Sales Blog with Professional Sales Tips

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Think about your own buying experiences. Have you ever really believed that you were paying the very lowest, cheapest, down in the dirt “total-cost” for what you were buying at the time? The truth is, you weren’t. It’s impossible. Your customers know this truth as well.

Let’s define “total-cost.” Total-cost = the direct cost of the item or service + any associated costs for procurement.

Why is it that we and our customers can never be assured of the best total-cost on anything? There are three primary reasons:

1. Prices are never static. One vendor might have a great price at the moment but 30 minutes later another vendor has a lower price. This has always been true, but the Internet has made pricing even more fluid.
2. If a particular vendor across the continent has great pricing, but transportation costs inflate the price by 50%, this vendor’s pricing doesn’t look so competitive anymore. This would include freight on products and travel expenses related to services.
3. The cost to research and find the best price can far outweigh any savings. Spending an entire day researching the best price for the purchase of one $2.57 widget wouldn’t be the smartest investment of an employee’s time.

What’s liberating about this is the realization that at some level our customers know that they are always paying something extra for included value. That value could be the availability of the product, location of vendor, simplicity of ordering, speed of shipment, reputation of vendor, quality of service, relationship with vendor, etc.

Smart buyers are looking for the best total-cost solution, not the best price.

Our customers know they’re never going to be able to nail down the best price on any product or service they need. Knowing this, it’s our job to show them the added value we bring in order to show them the best total-cost solution and make their buying decision easier.

To receive this sales tips blog by email <click here> to receive by RSS <click here>. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Those sales professionals that I’ve worked with through the years all know that I am constantly comparing the sales process to sex. The greeting, meeting, dating, engagement, marriage, kids and divorce thing is quite analogous to engaging a prospect and turning them into a customer.

One of the best applications of this girl meets boy analogy can be applied to closing a sale.

We all know that the close is the point where a decision maker agrees to buy. I get tired of sales trainers who obsessively focus on “the close” as if it represents the entire sales process. It’s important, to be sure, but it’s only part of the sales process and shouldn’t require an inordinate amount of effort on our part.

If we’ve properly completed all of the parts in the sales process, this concluding piece should be easy. In fact, it should be as easy as a first kiss.

Think about it. You meet someone and get to know them. There is chemistry. One thing leads to another and before you know it you’re face to face in a candlelit restaurant enjoying a glass of wine. The kiss just happens. No planning, no big strategies, it just naturally happens. It was part of the normal course of events that evening.

Closing a sale is exactly the same. If we’ve done our job, no arm twisting of the prospect or customer will be required. The close will naturally and comfortably fit into the normal course of things.

Many salespeople get anxious about the close. “Should I close them today? What kind of close should I use? Should I experiment with trial closes?” Doing this can really rob us of confidence and diminish the work we’ve done leading up to that point.

I used to have a customer that said to me, “Scott, I know you’re not here for a social visit because you’ve been working hard to earn our business. Where’s the order for me to sign?” We know we’ve done a good job handling the sale when the customer or prospect expects to be closed. Sometimes they even ask to be closed.

Should we ignore closing skills? Not entirely. But I want us to remember that the close is the final punctuation, and nothing more, to a well written sentence.

To receive this sales tips blog by email <click here> to receive by RSS <click here>. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

I’m a big believer in sales training, but it often leaves out an important, yet not very sexy, fundamental.

If you’ve been in sales for awhile you’ve been exposed to the following training: closing strategies, steps in a sale, making good first impressions, etc. I call this kind of training “sales step training” because it focuses on very clear-cut steps in the sales process and preaches that some of the steps are much more important than others. Normally whatever sales step is being taught at the moment is deemed to be the most important step in the sales process.

While this model is convenient in the classroom, it really doesn’t translate that well to the real world of selling. I can just see the experienced sales professionals nodding their heads in agreement. Sales is not simple and nothing in the sales process is that concrete.

One of the sales steps that is radically overrated in my opinion is the close (more on this in the next post). The fact is, if you have managed everything properly in the sales process, then the close is just the last part of the process. I like to think of the sales process as links in a chain. Meeting the prospect is the first link in the chain and the last link in the chain is the close.

The chain analogy to the sales process is a good one because each link is the same size and is equally important. You break one link and the sales process falls apart, regardless of where it occurs. If we’ve done an outstanding job of managing the sales process but forget a simple thing like returning a couple of phone calls to the prospect, we stand a good change of losing the sale. Each link is very important.

