By David Sanders, Certified Master Consultant
Recently I had the opportunity to pitch my sales expertise to a gentleman seeking a trainer for his national sales force. He was a New York type — you know, an aggressively edgy, tough businessman, not prone to have sympathy for those who can’t make the grade.
Obviously, under these circumstances, I realized I was obligated to demonstrate my prowess and prove that I was perfect in my craft. I made a statement to make him see that I was the right guy for the job, which is all too true. “I’m not a ‘natural born salesman’ — I have had to learn to be a top closer the hard way,” I said.
As soon as I said this, I realized how true it was. I realized I do know how to make the sale happen. I realized that for me, sales is a precision activity. I realized that I do control the customer using a bunch of tools I have become proficient with. And now that I have admitted all this, I think it is time to share some of these nuts and bolts of sales with other aspiring salesmen and women.
Back to my edgy aggressive New York -type potential client. I told him right from the start, “I do not deliver a typical workshop. In fact, I said, I can promise you that what I do will polarize your team. At least 30% will consider it the most important workshop of their lives, while 10-20% — the low producers and troublemakers — won’t get it, will complain to you about it and may even quit. Or seeing how poorly they perform in the workshop, you may terminate one or more.
Now, why in the world would I spew out a derogatory estimation of his sales crew right off the bat? Answer: if you expect to get anywhere in a sales cycle, your first task is to figure out who you are talking to, and figure out how to talk to them like they would talk to you. In this case, I could see the guy enjoys showing someone the door if provoked, I let him know that fine by me. Caution, you can’t fake this step. If you aren’t a player on the playing field, it is going to be really tough to win the game. Be prepared to get flexible about how you relate to people, or settle for a nitch you are comfortable in and only sell to that type — a rather limiting proposition, I don’t recommend.
Since I knew niceties would go nowhere with this breed of cat, I headed straight for the crux of the matter — making him see the benefit of giving me the job. If your task is to get someone to let go of cold, hard cash, the only commodity you can offer is real benefit. Even when someone makes an impulsive purchase, the benefit factor has come into the picture. How many times have you been approached by a youngster who wants you to buy a subscription to a newspaper or magazine you aren’t interested in, because he is working his way through school. You give him the $13 or $14 he needs to get his sale regardless, justifying that it might be nice to read. Do you realize, that if you didn’t see personal benefit in knowing you had helped this fellow or gal, chances are you would not be moved one iota to buy? Why do you think the companies set up these types of sales operations? Recall that the pitch is liberally sprinkled with remarks of how this activitiy is keeping your young salesman off the streets — how he’s not doing graffit or joining gangs so he can go to school — all benefits to you. Basically, even the bum on the street would never get a dime unless some portion of the population felt there was benefit in giving donations to people less fortunate than they are.
Enough about impulsive buying. How does a pro salesman guarantee he is offering his product as a benefit? The answer is in herent in this fact: any prospective purchase is a solution to a problem or it won’t be made. Every client or customer is trying to solve something. Your job as a salesman or saleswoman is to make your product the solution. Some salespeople have actually developed the ability to give prospects the problem that they aren’t “up to” buying from them. This is often witnessed in places like Beverly Hills, where for many the problem is the embarrassment that the shops are all too expensive, but they have to save face and buy something. The one clerk who wasn’t so haughty generally is the one that gets that sale.
In the case of my aggressive edgy prospective client, he had a big problem. His sales force was not making its sales quotas, and the company was suffering. On top of that, he had no time to figure out who he was going to train these yokels. Bingo. I knew I could show benefit in spades. Enter the phase of enlightenment.
Now that I had his attention, here are a few of the things I said to make sure my prospect was convinced he had found the man that could solve his problem:
• What I do improves abilities and success level, often very dramatically
• I have an entertaining, sometimes biting sense of humor that will keep your sales force alert and with the program
• I speak weekly for Chambers of Commerce, cities and corporations, and recently completed a speaking tour of MBA Colleges in India
• I am a Certified Master Consultant with over 30 years experience working with over 300 industries and professions, so I have a wealth of experience and stories of success (and failure) upon which to draw
• I was an editor of a recently-published book on Sales, The Complete Guide to Successful Selling as well as a book on management, Speaking from Experience, and author numerous articles on a wide variety of sales, marketing and management topics
• I have successfully improved sales in a wide variety of companies
• I’ve personally sold millions of dollars of consulting services, insurance and other products and services
• I’ve made every single mistake a salesperson can make and have learned from those mistakes
• I have seen, up close and personal, what works and what does not
• I’ve been a road warrior, travelling with, training and “debugging” a crack sales team which in 10 months I took from $80,000 to $500,000 per week
• I’ve trained and assisted others to sell hundreds of millions worth of products and services
Whether sales personnel admit it or not, they all trade cash for benefit. Is there more to this game of selling? Of course, and more will be said about it. But knowing that the make break point on any sale is whether you can establish benefit, your sales will improve. I promise.
