many reasons why people buy from you, but they all tend to fit into specific categories and if you are able to observe and ascertain the real reason why your prospect says ‘yes’ to you, then you have a good platform to build on for the next prospect.
So what are the main reasons why buyers make decisions to buy? Here are four:
Years ago, many people were familiar with this phenomenon. It’s a classic and as relative today as ever. Yet, I was recently astonished at how few people had even heard of it, let alone had a real grasp of the concept or its potential.
The Pygmalion Effect is sometimes referred to as the Self Fulfilling Prophecy… and for good reason. There are many examples of scientific research where it has been proven.
We all know how frustrating it is when a sales opportunity we’ve been working on suddenly stalls out. Our instinctive response is to begin thinking of ways to accelerate the prospect’s decision about the sale, usually by offering some financial incentive (a discount). Paradoxically, this often has the opposite effect. The prospect senses your eagerness, which may be perceived as desperation, making you less attractive, and causing a further delay in purchasing your product or service. Is there a better way?
If we are to believe everything on the TV, radio and paper, Chicken Little would be having a field day! Yep the sky is falling and we are all in trouble!
Or are we? In the past recessions more new business were developed than in the up period that preceded the recessions!
Obviously there must be opportunity in a down market?
The telephone is your lifeline to sales.
Technology comes and goes but the phone will likely be your lifeline to revenue for decades to come. If the phone is one of our primary modes of engaging the marketplace, why do so many sales professionals perform so poorly on this stage?
Selling is about connecting and engaging with the other party. Your sales quota may be stressful, but there’s rarely gain in exposing that to your prospect.
Salespeople won’t always get the call back, get the appointment, get to meet the decision maker, or get the order. Now it is, of course, unreasonable to expect to always get what we want. But, it is reasonable to believe that we might get what we want more often if we changed the way we asked for it. The sad fact is that one of the reasons we struggle to get sales results is because we simply don’t ask for what we want - or we don’t ask for it directly. Here are five types of questions that few salespeople ask that can move the sales cycle along and help you achieve your goals.
The Invitational Close is simple, low-key, classy and powerful.
You use it at the end of a sales conversation to conclude the transaction. It is preceded by a Trial Close such as: “Mr. Prospect, do you have any questions or concerns that I haven’t covered up to now?” Or, “Mr. Prospect, does this make sense to you, so far?”
Probe for Lingering Objections
You ask these questions to be doubly sure that the prospect has no final objections lurking in the back of his mind that would block the closing of the sales process. You then invite the customer to make a buying decision by saying, “If you like what I’ve shown you, why don’t you give it a try?”
I love everything about sales and the psychology of selling and I read as much as I can on the subject. I always have a book with me to learn from, to inspire me and to keep me on the sales edge so that I am constantly refining the processes and strategies that I teach in my books, audios, DVDs and seminars…
As you might expect I am not particularly squeamish when it comes to closing people down however over the last few nights I have been reading a book on closing written in the mid-1980’s. It is appalling and what’s more some of the tactics in it are based on the cheesiest of theories. Here’s one tip from the sales training book…