Tag Archives: customer

Zip the Lips

Every once in a while, I meet a salesperson who proudly proclaims, “I’ve got the gift of gab.” In sales, that “gift” is more aptly described as “the curse of chatter”.

Successful sales professionals know that sales are really more about listening than they are about talking.

Those with the curse more often engage in product or feature-speak than they do in providing customer-focused solutions or opportunities.

Customers don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care….and caring is demonstrated by listening.

Listening is by far the most important and difficult skill a sales professional can learn and practice. The salespeople who annoy and alienate prospects the most are those who claim to be good listeners but follow every customer objection with a “yah, but….”

There is no room for the word “but” in a good listener’s vocabulary. To be a professional listener you need to:

Earn the right to ask questions by learning something about the prospect’s business before you make a call. Prepare with open-ended questions that encourage the prospect to express their views and feelings.

Demonstrate you are listening by taking notes. (Always ask permission to take notes, “Your input is important to me; do you mind if I take a few notes?”)

Paraphrase and summarize what you hear. Don’t start a debate.

Use the language and needs you hear the customer express when you make your presentation.
Make certain that every benefit you present relates to a need you heard the prospect express.

There’s a lot more money to be made being interested than there is in being interesting. So why not, shut your trap, bite your lip, zip the lips, and make some money!

Just Listen

While interviewing prospective media sales reps and visiting with seasoned sales reps, every once in a while I meet people who proudly proclaim their strength to be, “I’ve got the gift of gab.” They say this as it’s a strength instead of a potential weakness.

In sales, the “gift of gab” can oftentimes be more aptly described as “the curse of chatter”, or more to the point as someone that “doesn’t know when to shut up”!

Successful sales professionals know that sales is really more about listening than it is about talking.

Those with the curse more often engage in product-feature speak than they do in providing customer-focused solutions or opportunities.

Customers don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care….and caring is demonstrated by listening.

Listening is by far the most important skill a sales professional can learn and practice. The salespeople who annoy and alienate prospects the most are those who claim to be good listeners but follow every customer objection with a “yah, but…..“

There is no room for the word “but” in a good listener’s vocabulary. To be a professional listener you need to:

1.) Be Prepared. Earn the right to ask questions by learning something about the prospect’s business before you make a call.

2.) Ask open-ended questions that encourage the prospect to express their views and feelings.

3.) Demonstrate you are listening by taking notes. (Always ask permission to take notes, i.e. “Your input is important to me; do you mind if I take a few notes?”)

4.) Paraphrase and summarize what you hear. Don’t start a debate.

5.) Use the language and needs you hear the customer express when you make your presentation.

6.) Make certain that every benefit you present relates to a need you heard the prospect express.

There is a lot more money to be made being interested than there is in being interesting.

So, instead of proving that you have the “gift of gab”, shut up and… Just Listen!

“I Don’t Have the Budget”

It’s one of the most common objections a salesperson receives… but when a customer or prospect poses this objection, is it true? The answer… maybe, or maybe not!

Recently, several media reps posed this question to us, “I’ve had a lot of people say to me lately that they don’t have the budget. How do I reply to that?”

You might try this, “O.K., Mrs./Mr. Business Owner. I appreciate your honesty in sharing that with me. But, let me ask you… If I had an idea that you felt would help grow your business, would you be interested in hearing it?”

Then… wait for their response.

They can either reply by saying, “Well yes, I guess I would.” Then you are free to either present your idea or get busy and come up with one. Or…

They can say no! If they do so, well… they simply aren’t a very good prospect and it’s time to move on to prospects with more potential. I would suggest saying thank you and asking if you could reach out to them from time to time to see if things might have changed.

If you’ve found success using another response to this objection, we’d love to hear it. Please click here and share your thoughts.

We hope that you enjoy our weekly ENS on Sales. If you would be open to sharing ways that you use ENS on Sales, or how you find it helpful, we’d love to hear your comments.

Additionally, if you have suggestions or ideas on topics that you would like to see us address in future ENS on Sales, please send us your thoughts at [email protected].

Self-Evaluation

You just walked out from an appointment with your client or prospect and now it’s off to your next task for the day. STOP! What you do next can have a profound impact on your future success in sales. Before moving on to your next task, take two minutes and conduct a self-evaluation of your performance by asking yourself these questions:

1. How did that meeting go? (Honestly rate yourself on a scale from 1 to 10)

2. What could I have done better?

3. What did I do well?

4. What did I say or do that I should not have said or done?

Statistically, only 1 in 7 salespeople conduct a self-evaluation after each sales interaction. 85% of salespeople fail to do this.

Self-evaluation is not just for sales. Top athletes self-assess how they performed after each performance. They ask themselves… What did they do right? What did they do wrong? Where did they fall short? What can they improve? What can they do to give themselves a competitive advantage?

This same rule applies to management. If your goal is to improve and continually become a better manager, you too should evaluate yourself after every individual or group meeting with your sellers.

If you are in the 85% of sellers that do not currently do self-evaluations, START! By doing so, your performance will continue to get better with every customer contact.

How Did You Do It?

If you are a sales manager, you probably started in this business as a sales rep, and it was all about the math of selling. The number of cold calls and the number of “packages” you presented became part of your success formula.

Now as a sales manager, with probably very little management training, you’re expected to train the troops. Your idea of “training” might go something like this; “When I was on the street I …”.

Stop it! No one cares how you did it “in the old days”.

You know there have been dramatic changes in the world; changing technologies, changing station ownership, changing economies, changing, changing, changing.

What is it that makes you think the marketing and sales arena is the only thing that hasn’t changed from “When I was on the street”? Let’s look at old world cold calling as an example.

How do you feel when a telemarketer interrupts your dinner to sell you something you haven’t felt a need for? How do you think your prospects feel when your reps embark upon a door to door cold-call campaign to sell them a one-size-fits-all package of the week? Most salespeople don’t like making cold calls, and certainly, most clients view these interruptions to doing business as rude! So why do we do it?

We’ve focused on cold calls because traditionally, that’s the beginning of the sales process. Every step in modern strategic selling has changed today, and sales training has changed as well. Training is no longer a manager’s “show and tell”.

Like with all other aspects of your business, you can either embrace the changing world of sales and sales training or continue doing the same thing over and over. I’m sure you’ve heard what Einstein has called doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result…that was his definition of insanity.

In the new media world, there is a better way of training and selling. It involves creating warm calls rather than cold calls, using technology to build stronger customer relationships, and it’s been proven to grow your long-term revenues.

Business guru Jack Welch says, “There is always a better way. Find it!”

Click here if you would like to discuss implementing our “better way” for 2018 and 2019.