Five great ways to send your sales skyrocketing in 2010
In this five-part series, Ive shared with you a range of activities that you can engage today to help turbo charge sales in your business""-no matter whether you are a
sales professional working solo or managing a sales team. Ive identified for you what you need to do at the front-end of your sales cycle""defining your best customers, obtaining referrals and testimonials and making better use of all of these in how you sell to your prospects. Ive also talked about how to engage your sales math and why this is an important step to take if youre determined to join the ranks of the top-10 percent of sales performers in your organization.
There is one more point that I want to cover in this series, and thats the importance of doing nothing.
You read that right.
Nothing.
Hear me out, because this is really important. To explain what I mean, lets start by acknowledging a key fact about sales. Objections are among the biggest challenges that salespeople encounter when working hard to turn prospects into customers. However, they are not insurmountable! Objections are quite a natural part of sales process.
Its understandable, really, that when making a decision to buy, people will often take a step back and ask themselves am I doing the right thing...am I comfortable with whats being offered? Lets face it, we all ask questions like those when were on the other side of the table as a buyer (e.g., think about the kinds of objections you may have had the last time you bought a home or a car). So really there is no harm in acknowledging this as entirely acceptable behavior among your prospects and customers. That is why I take issue with some sales experts out there who try to tell you that you can sell in a way that creates no objections. Please. If you respect those with whom you do business (and Im sure that you do), then youll respect the fact that smart people do their homework and dont rush needlessly into committing to buy""-particularly when youre selling products or services priced in units of $10,000 or more.
What
really matters is how you handle objections to a sale. When youre skillful in this regard, you can have a significant influence on your ability to sell to more customers in less time. When you encounter this, my advice is to not even define these matters as objections. Instead, think of them as questions. By reshaping your assumptions, you can start focusing on the key questions that preoccupy your prospects. Next, you can develop answers that ease concerns and resolve doubts. In other words, youll start spending more time seeing sales as dialogue""-a real conversation""rather than a monologue.
This is where the importance of
doing nothing comes into play.
Skilled reporters""-people who earn a living asking probing questions of others""will tell you that silence can be one of the most powerful tools you can use in a fact-finding conversation. Authors Sally Adams and Wynford Hicks talk about this in their
book Interviewing for Journalists: Its impossible to over-emphasize the importance of silence...Count at least four seconds silently to yourself. Youll be amazed at how often the interviewee carries on speaking, amplifying their last comment...Dont over-do it, though, and use really long silences. They can be counter-productive, leading to short answers.
So when you encounter objections, be quiet. Dont jump in right away with questions, because if you interrupt the person who is explaining their objection or you try to pounce with answers, youll look defensive. The prospect may interpret that as you trying to justify or defend a position, and that can get their hackles up.
If your prospect says to you Your price is too high, or Im not the right decision-maker, or We need more time, dont panic. The sale isnt drifting away. Instead, give that prospect enough room to talk and give yourself an opportunity to listen carefully to what they are saying. In the vast majority of cases, the prospect will feel compelled to jump in and give you more information. In many cases, theyll even answer their own objection within that little vacuum of silence!
One last bit of advice: be sure to prepare in advance with answers to the most common objections. Write down your six most common objections and develop six answers that are really solid, making a convincing case for why a prospect should buy from you. Field test those answers and make revisions where necessary.
Theres no excuse for you to not know what these objections are and theres no excuse for you to be unprepared when you hear an objection that youve heard many times before. For instance, if you know that you services or products are among the most expensive in the marketplace, raise that with your prospect right away. For example, you can say: Its important for you to know that were not going to be the cheapest product/service out there...how do you feel about that?
To sum up: handle objections skillfully by learning when to say nothing. Also, zero-in on the most common objections in your business and have
answers that communicate clearly in benefits that matter to person youre speaking with. Your confidence in successfully closing the sale will grow, your prospect will be more at ease in about making the decision to buy, and youll be many steps closer to hitting bullseye on your sales target in your business.
