Sales Blog with Professional Sales Tips

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If you’re like me, you love buying a car. For starters, you love it because you get a new car. You also love it because you enjoy negotiating. I know this is a sales tips blog, but allow me to interject a quick buyer’s tip here. Don’t think for a second that you can out-negotiate a good car sales professional at a dealership. They know their stuff. Listen and learn from them.

“…this works about 90% of the time for those buyers who are capable of buying…”

Car Dealership Sales Tips
I always like observing the multitude of good old-fashioned sales techniques that car dealerships use. In many of today’s selling environments, these techniques would be quickly recognized by the buyer, not appropriate and counterproductive. However, there is one sales technique car dealerships frequently use that all of us should take advantage of whether we’re selling fishing lures, Boeing jets or cars.

Let me give you an example.

Buyer: “I really like the Toyota Avalon but the payments are going to be too high I’m afraid.”
Seller: “I understand. Maybe you could consider another car we offer, the Corolla. It is smaller and only comes with a four-cylinder engine. It’s not the car that the Avalon is, but it might fit better within your budget parameters.”
Buyer: “Corolla! My grandmother used to drive one of those when she retired. No way.”
Seller: “If you could stretch just a bit more on the monthly payment that might give us enough room to restructure the loan and enable you to get the car you really want.”
Buyer: “Okay, I think I could afford another $100 per month.”

Sales Newsletter: Decoy Marketing
This sales technique is called Decoy Marketing and can work in virtually any industry. You simply introduce a cheaper or inferior product to a customer who is balking at cost. The customer realizes that compared to what they want to buy, the decoy looks undesirable. They conclude that the extra cost is justifiable.

In 20+ years of sales and sales management, I’ve observed that this works about 90% of the time for those buyers who are capable of buying but are raising strong price objections.

Sales Blog Wrap-Up
Virtually everyone that is reading this sales blog works for a company that has products and services ranging from “economy” to “premium.” Creatively use your broad product line and this tactic to overcome price objections.

Further reading: Does any customer at any time ever pay the lowest price for anything?

To receive these sales articles by email <click here> to receive by RSS <click here>. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

You’re trying to guess what the words are, but you may be surprised. I’m not really looking for four separate words. What I have in mind is actually a sentence.

A question, to be exact.

“It will even work with our significant other.”

One of the Best Sales Tips You’ll Ever Get in this Sales Blog
So what is the question?

“Can you help me?”

That’s it. In sales this is one of the most powerful ways of finding out what we need to know while simultaneously creating a bond with our prospects and customers.

Sales Newsletter: Why This Question is so Powerful

• People like to help people. The vast majority of humans on this earth find it rewarding to help others…they even enjoy helping people in sales. I like helping other sales pros with sales tips. I, just like everyone else, like the feeling I get when helping someone.
• When we ask this question, we show some vulnerability. People respond positively to that.
• After helping someone, people always feel some degree of connection with the person they just helped.
• These four words have a way of making us look less “salesy” and more “real.” This is always a good thing.

Tim was a sales trainer who taught me this early in my career. I’ll be honest; I had my doubts. However, Tim was one of those trainers who would make customer calls with you. He practiced and demonstrated what he preached - how refreshing. After I saw him successfully use this question on a dozen prospects, I became a believer. It works.

Sales Blog Wrap-Up
This question actually works in all areas of our lives. It’s universal. It will even work with our significant other.

I’m obviously not the inventor of this potent question. It’s not new, yet I see very few sales pros using it. Why? I don’t know for sure. My guess is that it has something to do with why it is so effective in the first place.

We have to be a little vulnerable.

Further reading: 8 Idiotic Phrases We Use with Customers

To receive these sales articles by email <click here> to receive by RSS <click here>. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Answer 1: He was fired two years ago.
Answer 2: She died almost five years ago.
Answer 3: He was demoted about three years ago and is no longer a decision maker for your products and services at that company.

In the spirit of networking, a sales pro called me recently and wanted some sales tips on three employees at a company I had worked with recently. He was prospecting and had three names he had identified as decision makers. As he read their names I responded with the answers enumerated above.

“…asking for a dead person is not the way to start.”

Clearly he had the right intent. He was doing research before making an initial contact with a prospect. He had found some names and was calling me to get more data. But how could he have been so far off base? Can you imagine how warmly he would have been received if he had contacted the prospect asking for these people before I was able to set him straight?

Sales Tips: What Went Wrong?
The problem was that he had used one of the old-school lead databases to get names of decision makers. It has been my experience that the data we get from these sources can be outdated and inaccurate. I’m being too generous - make that virtually worthless at times. My networking friend had provided yet another example of how unreliable these information sources can be.

I believe we can do better than these old-school lead databases that employ highly disinterested and low paid call center employees to retrieve information and sell it to you or your company.

Sales Newsletter: There are Better Ways
Prospects are demanding that we know more about them when we contact them. We need our information to be current and accurate. There are some great tools available to us that can provide current and high quality lead information. These tools have been covered in this sales tips blog before. Please see “Further reading” below. The costs for the leads they provide can range from very reasonable to zero.

