Business and Money Tips

You work hard and give your prospects good presentations. You also go the extra mile and put customers' interest first.  Yet to your dismal you discover that no matter how hard you sell, they simply won't buy.  Why? The reason is people don't buy what you sell, no matter how good or special your goods and services are.  People don't even buy the benefits of what you sell.  People buy base on one and only reason: their reasons.  Until you can satisfy any of the following reasons, they just don't buy.  This is the biggest secret you're going to learn.   The reasons that customers buy may not be the reasons that you sell .  Know them, and you will be able to even Sell Ice to Eskimos (click here for details).  The reasons customers buy include: They buy from you because they need to diversify their supply base You offer On-time delivery or just-in-time delivery They buy to fulfil their needs (internal or external)  You sell Quali...

In a sense we're all selling the invisible: we're selling something that people cannot really touch and feel, and people don't need what we are selling. Even if you're selling a physical product you're still selling the invisible because it's the trust and reliability that people ar buying.   In short, we're all selling ice to the Eskimos! First of all, understand what is 'Selling Ice to the Eskimos' and how does it differ from Selling in Difficult Situations?  Selling ice to the Eskimos is even more tougher than selling to different people because there is simply no need or want for your product! To Sell Ice to the Eskimos, we first need to define our Customer correctly; with proper definition, you can then Create a Need that this customer never known before. After that, you need to Make your client a Hero and with that, they will be so happy to buy what you're selling. To sell ice to the Eskimos requires us to do a business and no...

A good salesperson is one that can sell in difficult situations, that is, selling when people don't want to buy.  There are 7 situations when people don't want to buy: You are selling something that they already have aplenty - like selling ice to the Eskimos Your customer has just bought the same thing that you're selling Overnight, the number of suppliers increased by 200% while your target market shrinks by 50%.  In other words, there is a massive over supply, much like the PC market here now Your product or service has a bad record - and no matter how attractive you make them, no one wants to buy. This is much like the Windows Surface RT now There is little demand for what you sell now as people can get it for free on the internet - much like DVDs and CDs now Your prospect has been approached by over 10 vendors from your trade in one week - how would you expect him to buy from you? People just don't want to buy because there is no mood - much like Thailand ...

Following yesterday's blog on  7 Shocking Truths , people asked me if I could elaborate further from there.  If you were, like my friend, read all the management and business books out there, you will get nothing but confusion.  That's why I like to once and for all cement the following truths: 1.  Suppliers Are More Important than Customers We often said that customers is king, but if you do not have the right type of goods and services to sell, you have no business to sell to that king!  Unfortunately, most schools do not teach people how to treat suppliers well.  There are 3 things that every supplier look for: fast payment, business referrals and advance order informatio n.  Do not give your suppliers nasty surprises, or treat them like a beggar.  Give them the respect that they deserve: fast payment. 2. Employees Want to Do More than What You Told Them It's shocking to hear this: many employees don't mind to do more than what they we...

Note: The next Selling Sans to the Arabs is on 23 Feb 2018 Friday 9 am to 12.30 pm, details at here . Imagine me at the North Pole to perform the world's most difficult task: Sell Ice to the Eskimos.  The Eskimos have too much ice, why would they want to buy ice from a guy from Equator Singapore? But I know that I can easily sell ice to the Eskimos because I am not selling anything. I am just creating the conditions and leading the buyers to buy . Selling is not about convincing buyers to buy but let the buyers be convinced by themselves.  This is in line with Sun Tzu Art of War: Win Without Fighting. Hardly anyone is ready to buy what you want to sell  Often you have to sell when people don't see the need at all.  When WeChat was launched in Jan 2011, no one can imagine that people want to use WeChat when Whatsapp was so popular and successful as a messaging app. But today WeChat has become an indispensable tool for payments, marketing, search, messaging a...

You know, people only take salespeople seriously when they think that the salesperson can really make a difference to their lives. Many salespeople are trained on how to ask questions to get the sale, but few are trained on how to ask 'Tough' questions that get you the sale immediately. In our sales training (eg Selling Ice to the Eskimos or Winning Sales Strategies ), we often teach the following 3-stage questions: 1st stage: make a factual statement that can’t be refuted E.g. “Most sales staffs rarely meet the sales targets set for them by their company”; E.g. “Most businesses tend to do well in the initial years and falter as the years go by” 2nd stage: make a personal observation that reflects your experience and creates instant credibility E.g. “My experience has shown me that when there is a lack of training there is often poor staff attitude and an absence of goal-setting and goal-achievement goals. Interestingly the sales staffs tend to blame their inability to sel...

Selling is base on nothing but needs and wants. A need is something that is basic and cannot be done without with, i.e. a necessity. A want is a preference , something that can be done without with but because it is preferred, it is considered important and often become a necessity, i.e. a want becomes a need. Like smartphones, it is not a need but a preference, but who can live without a smartphone nowadays?  If you sell base on both needs and wants, you have a customer. If not, you have a prospect. There are prospects in prospects. Using SNAP Selling, you can sell anything to anybody with the following 4 steps: 1. Situation . Find out what is the situation of the prospect now, what are his concerns, problems and issues that need to be addressed now. Like my prospect now has high staff turnover that is bothering him. 2. Need . From the situation, you uncover his need. So my guess that my prospect needs to learn how to hire the right people and retain hi...