Selling to Consumers | Sales Training Blog by Skip Anderson

The Sales Professional: Lieutenants of the Economy

2011-09-02T12:32:17-05:00

As Labor Day approaches here in the U.S., I want to recognize the herculean contributions of salespeople everywhere to the global economy.

Yes, I know, the economy continues to be in shambles, and as great as salespeople are, even they aren't able to single-handedly clear the dark cloud of financial darkness that has plagued us for the last few years.

But think where we would be without the recent contributions of salespeople everywhere. Salespeople are the boots on the ground (or boots on the phone) engaging prospects and making business happen. At a time when consumers and businesses alike are cautious at least, and have their purchasing locked down at worst, salespeople are in the field and on their phones contacting prospects, finding prospects, creating relationships, looking for hidden opportunities and helping their prospects and shoppers find a reason to say "YES" to a sales proposal NOW.

The economy hasn't been kind to most salespeople lately. Some have had to take on second or even third jobs as they've seen their commission checks shrivel or their colleagues be dismissed from their employment. Others have had to cut back drastically as they've seen leads have dried up to a mere trickle, if even that. Salespeople have never worked harder and have never been more dedicated. Their contributions to business are monumental, and they should be recognized for it. [A couple years ago I put together an ebook, "27 Can-Do Steps to Sell in Tough Economic Times. You can download it free here.]

So, here's an idea for you to recognize the salespeople within your sphere of social, casual, and business contacts. Maybe you're a sales manager or small business owner or client or customer or the brother, daughter, sister or father of a salesperson. Here's what you do:

Email them a brief note recognizing their contribution to business and to helping keep the economy alive. Include a link to this blog post. You could email something like this:

"Heather, I really appreciate your contributions to our company and want to recognize the vital role salespeople make in our organization. Keep up the great work and know that I am appreciating all you do every day, even if I don't verbalize it to you. This blog post sums up my feelings about salespeople. I thought of you when I read it."

My final thought:

To all salespeople everywhere, thank you for what you do and the efforts you make and the results you get. Economic times will get better for all of us, and I look forward to seeing how your future contributions are going to help get us there. Selling is an honorable and vital career. You should be proud it is your career, even during tough economic times.

Skip

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies that sell to consumers in all B2C sectors to increase sales by leveraging the buying potential of every prospect and shopper.

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Why "3 for $99" is Worth Much More than $99 to a Seller

2011-08-31T12:13:09-05:00

You sell products or services to consumers. Let's say you're offering a widget on sale this week for $33. And you sell some throughout the day or week this widget is on sale. That's good for business.

But what's even better for business is to offer those same widgets at 3 for $99. Of course, this makes sense because a lot of customers will buy three of them, thus increasing your revenue.

But here's the real reason to adopt a "3 for $99" mindset in appropriate nooks and crannies of your business-to-consumer sales operation. You are setting up an opportunity to say this to your prospect or shopper:

"You can do 3 for $99, OR, you can save even more money and get 6 for $198, do you want to do that?

I know this isn't feasible for all B2C segments, but for some, this concept will have an impact on a company's revenue. Assuming that my suggestion is feasible for your particular business, then depending upon the industry and the product or service you are selling, you will find that anywhere from one out of ten prospects to ten out of ten prospects will take you up on your proposal. Just imagine what this could do for your top line!

Here are some potential examples:

> Your a men's clothing retailer so you offer a certain collection of dress shirts at two for $75, but you offer to sell four for $150.

> You're a plumbing and heating contractor and you have a special on toilets sold in the home for (I have no idea what toilets sell for these days, especially when installed, so bear with me) $395 instead of $450, but then you say, "or you can do a second toilet and do both of them for only 790. Some consumers will reason that, as long as you're already there replacing a broken toilet, I might as well go ahead and get a new toilet in the guest bathroom as well."

> You sell dog treats in your pet supply store. A special section of premium treats are $1.49 each, but you post a sign saying "2 for $2.75." When your shopper picks up two and lays them on your counter to purchase them, you say "If you want, you can get 4 for $5.50 and save even more money, do you want to do that?" You're surprised but pleased when the prospect puts eight dog treats on the cash counter.

Of course, the magic isn't in the exact quantity or the exact price in these scenarios, it's the concept. If it makes sense with your product in your industry, you can utilize this selling strategy to easily upsell many of your clients / customers.

How have you used this strategy successfully in your business? Or how do you think it could be used? Please share your thoughts or pass along additional examples of the concept.