Business Networking: Ryze, LinkedIn, Plaxo
Directories of Companies and Business Professionals: Jigsaw, NetProspex

Sales Blog Wrap-Up
Calling a prospect and asking for a dead person is not the way to start. We can do better.

Further reading:

• Jigsaw CEO Tells Me Why You Need His Website
• Interview with Gary Halliwell, CEO of NetProspex
• Tips for Sales: The Business Social Networking Landscape is Changing Radically

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

Do you know what a sales cliché is? They’re different from sales tips. They are trite sales expressions that express a common sales concept. These sales clichés lose all of their impact because of their overuse and their frequent stupidity. Good sales tips can help, but sales clichés can hurt.

“In my opinion, just saying ‘win-win’ in a buyer-seller context sounds a little creepy.”

One of My Most Unappetizing Sales Clichés
One of the sales clichés that hurts my ears is, “We just want to make this a win-win situation,” or one of its many variants. It’s getting hard to find a sales blog or selling articles that don’t promote “win-win” as some kind of ultimate sales strategy. But not in this sales tips blog.

When a sales pro uses the “win-win” angle, he or she is trying to tell the customer that the transaction being concocted will not only make the customer more profitable, efficient, well known, faster, better, etc., but will also help the vendor too.

What could be better? Everyone is now happy and successful. Buyer and seller alike.

Sales Newsletter: Why “Win-Win” is a Loser
Reality says that the customer could not possibly care less whether the selling company is helped by the transaction or not. Why is that?

• Most customers assume that vendors are smart enough to put something in the deal for themselves. They’re not worried about the vendor and don’t need to be.
• Customers are like everyone else; they’re selfish. They’re focusing on what they get out of the deal. Remember WIIFM (What’s In It For Me)? The “me” is the customer, by the way.
• The customer knows they have to take care of their own interests first because in actuality that is exactly what the selling company is doing too.

Sales Blog Wrap-Up
Customers want us to focus exclusively on them. They want us to help them fix problems and prevent others. They aren’t concerned if we “win” something when they purchase from us. In my opinion, just saying “win-win” in a buyer-seller context sounds a little creepy.

By completely taking the attention off ourselves and not positioning the sale as some kind of victory for us, we’ll always be in a better position to make the sale.

Further reading: Customer Service 101, Let them think they’re your only customer

To receive these sales articles by email <click here> to receive by RSS <click here>. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

On a flight to attend a sales meeting, I found myself sitting next to the CEO of one of the 25 largest companies in America. At the time he had been featured in several selling articles.

I have to confess that I am the king of cynics when it comes to Really-Big-Company CEOs. Aren’t they really just a beneficiary of cronyism? Is it possible for the CEO at any Really-Big-Company to keep a straight face when they try to justify their compensation package?

As you might guess, I’ve been disillusioned by many Really-Big-Company CEOs. I don’t think I’m alone in that opinion. You’ll find plenty of sales articles that support this diagnosis.

“Maybe all CEOs at Really-Big-Companies aren’t Darth Vader after all.”

I recognized this person immediately (who asked me not to mention his name or company). He represented the perfect stereotype of a CEO. He wore an exquisitely tailored suit with cuff links and a jeweled Rolex on his wrist. I can assure you he spent more than $19 on his haircut (what my “stylist” currently charges me).

Interview Material for My Sales Blog
There was no way I was going to sit on this flight for two hours and not attempt to engage this guy. The seat belt light was on; he wasn’t going anywhere. I was not intimidated by him in the least. Well, maybe a little.

My approach was to pretend not to know who he was, introduce myself and then feign surprise at my good fortune of randomly being seated next to him. I think he bought my performance. It was what happened next that was eye opening.

After we introduced ourselves he said, “Scott, I know that some people prefer to not talk to their neighbor during a flight. Would you like to chat a little? You seem like an interesting fellow.”

I (trying to conceal my excitement and surprise) respond, “I’d love to talk with you.” I then realized that I probably could have been a little more subdued in my response and the word “love” maybe wasn’t the best choice.

This CEO then asked me, “Tell me why you’re on this flight today. How does it fit in with who Scott is?” He hit me with one question after another for almost the entire two-hour flight. I did 90% of the talking. He provided almost 100% of the questions and all of them were directed at me. He, for some unknown reason, was interested in learning about me.

The two-hour flight seemed like 20 minutes. He was a great listener. This experience was humbling, memorable and certainly endeared me to him.

Sales Newsletter: Taught Through Example
I learned two very critical lessons from this intriguing CEO during this encounter, both of which can be beneficial to us in sales.

1. Maybe all CEOs at Really-Big-Companies aren’t Darth Vader after all.
2. We need to forget about being interesting to people and focus on being interested in people.

Sales Blog Wrap-up
To build relationships with our customers we don’t need to fixate on entertaining them. We should instead concern ourselves with being a dedicated student of their issues, needs and concerns. I would have bought anything from this CEO. In fact, I did. He sold me on himself and I did all the talking. Ultimately, isn’t that what we’re trying to do with customers?

Further reading: Being a Name Brand Salesperson for a Really-Big-Company

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