Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Some of my Selling Secrets, Learned from 25 Years ...

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Some of my Selling Secrets, Learned from 25 Years ...: I have been involved in sales in my various businesses, for more than 25 years now. During this time I have seen dramatic changes in the a...

Some of my Selling Secrets, Learned from 25 Years of Helping my Partners

I have been involved in sales in my various businesses, for more than 25 years now. During this time I have seen dramatic changes in the approach towards almost every aspect of selling. Cold calls are no longer an option, old hard core selling is a distant memory and viewing your customers as buyers of your products and services from a purely transactional perspective, is as effective as using a bucket to try to empty the ocean.  

Selling has changed more in the past 25 years than it did in the past 100 years before that. The sales person is no longer the bearer of news from the outside world, that information is now readily available on every desktop. The new generation of salesperson, who wants to survive and thrive, in the current environment, must be a problem solver and solution provider. They must connect with their “partners”, forming mutually beneficial relationships with them, where they strive to consistently add real value to them.

What needs to Change?

Operating as a vendor of products or services is no longer an option. The old school aggressive approach to sales is pointless. Selling is now an art form, where it is crucial to have a clear understanding of your client’s situation, needs and a good understanding of their environment. Selling is all about connecting with your clients (“partners”) and providing them with a value proposition, which helps them to solve a problem or satisfy a need.

Long term sustainable sales success is dependent on building long term mutually beneficial relationships with your clients (partners). Look past the short sighted option of making a quick buck or a quick sale to any prospects or client. Always have your partners (clients) best interests at heart and engage with them to map out the best option for them to help them satisfy their needs or solve any challenges.

Your commission must always be a distant and very secondary objective and not even a consideration, when dealing with your partners. When you put their needs above yours, they will get to know like and trust you. They will really appreciate the fact that you always place their interest before your own selfish interests. This will cement the relationship and make them very confident to purchase your goods or services.

Help your Partners Map the best Route to Solve their Challenges

Find ways to integrate into your clients businesses. When you help them to map a route to save costs, improve productivity or solve any challenges, they will begin to rely on you as a crucial business partner. Purchasing your products or services will never be a grudge purchase, but a very necessary part of their business success. Show your clients you are there for the long run and will be right next to them all the way to the finish line.

Show your partners that you are not in the transaction business. Show them you and your products and services are all about value and solutions. This approach will turn them into raving fans and help them to become one of your best marketing and selling tools. They will no longer be clients; they will be partners, who will refer you to other people, hailing all the value you bring.

Sales is a People Thing

The psychology behind selling actually is actually quite simple. Yes of course the people, who buy either your product or service, must have a utility or need for either or both. In reality any prospect first needs to buy you as a person, connect with you and get to know like and trust you, before they will even explore your product or service to see of it is what they need.

So using this knowledge as a starting point for helping (selling), it is thus crucial to build connection and a great relationship with all your carefully targeted prospects, before you even try to sell to them or show them the value proposition you offer. You are never in the transaction based business, where making each sale is important.

You are in the business of building connection and long term mutually beneficial relationships with all your clients and prospects. This is the best way to become and remain successful in sales (helping) today. As long as there is always a great relationship between you and your partners, in which a modality of fair exchange exists, you will be successful and everyone wins.

Sales Success is driven by Activity  

As you know sales or any success for that matter is driven by activity. The more committed you are and the more targeted activity you perform every day, the greater will be your sales success. So if you really enjoy what you do as a sales person, where you truly love your product or service and you completely believe in the value it adds to your partner’s lives and/or businesses. You will not feel the long hours you will devote towards your sales success, as it will not feel like work; you will be doing what you love.

When you are completely dedicated to your sales success and you carry out sufficient targeted sales activity daily, you will succeed and become the sales giant you deserve to be. The activity I am referring to is seldom the stuff you would think of in the traditional sense of selling at all. I am referring to the crucial act of staying in contact with your clients and prospects, doing things for them that they would not expect, such as sending them articles on interests they may have or a really thoughtful gift relating to a personal need they may have revealed, during a conversation, etc.

Stay committed to your partners and keep finding new innovative ways to connect with and build a mutually beneficial relationship with them. Put in sufficient daily effort in this regard and the sales will take care of themselves. People always buy using their emotions, so the more you connect with people on an emotional level, the easier it becomes to help (sell to) them.

Technology has made people far savvier

In the past old school selling techniques worked because there was always a transactional element to sales, where people needed the sales person to inform them about features. This is no longer the case as people are able to research this all online and in almost every case they are very well informed before they even meet with any sales person. Any sales person, who competes like this for any piece of the business, will be competing on price alone, as there is no other way to differentiate their product or service.

Making a consultative sale

This is the way for sales people strive to add real value to their partners by offering helpful, useful advice and by creating and adding real value to them by solving problems and becoming a valuable contributing asset to their clients businesses. When developing this sort of relationship with your partners, they do not want to hear about just your mousetrap, which you have for sale. They want you to actually show them, where to put it, what bait to use and how this will benefit them and their business. They are looking for a value creator and never a value communicator.

