Tag: Selling Tips And Techniques

A Process for Sales Success

by Jacques Werth

Most salespeople, sales managers and sales trainers know that sales training seldom has a lasting beneficial effect.  The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), and other research organizations state that less than 25% of the people who take sales training courses obtain a sustained increase in their sales performance.   Why not?

The vast majority of organizations that conduct sales training teach the subject the same way they would teach a Philosophy or Literature class.  They outline their beliefs about the basic outline of their sales methods and invite the students to fill in the blanks.  However, for every product, service, industry, market and salesperson there are myriad ways to fill in the blanks.  Furthermore, the students are encouraged to “think creatively” in each situation; to “adapt their sales methods” to each individual prospect.  Almost all of them find that selling that way is too complex, and too difficult, to implement in the real world with real prospects.  

Creativity is extremely important to artists, researchers, consultants, parents, and in many other fields.  In sales, a consistent process that seldom varies is far more important.  Then, making changes to parts of the process should only be done when you discover something that consistently works better.

Top salespeople look at their selling skills as a craft.  Like carpenters, surgeons, accountants, and other skilled practitioners, they strive to do what works best the vast majority of the time.  That means they constantly hone their craft.  Working from a process outline, they fill in each section with what works best.  Most of the best salespeople seldom deviate from their complete sales process.  Rather, they work with written questionnaires and check lists during their conversations with prospects and customers. 

This is a typical sales process outline used by many top salespeople:

  1. Only meet with prospects that are ready, willing and able to specify or buy your type of product.  Confirm the facts before the first meeting.
  2. At the meeting, or telephone appointment, agree on the rules of engagement for the sales process.
  3. Determine whether you can have a relationship of mutual trust.
  4. Determine whether you have a mutually acceptable basis to do business.
  5. Agree on the prospect’s criteria for buying your product or service.
  6. Demonstrate how you will fulfill the prospect criteria and consummate the sale.  

For a lasting beneficial effect from sales training you must develop or find a consistent sales process, comprised of reality-based measurable steps and written questionnaires.  Then, you can develop the skill to utilize the process for consistent, long lasting sales improvement.

For more information about our proven sales process, click here.

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High Probability Selling Inc.
(C) 2007.  All Rights Reserved.

Two-Minute Sales Tip

“I Know Your Time is Valuable.”

Is that what you tell prospects that you call?

Don’t.

And don’t tell them:

  * “This call will only take a minute,“

  * “My visit will be very short,” or

  * “I won’t waste your time.”

Your time is much more valuable than any prospect’s time because it is your life.  To imply that your time is less valuable than the prospect’s accomplishes two things; the prospect perceives that you are insincere, a fool, or both.

Trust and Respect are the two most important buying decision factors for most people.  When you imply that the prospect’s time is more important than yours’, you have put yourself below them. That instantly lowers their respect for you. When they perceive you to be insincere, that automatically diminishes trust.

What to do instead.  Convince yourself that no one’s time is more important than your own.  When you cherish and respect your own time, you do not waste it on prospects that are not likely to buy.  Prospects will intuitively perceive that you are not a time-waster.  That makes them feel good about taking your prospecting calls.  They will also feel good about doing business with you when they want your type of products or services.

To learn more, visit our website:

_____________________________________________________

High Probability Selling Inc.
(C) 2007.  All Rights Reserved.

Close Effortlessly without Pressure or Anxiety

By Jacques Werth, President

High Probability Closing is not an event. It’s an integral part of the entire sales process.  We define “closing” as Mutual Commitment. Therefore, we request the prospect’s commitment at every step of the sales process, and we make corresponding commitments. We close throughout the entire sales process – typically between 25 and 45 times.

Closing starts when we set the appointment and then ask, “If we can meet all of your conditions of satisfaction for (this product or service), what will you do?” If the prospect doesn’t reply with “I’ll buy it,” or words to that effect, we immediately cancel the appointment, for now. However, we will continue to call the prospect every three to four weeks until he/she is ready to make a conditional commitment.

Most salespeople set out to contact a large number of people who have an apparent need for their products and service. Their objective is to convince every one of them to grant them an appointment.