Most salespeople love doing high profile presentations to prospects. We get back to the office after a successful performance feeling higher than a mountain. We run into our manager’s office and remind them of what a great salesperson we are. But getting the order is in the details. While our great presentation skills may have wowed the prospect initially, it’s our follow-through on all the routine elements that will ultimately get us the order. Break a link in a chain, no matter where it occurs, and the chain is broken.

Remember that prospects think you and your company are probably never going to be more conscientious than you are prior to closing an order. They are looking at each and every link in your chain for breaks. If you ignore what you think is a trivial detail in the sales process, you may have just handed the prospect a chain cutter.

To receive this sales tips blog by email <click here> to receive by RSS <click here>. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

The following post is not intended as a political commentary about any candidate, but rather a sales analysis that uses a public figure as an example.

On January 7 while campaigning in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton was asked the following question by Marianne Young, “My question is very personal. How do you do it?” She was referring to the challenges that Hillary faces in campaigning for public office and managing her personal life. During her answer Hillary became emotional and began to cry.

Senator Clinton admits that this tear-up may have helped her win the New Hampshire election. Was it contrived or was it real emotion?

In January of 1993 her husband, Bill Clinton, became President of the United States and served until 2001. She undoubtedly had to deal with a lot of stress regarding her husband’s “extracurricular” activities before and during this period.

Since her husband has left office she has been very visible as a New York Senator and has been vigorously campaigning for the Presidency over the last year. In this entire time and through all of these events, is there any record of her crying or even showing any significant emotion in public before January 7 of this year?

On February 4 in New Haven, Connecticut Hillary welled up a second time while speaking to a small group of women at Yale. For at least 15 years Hillary has been in the global spotlight and we had never seen her cry, yet in a one month period she teared up twice in front of the cameras.

I feel confident in assuming that the crying was orchestrated. That kind of craftiness can get you in trouble with your customers and it may ultimately cause problems for Hillary. When we do things in sales that are not consistent with who we are, it ultimately turns our prospects and customers off. People resent being manipulated in any way.

What are some examples of ways we try to manipulate customers that almost always backfire?

1. Trying to exude a personality that is not our own, but one that we think the customer will prefer.
2. Pretending to deeply care about a customer’s personal life when we really don’t.
3. Acting like we are really having a bad month, when we’re not, in order to get a mercy order.

While Hillary won the New Hampshire primary she hasn’t done so well since. I can’t help but believe that one of the reasons is the lack of emotional authenticity that she has recently demonstrated.

Ironically - or maybe not - Marianne Young did not vote for Hillary in the primaries.

You’ve got to be real with your customers. Any time we are less than genuine or authentic our customers can tell and we lose credibility. Sales is a relationship game and the foundation of relationships is honesty.

To receive this sales tips blog by email <click here> to receive by RSS <click here>. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Have customers changed much in the last 15 years? The answer is a mega-yes. If you were selling prior to 1993 you have seen a big change in how customers buy. Suprisingly, many sales representatives sell the same way today as they did 15+ years ago.

What has changed?

1. Customers are much more knowledgeable about the products and services they are buying.
2. When it comes to sourcing products and services there are many more options.
3. Customers expect immediate, if not instant, delivery of products and services.

What’s so magical about 1993?

Customers started to change how they view their vendors shortly after 1993 because the common availability of the Internet created an entirely new, and better, information source for them. Since that time our customers have access to information about suppliers, products, services and pricing that would have been the stuff of our worst nightmares for those that remember selling prior to the Internet.

The Internet has totally changed how we sell because customers do have access to any and all information about our products, services, pricing, availability and competitors. The game has changed.

1. Because the Internet can make all vendors look the same to buyers, we must be careful to differentiate our company from our competitors.
2. People are social animals and like dealing with people. The Internet cannot replace you. We have to showcase our personal value (or personal capital) to our customers.
3. We must be better educated about our products and services. If we know little more than what is easily found on the Internet our customers will not be wowed.
4. With the easy availability of overnight shipping and super efficient e-commerce web sites for placing orders, our customers have become accustomed to very fast order processing. We have to compete against that standard in our direct sales efforts.
5. We can create a hybrid sales environment with our customers by encouraging them to use our company’s web site for ordering the smaller and simpler orders. [Of course, if your company doesn't pay you commission on these sales you'll probably have another view of this.]

Keep in mind that you can also use the Internet for selling. Never has it been easier to get information about prospects and competitors. Fight fire with fire.

Now, more than ever, we need to be sure to sell the value we bring the customer beyond just the products and services we sell. If we don’t, we’re nothing more than order processors and most e-commerce web sites do a pretty good job of that already.

To receive this sales tips blog by email <click here> to receive by RSS <click here>. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer