By: Jonás Spellman
In the first part of this article I said that the key steps of the sale are six. It’s the shortest number of steps to simplify the process, eliminate wasted time, and focus on the things that matter most. And although they are obvious at first reading, my experience in various realities is that many commercial teams fail in one or more of these aspects. Read them, give them a thought and then answer yourself if you, your managers or your salespeople -as applicable- are fully complying with this sequence. If you have any doubts about this, my suggestion is to go out in the field or stand in the sales office and check the application of these principles… you may be in for a surprise.
Here are the six steps to follow in every sales situation, whether in person, over the phone, or online:
Step 1 – Do your homework before the appointment
If the sales meeting is with the final consumer (B2C), try to find out about them before offering your product or service. You don’t have to do anything exhaustive, but at least try to cover key aspects of the potential buyer, such as:
- Socio-economic: in which stratum is it located
- Generational: how old are you?
- Cultural: which human groups does it belong to?
- Personal: there are salespeople who are specialists in finding out the prospect’s birthday, the number of children, the names of the children, and so on. The closer you look to the prospect, and show genuine interest, the better.
If the sales meeting is with an intermediary or with another company (B2B), the reasons for doing a good homework are just as obvious. As a business consultant for over 20 years, one of the main conclusions I have come to is that the more you know about your potential client’s company and the industry in which it operates, the better. Many things could be said about it, and all of them are relevant, but the best way to summarize them is: prior to the appointment, you must have a well-done SWOT matrix of your client’s company and another of your industry. If you’ve got both analyzes right, you’re several steps ahead in the convincing process.
Step 2: Say Hello Properly
The purpose of the greeting is to introduce yourself, make a good impression, and make the buyer feel comfortable. The goal should also be to set the stage for the remaining steps. Say “welcome” if the prospect is going to you and “thank you for having me” if you are the one going. In any case, you should be interested in time. If you don’t already have a relationship with the client, you don’t want to waste your time and yours trying to make a great impression of who you are and what you stand for. And if you already know the person, you don’t want to get caught up in small talk and not spend enough time on the business. It is impossible to get rid of this step; what we must do is use it to open the door to the reason we are there: to convert the potential client into a buyer.
Mind you, I am not saying that building relationships is not important, what I am saying is that we should save building relationships and creating friends for later in the process, as long as the buyer chooses to do it; not everyone wants.
Step 3 – Identify what the customer wants and what they need
You can do this by researching past events or with a simple customer inquiry. The quickest way to do this, if you have access, is to look at your purchase history, your previous similar purchases. The purpose of this step is twofold: (i) to know what product to show your customer and (ii) to know how to present the product in a way that creates value and drives the person to act.
Think about it: Two things of seemingly equal value are not identical when the motivation for their use changes. A glass of water is always a glass of water, and on the surface it would appear to be the same thing, until you discover the reason or motivation someone might have. Different reasons promote different values and urgencies, and those must be determined in this step. A glass of water just to finish setting up a nice dinner table has a different connotation than a glass of water that would be used to wipe someone’s eyes with dirt on them, or one to be used to quench someone’s thirst. that is dehydrated. A glass of tap water has a different value than bottled water or an alkaline water that is used to reduce the acidity of body chemistry. And on Thanksgiving, Christmas or Yom Kippur, the glass and the aesthetic value of the presentation are clearly more valuable than the water itself.
Why does the customer want this? Because right now? What problem are you trying to solve? Will what is important to him now be so in his next purchase? What similar experiences has he had? Are there any needs or desires left unsatisfied with the purchase?
In determining wants and needs you are not selling, you are asking and listening. Because this is done early in the process, understand that you will use this information to make sense of and close your proposal. And remember: all purchases or investments are decided by trying to solve a problem. You don’t buy a drill because you want a drill; he buys it because he needs to make a hole.
Step 4 – Select the product or service that satisfies what the customer wants and needs
It doesn’t matter if your product or service is tangible or not, have a professional brochure or flyer. Show what you know how to do. Show your repertoire. If you’re selling insurance, for example, based on what you learned in the previous step, select and present a solution to your customer and explain how it will benefit them. Mention in a simple and transparent way some numbers, statistics, returns or yields, as the case may be. And the same goes for any other product or service, whether it’s a medical surgery, a piece of art, a car, a country club membership, a gift, or a simple glass of water. You should present your product based on what your customer told you was important to them. If you’re buying a house, for example, focus on what the customer wants to see. If you have done the previous step well, you will suddenly conclude that the land is more important to your client than the house, so talk to him about large spaces and footage, about revaluing the area, about how the parameters and trends of that commune are changing in particular. If you are selling a membership to your gym, ask nicely, suddenly your customer is more interested in the wet area of the pool, sauna, and shift baths, and not so much in the weight room or socializing. In fact, you won’t know what to show the customer until he’s done a good step three. And then in your presentation, focus on the things that are important. What are those few things that will make sense of everything else? What is the main or dominant purchase reason with which the buyer will justify and validate your product?
The demo is where you create value, create urgency and increase the desire for the potential buyer to make up their minds. And there’s a fine balance here: if you shorten your demo time too much you’ll reduce your chances of selling, and if you spend too much demo time on things the buyer doesn’t find of value, you’ll not only waste time but also reduce your chances of selling. close the operation. Be very precise.
Step 5: Submit a Proposal
Make a competitive proposal and submit it. Always. Even when the buyer is apparently not ready, make an offer. Some academics suggest not presenting numbers to prospects unless there is very strong interest. I disagree. Experience teaches me that if figures are not shown, it is more difficult to reach an agreement. Talking about numbers builds trust, and ends with the mystery of “and how much will this cost?”. I’m not saying make an offer before the product launch, never, but I do suggest that you do what you can to get numbers with every buyer in every situation, after going through the steps above. Always position yourself to present a proposal.
Step 6 – Close the Sale
This is where the seller’s expertise comes in. Closing the transaction is a completely different art than selling. We were all born with some skills to sell, some more and others less, but to know how to close you have to learn. That is not innate. Look at the statistics of advanced sales courses: it’s the only area where professional salespeople ask for help. Comparisons with the competition, price objections, budget considerations, questions about whether the timing is right or not, and the like are just some of the things you’ll hear from your customers. Those are the barriers you will have to overcome. The best suggestion I can give you is: document all those objections and generate a powerful response for each one, and then commit all of that to memory, so that the responses come naturally to you. And if a new objection comes up, add it to that document. Don’t leave any loose ends.
Becoming a closing professional is critical not only because that’s what it takes to make the business transaction a reality, but also because it will build confidence in your ability to handle objections, deadlocks, and issues. Salespeople who are not good closers avoid or miscarry the other vital necessities of selling, like prospecting, follow-up, and even a positive attitude. His logic is, why waste myself doing all of the above if when the time comes I won’t be able to close? One hundred percent of a company’s revenue is due to closed transactions. They all eat with that. Without that, the company does not exist.
Sources:
- Sell or be sold, Grant Cardone
- To sell is human, Daniel Pink
- The ultimate sales machine, Chet Holmes
- Secrets of closing the sale, Zig Ziglar