If we don’t get a commitment at any step of the sales process, we determine whether the commitment that isn’t accepted is a deal breaker. If so, we terminate the sales process (perhaps temporarily) and we leave. Why? Staying and pitching to a prospect who does not make commitments almost guarantees the following:

  1. The probability that the prospect will buy on that visit is highly unlikely.
  2. You’re wasting your time and the prospect’s, thereby creating resistance to yourself and diminished respect.  That leaves them with a negative perception of you.
  3. If and when the prospect does decide to buy in the future, it’s most likely that he/she will buy from a competitor.

Think about how you would react if you were the prospect. This salesperson has given you all the information you need to make a decision when you were not ready to buy. Though mildly annoyed, you listened to their entire sales pitch. Now, when you are ready to buy, isn’t it likely that you will check what his/her competition has to offer? If the competitor’s salesperson appears equally competent and seems to have as good a deal, who are you most likely to buy from? Will you buy from the salesperson who is there now, or will you have him/her leave and call back the one who you wouldn’t buy from before?

However, if the prospect is ready to buy and we do arrive at mutual commitment throughout the initial sales process, we hardly ever encounter any “think it over” objections at the end. The prospect has just made dozens of commitments and affirmations of their intention to buy every feature, benefit and detriment of your product or service. At that point the prospect is anxious to consummate the sales process and get the benefits of your products and/or services. They have literally convinced themselves of the practicality of those decisions. The human mind operates like a self-validating computer. It does not doubt its own data.

People who utilize this process attain very high closing averages, both per number of prospecting offers and per number of prospect visits.

 

 

Trust and Respect – The Ultimate Competitive Advantage

by Jacques Werth

Does your selling style address the most fundamental needs of your prospects? What are the most important factors to someone making an important buying decision?

Universities and market research firms have conducted numerous studies to determine the most important buying decision factors for people who make significant purchases. We gathered as many of those studies as we could find, and did simple correlation analyses to average out the results. Here are the results, in order of importance.

Weighted Values* of Buying Decision Factors(c)

1. Level of Trust in the Salesperson: 87
2. Level of Respect for the Salesperson: 82
3. Reputation of the Company or Product: 76
4. Features of the Product or Service: 71
5. Quality and Service: 58
6. Price (non-commodity): 16
12. Like the Salesperson (rapport): 3
      *(Weight = percentage of people listing each factor in their top 5)

The average salesperson knows how to effectively present 4 of the 7 factors cited above: Reputation (#3), Features (#4), Quality and Service (#5), and Rapport (#12). Most salespeople try to handle the two most important buying decision factors, Trust (#1) and Respect (#2), by establishing Rapport (#12).

Building “Rapport” is an inherently manipulative tactic. Ironically, typical salespeople attempt to establish Trust and Respect, non-manipulative factors, by manipulating people. Building rapport doesn’t establish trust and respect, it diminishes trust and respect. That’s why only 3% of all buyers surveyed rate ‘Like the Salesperson’ as an important buying decision factor.

If Trust and Respect are so important, why don’t most salespeople learn how to establish relationships of trust and respect with their prospects and customers? We’ve come to the conclusion that there are three reasons:

  1. Most salespeople don’t know that it can be done.
  2. If they learn a process that develops that kind of relationship, they feel uncomfortable using it because it’s very unconventional.
  3. Trust and Respect are very personal emotions, and sharing emotions is commonly regarded as only suitable for intimate relationships. Most salespeople have a fear of intimacy. Yet, we’ve found that less than 1/2 of 1 percent of prospects and customers have a fear of intimacy.

Let’s suppose you’re faced with a very important buying decision. Let’s say you have decided to relocate thirty miles away from where you live now, so that you and your spouse will both have shorter commutes to work. So, you need to sell your current home and buy a new one. To whom would you entrust the sale of your most valued possession? Are you going to entrust the sale of your house to a charming and friendly Realtor who tells you that they have the best marketing system, the best skills, the best negotiating ability, and affiliation with the biggest real estate firm? Or, will you hire the Realtor whom you trust and respect the most to sell your most valued possession?

Regardless of whether you sell to consumers or B-2-B, all sales are made to people. When the sales are significant, most people want to buy from someone they trust and respect. Why? Fear of loss is the most important buying motivation. You could lose tens of thousands in the hands of an untrustworthy Realtor. At work, choosing an unreliable vendor could cost you a raise, a promotion, or your job.

