Blogger: Today we have on our site a Sales Trainer who has been conducting in-house training for over 343 companies including AIA, SingTel, NTU and Tanzanian Government, let's welcome Andy Ng!
Andy: Thanks Blogger, today I'm going to talk about Winning Sales System.
What is a Winning Sales System? Most salespeople have one common problem: they are too dependent on their seniors and sales managers to guide them on how to sell. But what happens if you are the only salesperson around? You need a sales system to guide you.
Blogger: Can you tell us what are the essential elements of a sales system?
Andy: Sure. There are 4 elements of a winning sales system:
- How to Get Prospects Without Spending a Huge Sum of Money
- How to Convert Prospects into Clients without having to drop your price
- How to Get Repeat Business from clients without having to resort to price discounts
- How to Get Higher Spending from clients without having to raise your price
Blogger: Wow! that sounds amazing, I like the last part: how to get your customers to pay more without you raising your price. How's that possible?
Andy: We can raise the average dollar sale without raising our selling prices. See my previous blog on '36 Stratagems to Increase Average Dollar Sale' on this.
Blogger: I'm sure our audience now is getting excited: I never thought that there are so many ways to increase average dollar sale. Can you elaborate on how to close every sale without having to drop your price?
Andy: Sales Closing is defined as Moving the Sale forward. Throughout the different steps in the sales process, the salesperson has to close the sale and move the sales process forward, not backward.
Many salespeople know that selling is just about 4 steps: you first have to find the prospect, you need to present to the prospect, you have to answer the prospect’s questions and you follow-up with the prospect until close. At every step, the salesperson is either closing the sale or closing the file.
There are 7 Ways that one can close EVERY sale:
1. Make Sure You’ve Got Very Solid Prospect
If your prospect is one of very high quality, i.e. one that almost wants to buy now, you can close him 100%. Usually this happens when they look for you for you and you are the only one that has what they are looking for. Usually monopolies enjoy this privilege.
2. You Follow-up with Every Prospect Until You Close Them
In sales, it is important to follow-up with all prospects. Statistics show that if a salesperson follow-up diligently with prospects 7 to 9 times over the course of 6 to 12 months, he would have closed them. If not, the prospect would chase away the salesperson!
3. You Convert Every Prospect into a Referrer
Yes, a salesperson should ask for referral each and every time he does a presentation. If you cannot close on your prospect, you can save him some embarrassment of having to explain to you why he cannot buy. In fact when you ask him for referrals, he would be more than happy to give referrals to you because you are saving him trouble! And who knows you can convert the referred lead into a client, that’s why we say getting referrals is as good as having ‘closed’ on the prospect.
4. You Give your Prospect an Irresistible Offer
An irresistible offer is one that no prospect in this world can resist. Most of them time it is an attractive price, but many times it is about extra things that one cannot get elsewhere. Like limited edition free gifts for credit card application, many people simply cannot resist them. An irresistible offer can also be one where you break down your pricing into monthly or even daily amounts, and that amount will look attractive when compared to other daily expenses like a cup of coffee. Many insurance agents break down the yearly premium of $3,285 into daily like $7.50, which is less than 2 cups of Starbucks coffee. Very attractive indeed! Those that sell to corporate accounts would justify the purchase with very attractive Return-on-Investment (ROI), short Pay-Back Period or Positive Net Present Value (NPV). For details on the 7 ways to an irresistible offer, read this article at here.
5. You Change Your Offer to Suit the Prospect’s Needs and Wants
All successful salespeople know that nothing is cast in stone. So if you cannot close the prospect with your current offer, you can simply change your offer to one that suits him. In fact many retailers do this by coming up with ‘Sale’, and customers usually fall for it. For no one in this world can reject a salesperson that is so accomodating and flexible. Sales also take place during courtship when men change their life styles to suit the girl that they are after (e.g. give up smoking).
6. You Offer a 100% Written Guarantee to Remove The Fear
Yes, customers dare not say yes to the salesperson’s proposal for they have some fears that they would lose out if they say yes. If this is the case you must ask them what is really holding them back and then offer a Guarantee in Writing to remove that fear. For example, an extended warranty certificate is one that is used all the time to sell electronics products that do not have reliable brand.
7. You Move the Sale Forward
Yes, even though you did not get the contract or won the tender, you are moving the sale forward when the prospect now has a more favourable opinion of what you offer. The next time he may simply give you the business and that’s why we define this as closing the sale. In big project sales with long sales cycle, it could mean getting clearance from the relevant authorities.
End of Part 1. Related articles on sales:
Comments
Post a Comment