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies that sell to consumers in all B2C sectors to increase sales by leveraging the buying potential of every prospect and shopper.

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Deciding: The Salesperson's Very First Step In Selling

2011-08-26T13:11:21-05:00

A few minutes ago, I decided to take a break from what I was doing at my desk. I consciously told my body to move my chair back away from my desk, then I told my legs and arms to lift me out of my chair, and then I told my legs to transport me to the restroom.

Notice the word "decided" in the first sentence above. None of us will ever take a break from what we're doing at our desk unless we decide to do it first. The precursor to movement away from a desk is a decision made in our mind. In fact, it has to be made in our mind before we can execute the movement.

Successful selling is no different.

> We can decide to be successful or we can decide to be unsuccessful (we can also decide to be tentative, to not put in too much effort, to wait and see what happens, etc. - each will bring a different result).

> We can decide to craft an effective presentation or we can decide to wing in (which may feel good to us, but will probably result in less success).

> We can decide to improve our sales closing skills or we can keep doing what we're doing ( in which case we will almost certainly get the same result)s.

> We can decide to become a better manager by improving communications with our staff, or we can blame our staff for not getting it (a sure-fire way to lose your staff, or at least its loyalty).

> We can decide to role-play a challenging part of our sales process or we can wait to see if it comes together over time (I don't want my surgeon seeing if his skills come together over time).

> We can decide to talk to our manager about an issue that concerns us or we can decide to not do that and instead gossip about it to anybody who will listen (thereby reducing the chance that something will be done about the issue).

Life is series of decisions, the results of which will show success or failure or something in between. Becoming either a top-tier salesperson or a short-lived one is also determined by our decisions - many of them - both big and small.

What decisions, big and small, do you need to make today?

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Four Tips to be More Successful at One Call Close selling

2011-08-17T13:30:26-05:00

In my previous post, I compared one call close selling to "selling to a bucking bronco" (prospects trying to "buck you" off of them). Today we turn our attention to taming said bucking bronco. Please allow me to suggest four tips for more successful One Call Close selling:

1. Have a plan.

Although plans can change or adapt when necessary, it's always better to have a plan to sell successfully in place when doing any kind of selling, but especially to the one-call-close prospect. This plan would be in the form of a well-designed sales script or a detailed and proven step-by-step sales process. One thing that definitely does not work well is what I call "random selling," which is a conversation with the strategy piece missing. Nor does blathering on and on about your product work. If you don't have a plan, get one immediately, and if you need to, enlist the help of someone you trust to create a plan with you.

2. Learn how to handle objections, stalls, and distractions.

If you don't know what to say after a prospect says "Maybe I'll just get your business card and think about it" after you've asked your prospect to buy from you, you can't yet handle prospect objections, stalls, or distractions. But the good news is that you can learn. Start with creating and memorizing the answer to just one common sales objection. Practice it repeatedly for an extended period of time, even after you think you have it down cold. When you're ready to add to your repertoire, digest another answer to a common sales objection. Eventually, you'll develop a lust for your prospects' objections, because they will no longer make you freeze, stammer, or stumble, they'll make you shine and make you sell more.

3. Be friendly, kind, charismatic, genuine, and very, very human.

People dislike plastic, fake people. People hate plastic, fake salespeople. How you sell is a reflection of your values and your beliefs about selling, yourself, and your prospects and customers. These beliefs shine through your eyes, your behaviors and in what you say to your prospects. Let the light of you shine. People love to buy from people they like and enjoy being with (even if their time with the salesperson is only ten or fifteen minutes). If you're a likable person, you've got a leg up on other salespeople, sometimes even though the competitor's salesperson may have more experience or product knowledge. If you're not likable, find a way to become likable in a hurry. Otherwise, I suspect a sales career may not be for you. Likability is important in any sales career.

4. Make sure your time with the prospect creates sales momentum.

A sales interaction with a prospect, no matter how long or short it is, must create sales momentum to maximize the opportunity. Completing one phase of the interaction (even if that one phase is one simple question) should help propel the salesperson/prospect interaction into the second phase, and the second should propel the interaction into the third phase, and so on. The more momentum, the easier it is to complete the sale. Think about cleaning out your garage or cleaning the kitchen. Once you've started the project, you get into it, and you start digging in. Once you're halfway done, you want to get finished. You've just experienced task momentum. Help your sales process experience sales momentum. Momentum allows the sale to happen with far less effort than with no sales momentum.