If you learn a process that establishes relationships of mutual trust and respect with prospects during your first conversation with them, you will have the ultimate competitive advantage. If not, hope to be the most persuasive salesperson your prospects meet- and hope that someone who practices High Probability Selling isn’t your competitor!

 If you want to learn how to make trust and respect your competitive advantage, click here.

Until Next Time…Sell Well

Jacques Werth, President
High Probability Selling

Copyright 2007.

 

Tags: How+to+sell, The+secret+to+selling, Selling+and+Persuasion

A Tire-Buying Experience

by Jacques Werth

It rained here last Friday and, while driving home from the office, my car was losing traction on the wet roads. That reminded me I had been putting off getting replacement tires for my car. So, on Saturday I went to the consumerReports.org website and looked up their tire ratings.

Consumer Reports rated tires made by Falken and Nitto highest. Nitto is the one that seemed to suit my driving style best. I never heard of either brand, but since most tires are made offshore now, that did not bother me.

I looked up both websites to find dealers. Falken is sold by Sears; Nitto is sold by a relatively small number of dealers.  I called a Nitto dealer and he said, "Nitto doesn’t make tires in the size your car needs. They make tires for racing and high performance sports cars. A few of them fit some other cars, but not many. What you really want is Michelin and we have them in stock. They are less expensive and we install them immediately. When do you want to come over?"

I said, "I haven’t decided yet."

He said, "What are you concerned about?"

"My car came with Michelins and I want something better now."

"What don’t you like about the Michelins?"

Not wanting to get trapped by a rhetorical question, I replied, "I just want something better."

"You don’t have any better choice than Michelins, but we can get you any tire you want." I ended that conversation quickly.

Then, I called a large local dealer and spoke to Maureen. I asked her, "Do you have a tire in my size that is close in performance to the Nitto tire?"  

Maureen replied, "Consumer Reports, right?

I said, "Yup."
 
Maureen said, "The only one that we sell, which is in the same ball park, is the Michelin. However, you can get Falken tires at Sears for about the same price as Michelin, and it is rated higher than Michelin. We can provide you with General Tires that are very good, but not as highly rated as the Falken." That will save you about $200 for a set of four. She then
gave me a short explanation.

I said, "Thanks for the suggestion, but the price difference is not important for this car."

Maureen said, "In that case, good luck with your Falkens. Please try us again when you want tires, shocks or brakes for another vehicle." The conversation with Maureen took no more than four minutes.

My wife’s 740-IL will probably need tires in about six months. She does not put much mileage on her car and she does not drive very fast. You can bet that we will buy her tires from Maureen.

To learn more about why Maureen’s response earned my future business, read Chapter 3 of our book online.

Until Next Time…Sell Well

Jacques Werth, President
High Probability Selling

Copyright 2007.

 

Tags: How+to+sell, The+secret+to+selling, Selling+and+Persuasion

Why Sales Training Doesn’t Work

by Jacques Werth

Why is it that most people who attend sales training courses and seminars show very little sustained improvement? Why doesn’t modern sales training consistently produce successful salespeople?

Why is it that most sales training courses and seminars contain large doses of motivational psychology?  Why is it that the sales profession is the largest user of motivational training?  Is it coincidental that the next largest user is the armed forces?  What is it that the armed forces and salespeople have in common that requires them to be the largest users of motivational training?

How many carpenters, mechanics, CPAs, claims adjusters or veterinarians need to attend motivational seminars in order to do their jobs?

How many professions come with a built-in fear of rejection and a reluctance to do the job? Why do approximately eighty percent of the people who enter the selling profession leave within the first few years? Why do so many who remain feel trapped or burned out in their jobs?

Why do most people try to avoid salespeople?

Is this all endemic to selling or is there something fundamentally wrong with the way we sell that causes these problems? Could it be that "Selling as the Art of Persuasion" is a concept whose time has come and gone? Could it be that it’s no longer profitable to persuade and convince prospects to buy what they don’t already want?

