I am not a Sales Trainer, I am a salesman. Nothing I will be telling you will be new. You will know virtually everything I write about before I write it.
So why read on?
Well if you don’t you will never be sure that you haven’t missed something that could make a difference to you.
As a salesman I want to know what will help me sell my products or services to more prospects. I want to close more deals. I want to be the very best salesman in the company and earn an extremely high income. I want to be a millionaire. So how do I close more sales?
And that’s the purpose of this article. The answer is very very simple. Get your clients to BUY from you. Stop thinking that YOU have to close the deal. Get your prospects to CLOSE the deal, get them to buy from you.
Is that revolutionary? No. Its how virtually ALL top sales people have achieved their success. The best sales people get their customers to buy from them.
Ask yourself, have you ever been sold a product or service or did you BUY in every case? I’ve had many fancy sales people trying to sell to me, but in every case I have only purchased if it was something that I wanted or needed.
The job of a sales person is to identify what I need or want and explain how his/her product or services fits the bill. Then your customer will make a decision and BUY. But as a salesman you have not done your job if
But how do I get them to buy before they buy?
Is it some new closing technique? I told you nothing I have to say will be new.
Is it some complicated or logical way to develop a sales presentation? No but your presentation should be fully worked out BEFORE you get in front of clients or prospects.
So do you have a magic wand? Yes.
Yes I have a magic wand and that magic wand has a name. Its name is TRUST. No one will buy from you unless they trust you. No one will listen to a sales presentation unless they trust you. You may even have a problem getting to meet clients and prospects if you don’t gain their trust.
Would you buy from someone you did not trust? No, I think not. I may want the product or service but if I don’t trust them I cannot be sure I get exactly what I want. I may be taken advantage of or they may lie to me. SO trust is essential for someone to buy. Trust is my Magic Wand. Every time I have my Magic Wand I make a sale, providing I have done the rest of my job right, that of qualifying my prospect, identifying their need, presented a solution to THEIR need and created urgency to act.
So how do we gain Trust?
First of all we need to understand what is trust.
Definition: To have or place confidence in; depend on.
Confidence in or depend upon. That means that when you say something they can rely on you and will believe you. You know you can be trusted and relied on. But how do you know when your customer or prospect trusts you?
That’s a million dollar question. If they don’t buy from you, maybe they didn’t trust you fully. That does not mean they mistrust you. To not have trust in someone is not the same as to mistrust someone.
Mistrust can only come from knowledge. A lack of trust comes from a lack of knowledge. So to get trust from someone you have to get them to know you? Well No, not really. They don’t need to know you but they do need to think they know enough about you to trust you. They need to know you are interested in them.
It is this that the less than honest play upon. They allow the person to think they know enough to place their trust in the sales person. But because they are projecting a false image, the customer places their trust mistakenly. This is why people think that some sales people can sell anything to anyone. But remember, sales people don’t sell you products or services you BUY those products and services, even if it is on a false premise.
So how do you get someone to know you enough to place their trust in you so they will buy your products or services?
As in any sales process there must be an objective which is clear and obtainable. So what is the objective or what are the objectives? We need the customer to say one or more of a number of statements to themselves.
I can do Business with this person!
He’s/She’s just like me!
I like this person.
These are just a few, but there are others which I am sure you will be able to work out when you think about it. This is the point where your presentation can begin and not before.
But how do you gain trust?
This is the part of the sales interview most trainers spend the least amount of time on. I don’t know why because it is here that you can make or break the possibility of making a sale.
Over the years the name of this section has changed. Introduction, PreAmble or Building Rapport. The latter of those is my preference, because that is what you are doing.
To gain the trust of someone you need to be able to understand someone and they you. They need to like you. Not to be your best friend but not to dislike you. Neutral is OK but not ideal.
How do you get someone to think you are a great person, a person that cares about him/her, a person you can trust? Encourage them to talk about themselves!
We all love to talk about ourselves. And we are so egocentric that when someone encourages us to do what we want to do most in life, talk about ourselves, we think they are great. They are great conversationalists. They can be trusted.
So Mr Prospect, how did you start in this business? “Well, when I was nee high to a grasshopper I used to watch steam trains and …. “ And before you know it the prospect is giving you a potted life history.
How long have you been in Liverpool?
How long have you been with the company?
When did you first develop an interest in …..?
What got you into starting your own business?
Where are you from Mr Prospect?