Now, go tame that bronc.

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The Bucking Bronco of Sales: The One Call Close Prospect

2011-08-16T12:40:48-05:00

Some of us who sell for a living have merely a single prospect interaction (a meeting or visit to our store or a stop at their front door) to complete a sale with that prospect. The solution for this predicament has been termed the one call close.

I think the prospect in many one call close scenarios is the bucking bronco of the sales prospect world. Even if we've been invited into a prospect's realm (or they've invited themselves into our realm, such as during their visit to our showroom), prospect's love to keep us at a distance, to throw us off track, and to delay a buying decision.

First, let's make sure we're on the same page regarding "one call close" selling. Here are some examples of a sales interaction that could be considered one call close opportunities.

> You're selling art on a cruise ship. Your prospect will only be in your vicinity for five days. After that, he or she goes away forever.

> You're selling a consumer product in a retail store (pick a product; let's say it's golf clubs). The vast majority of visitors to your store end up not buying, whether it's buying today or next week or next month. Therefore, if you want to maximize your sales opportunities, you need to make the most of the prospect's presence in your store right at the moment they are in front of you.

> You're selling your product door-to-door in the residential market (pick a product; how about a package of discount coupons to the new auto repair shop in your community).

> You're selling custom closets. The prospect's current closet fell down in the middle of the night (it was a cheap product and also installed with insufficient care) and they need it replaced (and improved) right away so they've invited you to their home for a price quote (that doesn't automatically mean they're going to select you to do it, however).

Most of these prospects will become -- in part or in whole -- bucking broncos:

> They may avoid answering some of your questions. They do this by changing the subject, or giving one word answers to questions that would typically require longer answers, or by acting as if they are indifferent.

> They may answer questions untruthfully, either intentionally or unintentionally. When you inquire about, let's say, their budget for a project, they may either lowball it (in hopes of receiving a greatly discounted price from you) or highball it (in an effort to not look cheap or unable to afford something, even though that may be the real truth).

> They may avoid allowing you to question them at a deeper level. Even though it would probably allow us to help the prospect more, they may not be willing to share information about their driving habits even though we'd like to be able to recommend a vehicle that matches their driving habits. Perhaps they think they're protecting themselves from us (side note: shame on "us" -- sales professionals and sales organizations -- for putting prospective customers in a situation where they feel they need protection from us).

> They may say they're getting other "quotes" or "visiting other stores" even though they've already received those other quotes or already visited the other stores. They often want to shut us down or put us on hold, even though they may still end up purchasing our product.

All bucking broncos buck. But they can be trained and worked with in such a way that they won't buck anymore. And when that happens, it's good for the bronco and it's good for the rider of the bronco. It's also good for the prospect and the sales professional selling to them.

Tame your bucking bronco prospects, and you'll be a better seller.

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Get Off the Commerce Freeway Once in a While

2011-06-07T14:12:12-05:00

Society if full of sellers, all busily pursuing their next sale And that's how it should be.

But not all the time.

Just like worker bees, we get on the commerce freeway, encouraged by our sales managers and our compensation programs and our personal debt to travel faster, and periodically even faster yet. Fast was last year's goal; very fast is this year's goal. Next year we'll be seeking to make sales super fast. In sales, fast is better, and more is even better.

But it's important we get off the commerce freeway now and then. We can seek a new perspective, see where we are and verify that where we're headed is the best place to be going. We can all benefit from reading a sales book, taking a sales assessment, attending a seminar, or connecting with others in our industry that we've meant to connect with, but haven't.

That brings us to sales training.

Yes, I have a sales training company, and yes, of course, I want every company to hire us to train their salespeople. But this isn't just self-serving to me or other trainers out there, it's to encourage you to find identify and repair gaps between management's expectations for sales performance and the current skill sets of those doing the sales performing (or lack thereof).

I love to ask clients why they are doing this or why they're doing that. Answers vary widely, but the most popular answers - by far - are either, "That's a good question; I'm not sure why" or "I don't know, we've always done it that way." A fresh pair of eyes can provide a company with often extraordinarily valuable insight about a company's everyday sales operations that can lead to increased revenue production.

Just like in so many areas of human achievement, the difference between being a winner and an also-ran is often very small. But when you implement those small changes, sales can grow and even explode.

Get off the commerce freeway once in a while and get on the on-ramp to the fresh perspective freeway. Stay a while. And visit it every now and then. You'll be amazed and what you'll see if you just allow yourself to look.

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