This blog post follows on from Sales tips for non-sales people: What to do if you hate selling! Great sales people know how to get listened to and get people to act.
Here are some sales tips on how it is done!
My last post explained why some people hate selling (well at least started to) and got you listening to learn things about your prospective client, like:
- What problems they have that they want to solve
- What they have considered doing about those problems
- What they like and don’t like about your type of business
- The sort of person they are (outgoing, shy, conservative… et cetera)
It’s your turn to start talking, but before you start, here’s some essential information.
The radio station everyone listens to: WIIFM
WIIFM stands for What’s In It For Me and is the radio station that everybody listens to. Your job then is to say that make your prospective clients want to listen to you. In a way that gives you and what you are saying credibility. Tune into their WIIFM by connecting your solution (what you do and how you do it) with their problems and the types of solutions they might consider. This is done by focusing on what your potential customer thinks has value.
People will buy things that they think will solve their problems and things that deliver value to them.
Problem: You don’t get the value you are providing One of the first questions I get from non-sales people is how to talk about their value. I call this getting “crunchy”. If you can show concrete ways that you can help people, then they will want to buy from you. But it has to be ‘crunchy’ – no motherhood statements allowed. What I mean by Crunchy is do some research so you know that the real impact of using your product or service is for your customers. For example; you can decrease their costs by 14%.
Value is delivered in three ways:
- Cutting costs
- Increasing revenue
- Reducing risk
If you believe, and can quantify, that your company adds real value to your clients, then convincing people to buy from you will be honest and sincere; your greatest selling tool. You will be credible because you believe in what you are doing and can show the value you are delivering to your client. The price you are asking is then a fair trade for the value you are delivering. A great place to start your discovery is to talk to your current customers and ask them why they buy from you and what value they get from using your product or service. Remember to ask them to make it Crunchy. These stories about how you have helped others are perfect to tell your prospective clients, so record them in your systems and publish them on your website. Looking forward to hearing your Crunchy stories! For more sales tips: Keep It Simple Sales Skills