All open ended questions. All leaving the door open for him to tell you as little or as much as he wants. And trust me he will want to tell you a lot. Follow on questions will set him going for longer.
Why do say that Mr Prospect?
How come you never did this before?
How do you mean, exactly?
How many children do you have?
Who was most influential in that decision?
And another few minutes will elapse. And before you know it he is sold on you. He thinks you are interested in him! And that has to be true.
Too many sales people know these words but could not care a toss about the answers. They don’t like people. They just want to make the sale and so will pretend to be interested. But today's buyer are more sophisticated that ever before and many will be able to smell dishonesty, untruths, disinterest. So learn to be interested even if you are not at the moment.
Why?
If you pay attention you will learn things. You will be able to identify the personality profile of your prospect. You will be able to understand what drives them. You be able to appreciate their motivations. You will make the sale there and then if you care and if you pay attention.
Listen! Learn! And Succeed.
I once had a sales meeting with two guys to sell insurance. I sat down and we chatted. I asked my open ended discussion generating questions. And we talked. We talked. And we talked.
I went past the point where I had built up a level of trust to enable me to do business with them. But still I asked the questions and kept chatting. I knew there was something they were not telling me. So I kept going.
In the end I decided I had to do something about this so I stopped the chatting. And I said “ Fred. Steve. As you know I am here to discuss your finances and how I can help with your financial security. You have told me a lot about yourselves but I feel you are holding something back and I suspect I need to know what it is.
So lets put one thing aside, you are Gay. I clear that up because I realise that is not what you are holding back. Do you feel you can tell me what it is?” I shut up and waited. A little bit apprehensive just in case I was wrong that they were gay. I waited. I kept quiet.
And then Steve spoke. And he told me he had once attempted suicide. He then went on to tell me his life story and how he was the only son of a multi-millionaire who had disowned him when he ‘came out’. How he had led a mixed up life until he met Fred. I got everything about them and I knew I had made a sale. In fact I knew they would never deal with anyone else for their insurances.
To get to that point had taken 3 hours. And another hour later I had sorted their mortgage and completed application forms for a number of policies. It was now 1 am in the morning and I felt good. I knew I had done my job good that night.
But I don’t tell you this to blow my own trumpet but to highlight the relevance of gaining trust by building rapport. That story happened 30 years ago, and I still remember those boys to this day.
When they bought their new home I was invited to the House warming and introduced to everyone as “The man who bought our house for us!” I got quite a few referrals that night.
Invest your time to gain your clients and prospects trust. Without it you are going to find the rest of the sale an uphill task. With it you will find sales follow more often than not.
But how do you know when they trust you?
I love customers who start a meeting with their arms crossed. They advertise what they are thinking. I know that I have to get them to unfold their arms. I can do it by cheating methods, such as giving them something to hold, but mentally their minds may still be crossed.
I do it by talking with them, by asking questions about themselves, I chat. As time goes on and they realise I want them to talk about themselves, their favourite topic, they unfold their arms. Bit by bit they sit up and sit forward. They become more animated. They are receptive. They are interested. And they now use words like “I can do business with this person”. They won’t say it to you but you will hear the words. You will hear by observing Body Language, by hearing a change in tone or emphasis of their speech. And that is the time to move on. To decide what they need and explain how your products fit the bill. To make the sale.
I mentioned earlier that you could identify the prospects/clients personality profile. This is important. To gain the trust of a person you must not adopt a style that causes them to draw back.
People are different.
If you only have one way to ‘sell’ your product or service or to conduct a meeting, then it may not appeal to the larger portion of the people you talk to. Learn to read the person in front of you and present or behave in a manner that they are comfortable with or ‘gets them going’. That style will have to vary depending upon who you are talking to. Don’t ask the questions that would get you going only those that excite the individual in front of you.
Learn to say the same thing in a myriad of different ways. Tell stories to illustrate points.
Don’t! ‘Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself’
Do “Do unto others as they would have done unto themselves”.
Ask Open Ended Questions about the person.
Listen to the answers.
Ask Open Ended follow-on questions about the person.
Be interested in your Prospect or Client.
Lower barriers by getting your prospect to talk about themselves.
Do not talk about yourself.
You want to ‘hear’ these words … “I like this person” … “I can do business with this person” … “This person is just like me”
They will be sitting upright and maybe leaning forward a little (so should you). They will be attentive. They will be smiling. They will be animated.
