I strongly believe that sales should be an industry of it's own. A good
closer should be able to sell anything to anybody. There may be slight
differences selling a product (tangible) vs service (intangible), but
otherwise, selling is selling.
Selling Is Easy
All you need to do is qualify your prospect and go after those sales
where you have the best chance of closing. A colleague, Jacques Werth,
authored High
Probability Selling which defines the sales process, and will
improve your closing ratio. What was interesting is that I never read
Jacques' book, yet we have the same ideas on selling. Better yet, we have
something else in common - we were both professional or quasi-professional
poker players!
What are you selling? Comfort. The prospect needs to be comfortable
that you can solve his problems, have credibility, have the strength to
carry out the deal and know what you are doing.
My simple rules:
- Get in front of the prospect with a blank writing pad.
- Listen to what they need.
- Identify three to six issues that need to be resolved.
- Go back to the office and prepare a presentation.
- Meet with the client and start with "I heard you say..." and
identify the issues to resolve
- Do the presentation.
- Summarize and explain how the presentation satisfies those issues.
- Pick up the check ;-)
If the prospect identifies the issues, and you can solve the issues
(and make them comfortable), how can they not go with you?
Poker anybody? ;-)
Author's note: A special tribute to Wink Martindale and the song
"Deck of Cards." It was supposedly a true story about a man in WWII who
related a deck of cards to the bible. He identifies each card in the deck
and how it relates to the bible. I find it fascinating that it fits well
in the business world also, especially the strategy of poker.
George Matyjewicz, PhD is Global Strategist of GAP
Enterprises, Ltd.
http://www.gapent.com His dissertation “Just In Time Payments And The New
Global Currency For Conducting Business In A Global Economy” was compiled from
3+ decades experience in the business world. He was formerly President/General
Manager of a global digital currency company with customers in 190 countries and
Chief E-Commerce Officer for a global giftware company. He was a
Principal/Partner at a top 20 U.S. CPA/Consulting firm. He is regularly
published as an expert on global business, finance, technology and
implementation and writes and publishes E-Tailer’s Digest which reaches
retailers in 50+ countries worldwide.
http://etailersdigest.com