Selling is no longer a process of persuasion, it is now all about connection, problem solving and value creation. To do this successfully the new sales person needs three crucial skills.

1.    They must be honest and always look for the best value for the client. Their commission can never be an issue

2.    They must be competent and understand the needs of their partners or prospective partners and completely understand their own value proposition.

3.    They must put the concerns and needs of their partners ahead of their own. They must look at every sale from their partners’ perspectives and never be in a modality of just wanting to unload their product or service on an unsuspecting client.

Always put your partners interests ahead of your own, build connection with the right people, know what your value proposition is, research your clients and their needs properly, carry out sufficient targeted connection and relationship building activity and you will become very successful at sales.

Author: Andrew Horton Sales Training

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Stop trying to Shout Louder than everyone else to ...

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Stop trying to Shout Louder than everyone else to ...: The secret to sustainable sales success is not found by trying to shout louder than everyone else out there. The secret is to move away fr...

Stop trying to Shout Louder than everyone else to make the sale

The secret to sustainable sales success is not found by trying to shout louder than everyone else out there. The secret is to move away from the crowd and the noise and to begin the process of building connection with the right people, in the right place at the right time. This is a case of going back to basics and instead of trying to spray your message out into the world and sitting back and praying that someone will hear it and miraculously get to know like and trust what you have to offer. You must clearly define who your target clients are, find out where you can connect with them so that you can begin to build connection and trust with them.

These changing times, where we have so much going on around us all the time, has forced us to take a step back and to change the way we market our businesses. People have not changed, they still choose to buy from businesses they know, like and trust and can offer them the best opportunity to get maximum value. It is time to stop shouting a message that people don’t want to hear, in places where your prospective clients aren’t listening as this is totally ineffectual and just a waste of energy. Commit to begin the process of communicating, connecting and influencing the right people, so that they can easily see that what you have to offer is exactly what they need.

Connect with the right people

Once you have invested the time to identify the right clients, in the right markets and you have found out how to connect with them. You have built connection with them over time and now want to show them the value you offer, use the concept below as an effective way to guide them towards accepting your value proposition as an ideal fit for their needs or challenges.

Learning the art of effective persuasion and influence is best understood by revisiting some ancient wisdom that was given by Aristotle, many centuries ago. He suggested that there are three levels of persuasion, namely Logos, Pathos and Ethos.

Describing your Value Proposition

The first step in the process of influencing others to see the value you offer and that it is perfectly suited to meet their needs, is to appeal to them on a basic, logical level. This is a process in which you communicate a logical message to your prospective client showing them that your market offering is the most obvious choice. This is a process in which you are persuading people that what you have is exactly what they want and need.

This is best illustrated by an example:

Appealing to your prospects logic, is a process in which you ask them a few questions, in which you highlight your unique selling proposition and the incredible benefits your product has to offer. If you are attempting to persuade someone to use your services, as a time management consultant, then you would use the following questions to show them that, what you offer is the only logical solution to their current circumstances.

·         Do you agree that if you focused on improving your team’s effectiveness and discovered the right actions to take every day, so that they would stop spinning their wheels, you would significantly improve your results over the next twelve months?

·         Is it true that you arrive home from work every day exhausted, yet you feel that you have not accomplished much at all?

·         So you want better results, but you feel like you don’t have sufficient time, is that right.

·         So what if making this small investment will allow you to identify the exact actions that you need to take every day and then give you a set of tools and techniques, which would improve your efficiency so dramatically, that it would feel like you gained a couple of hours each day, Would you be interested? Would that give you a huge advantage over your competition? Would it help you to make far more money?

This method of persuading people that what you have to offer is exactly what they need is perfect, for communicating your message to people on a one to one basis or when speaking to small groups of people.

Persuade, but never manipulate

The challenge that we all face when attempting to influence people is that there is a very fine line between persuasion and manipulation. You can never build a successful business by manipulating people; they will eventually see right through you and will no longer trust anything that you have to say.

The way I define the difference between influence and manipulation is:

When someone is trying to manipulate someone, they have a negative intent and are selfishly looking at the interaction from their own selfish perspective only. This is a one sided transaction, where there is only one winner.

On the other hand when you influence someone the intent is always one of offering a mutually beneficial solution to satisfy a need. Persuasion always results in a mutually beneficial outcome, where both parties feel like they have received fair exchange. The best way to persuade someone, that what you have to offer is exactly what they need, is to always ask yourself these few questions

• ·         Why should this person want what I am offering?
• ·         What is in it for them?
• ·         Is it the best option for them, will this transaction be a fair exchange?

When you ensure that what you are attempting to persuade people to buy, is aligned with their needs and that there is always a fair exchange, where everyone wins, you have created the foundation for great success.

Author: Andrew Horton Motivational Speakers

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Sales Tips to help you Secure Long Lasting Sales R...

