sales & marketing front

Don't be a Salesperson...Be an Expert!
It starts with just four words.

by John Dearden

People don’t like to be sold . . . people like to buy! Think about it, how many times have we spent too much (way too much) of our precious days with that slimy salesperson who is not interested in our needs, but in simply trying to make a sale. It may not be the right thing for the customer, but Mr. Slimy doesn’t care. I call this showin’ up and throwin’ up!

Too many salespeople all over the country are showin’ up and throwin’ up and the customers and prospects are sick and tired of it. You can have the best product and service in your market and if your salespeople show up and throw up, the only chance you have to get the sale is if they get lucky and throw up the right benefits and maybe a few solutions that hit home. Even if you get lucky, many customers have had it with this type of sales approach (and I use that term loosely).

THE PROFESSIONAL APPROACH
During a speaking engagement I will often ask the audience to sell a pen to the person sitting next to them. Nearly all, 99 percent, of “professional salespeople” launch into a senseless stream of what they think the prospect wants in a pen: This is the best pen ever . . . it writes upside down and underwater . . . it reeks of success . . . blah, blah, blah. Instead, we suggest practicing the professional approach. This is the way to greater sales, happier customers and many, many more referrals.

Take a look at yourself. Have you slipped (maybe once in a while) and fallen into the slimy sales trap where you talk and talk and talk? Every month or so successful salespeople make sure they practice the professional approach to selling.

The professional approach to selling consists of just four words (it’s also the shortest course on selling you’ll ever be exposed to). These four words are: ASK QUESTIONS AND LISTEN.

Professional salespeople spend 50 percent of their time asking questions and listening to the answers. Answers to purposeful questions can help you determine everything from your customer’s personality type, what products will best serve the customer’s needs and (most important) their highest value need (HVN). The HVN is the single most important need that you (and your product) can satisfy and, thereby, make all things right with the world.

For example, the most common HVN for an Eclipse Awning is: “My deck is baking hot from the sun and I spent &%$#$@% dollars on it and now I can’t use it!” Fortunately for them, you have the perfect answer. If you assume that the baking hot deck is the HVN, you will be right the majority of the time . . . but not all the time. If you do not uncover and address the HVN you will loose sales and leave money on the table. Identify your prospect’s HVN and you are halfway there.

SECONDARY NEEDS
Ask questions and listen, uncover the HVN and then, and only then, find out the secondary needs (my carpets are fading, my electric bills are too high, the glare on my plasma TV is driving me crazy) and offer your solutions to these needs to further add value to your presentation.
As you continue to ask questions and continue to offer solutions, laced with the benefits of your product, you are establishing yourself as an expert (and a friend). People trust experts, and selling is the transfer of trust. People buy from people they trust. Remember, people like to buy; people hate to be sold.

When you practice the professional approach (Ask questions and listen) and, as a result, uncover the HVN, then follow that with your expert solution to the HVN (and then address secondary needs to establish added value), you are no longer a salesperson, you have become a trusted expert and maybe a trusted friend.

Then it’s time to ask for the business and put another prospect into the customer for life file.

John Dearden has more than 18 years of field-proven business sales experience most recently as owner of Eclipse Awning Systems where he was in charge of sales and marketing. In just four years under his direction the company grew to more than 180 dealers and more than $7.5 million is sales. Dearden has spoken throughout the country to small, medium and large companies and has addressed association, chambers, non-profit organizations and conventions and led sales workshops, seminars and interactive training sessions.