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Sales Tips to help you Secure Long Lasting Sales R...: The first step towards developing long term relationships with people who you have qualified as perfect prospects for your product or serv...

Sales Tips to help you Secure Long Lasting Sales Relationships

The first step towards developing long term relationships with people who you have qualified as perfect prospects for your product or service, is to think long term. Do not try to make a sale, focusing on a single transaction. Take a long term view of the value proposition you offer and work to show the long term value you and your product and/or service bring to the table. When one of these prospects says they are satisfied, that does not mean that the satisfaction they feel is permanent. Their needs may change and once they fully understand your value proposition, they will see a good reason for switching to you.

Know your Value Proposition

The challenge that most sales people have at this point, is that they give up on their perfect prospect because they do not see how they can proceed. They do not completely understand their own value proposition and so cannot see how they can add real meaningful value to the prospect.

Action Idea: Explore your product and/or service and completely know and believe in the value it offers to your partners and prospects. Once you are clear and you believe in all the benefits you and your product or services offer. It is really simple to show your prospect how they will better satisfy a need or eliminate a challenge if they utilise you as a supplier.

Research and Qualify Prospects

Remember that I am referring to qualified prospects here. These are people within the perfect businesses, who need exactly what you have on offer. You are certain what you have to offer will serve them as well or better than their current supplier.

Action Idea: As you are absolutely clear on the value you and your product and/or service offers, you can carefully research your markets and identify your perfect target business and the individual within that business to approach with your value proposition.  

Develop a Long Term, Mutually Beneficial Relationships

Approach your prospects in a non-threatening way, with a real mind-set of “How Can I Help You” and try to develop rapport with them. Your objective is to build a positive relationship with them, sale or no sale. Your prospect will very quickly see through you if you are inauthentic and are only there with your own self-interest to try to make a sale at all costs. When you show a genuine interest in helping them solve any challenges or better satisfy any need they may have, they will warm to you and want to build a mutually beneficial relationship with you.

Study and Completely Understand needs

Take a long term view when building the relationship and always put the prospects needs ahead of your own need to sell to them. Your objective must always be to find innovative ways to support and help them. Take your time whilst building rapport and a long term relationship with your new prospects. Ask a lot of non-threatening questions so that you can completely understand their needs and how your value proposition can best help them. The key during this phase is to establish a needs gap and then to utilise your extensive knowledge of your own value proposition to offer a solution, which will help them to eliminate a challenge or better satisfy a need.

Sell Yourself

 Remember that people buy from people. Businesses do not buy from businesses. Personal chemistry is important when building the relationship, where you are working to get the prospect to know like and trust you. The prospect will respond to your knowledge, enthusiasm, professionalism and caring, ethical approach and will want to do business with someone who displays all those attributes. You will be an asset to them and their business. Always have your prospects best interests at heart and show them that you are on their team, sale or no sale. Try to come up with new ideas for your prospects, even if they do not relate to your product or service. Show them that you really care. When you help people to get what they want, they will most certainly help you to get what you want.

Add Real Value

It is often difficult to differentiate your product or service if you are selling a commodity. This is when the differentiation must come from you as the sales professional and any other value add, such as service and performance guarantees, better delivery schedules, and superior customer service. Be innovative and find as many ways as possible to be better.

A perfect example of how you can differentiate yourself and utilise this to sell your products or services, is shown by the example I want to offer you. I conducted sales training for an office furniture company in Cape Town a few weeks ago. One of the sales professionals there was one of the most unassuming people you could ever meet.

He had spent eight years building mutually beneficial relationships with his perfect clients. He started with a new company and went to an exhibition to sell his new companies office furniture. He was alone in a 3 square metre booth with only a brochure. He sold four times more office furniture as his large competitor, who had a 66 square metre cubicle containing furniture. They had eight sales people in their stand. He made the sales based purely on who he was and the relationships he had built with his partners. .

Offer a No-Risk trail Order

Many prospective clients are loyal to their current suppliers. This is however not a major challenge if you can show the value you offer. Virtually every prospect will give you the opportunity to run a trial order with them. This must be a no-risk proposition, which can easily be facilitated, by offering a satisfaction guarantee. I offer any new client who works with me a 100 % money back guarantee, if they are not satisfied with my work in any way. This make them feel very comfortable to utilise my services to train their sales staff. It is crucial that you bend over backwards to ensure that the trial order makes a very positive impression.

Persistence wins the Day

There is no better sales skill than persistence. With all things being equal, the persistent sales person, who clearly understands their value proposition and believes completely in what they have to sell will win the account every time. The secret is to stay in contact with prospects, constantly think long term, always be consistent and become a valuable consultant and ally to them. Keep soughing positive seeds and you will eventually reap great rewards.

Author: Andrew Horton motivational Speakers

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Basic Selling Techniques to turn you into a Sales ...

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Basic Selling Techniques to turn you into a Sales ...: Plan your Day the Night Before To this day I always plan my day the night before. My head does not hit the pillow at night, before I h...