We maintain that persuading and convincing is no longer a viable selling strategy. Even worse, the attempt to do so causes too much tension, stress, and frustration.  Therefore, we re-invented the selling process.

Everything’s changed. All the rules are different.  Fear of rejection is no longer an issue. Resistance disappears. Relationships of mutual trust and respect develop naturally.

Self-esteem is a natural result of the process. Salespeople have standards. "Who they are as people" and "who they are when they’re selling" no longer have to be different.

High Probability Selling trains salespeople how to discover whether there is a mutually acceptable basis for doing business – without using manipulative techniques.  High Probability Selling is not an improvement on, or a variation of, any sales technique you know. It’s a new paradigm that requires salespeople to sell with integrity in order to achieve outstanding results.

High Probability Selling takes salespeople off their knees and puts them back on their feet, with dignity, where they belong.

This is the first part of Chapter One of the book High Probability Selling.  Read the first four chapters online.

Until Next Time…Sell Well

Jacques Werth, President
High Probability Selling

Copyright 2007.

 

Tags: How+to+sell, The+secret+to+selling, Selling+and+Persuasion

Change Your Commitments and Change Your Life

by Jacques Werth

Last week I got a call from "Mark" who has been a financial services professional for 12 years.  He said he works far too hard for the $80,000 he earns.  My response was, "What are you committed to?  

He replied, "I want to make a lot more money and work less."  

"I make as many appointments as I can and I try to persuade every one of my prospects to buy from me.  But then, I really try to help them."

"That is a selling strategy that you are committed to and that strategy is not working," I said.  "It is obvious that you need to change your sales strategy."

In sales, and in life, commitment is everything.  Yet, most people cannot accurately articulate what their commitments are.  They make a sincere stab at it by telling you what their ideals and goals are.  However, evidence shows that what you are committed to is seldom the same as your ideals and your goals.  So, what are you really committed to?   The answer to that is simple. You are committed to the life you have now.  

Your commitments are evidenced by the results of all of the actions that you take to attain what you are committed to.  All of the choices that you make, every minute of every day, are in support of your commitments.  If you are happy and satisfied with the life you are living now, then your commitments are aligned with your ideals and your goals.

If you are not happy and satisfied with the life you are living now, then your  commitments are not aligned with your ideals and your goals.  Knowing and accepting that is the first step towards having the life that you want.  The next step is to figure out how to change your commitments to achieve what you want.  It starts with reexamining all of your activities to determine which of them are forwarding your ideals and goals and which are not.

You may be committed to:

  • Find more prospects by working longer and harder;
  • Make tons of cold calls, while bearing the pain of rejection and failure;
  • Struggle heroically to overcome difficult obstacles in order to succeed;
  • Get all prospects to like you by establishing "rapport" and commonality;
  • Show prospects how to solve important problems;
  • Persuade and convince prospects with logic and factual documentation;
  • Use sophisticated closing techniques to help prospects decide;
  • Manipulate, control or dominate people in order to get what you want. 

Yet, your income might indicate that those commitments are not producing the results that you want.  

Your commitments dictate the choices that you make about what you do every day, and how you do it.  Change your commitments and you will change your behaviors.  That will change your life.

If you want to learn the process and mindset of top producing salespeople, you want to learn more about High Probability Selling.

Until Next Time…Sell Well

Jacques Werth, President
High Probability Selling

Copyright 2007.

 

Tags: How+to+sell, The+secret+to+selling, Selling+and+Persuasion

Popular Doesn’t Necessarily Equal Best – or Even Good

by Paul Bunn

If everyone is thinking alike, somebody isn’t thinking.     – George S. Patton

Turnover in the sales profession is extremely high compared to most other professions.  The failure rate for financial services agents and representatives is greater than 90 percent.

Look at the world of sales experts, sales trainers and sales consulting firms. You will find nearly all of them are offering the same way, or a better way, of selling based on the same three main goals:

  • Find prospects that apparently need your products, services, or solutions.
  • Get those prospects to agree to meet with you, in person or over the phone
  • At that meeting, or subsequent meeting(s), persuade them to buy from you

 

There are other aspects of that way of selling, such as: building a relationship and rapport, getting referrals, overcoming objections, improving your presentation, identifying decision-makers, etc.  But these are just supporting elements of the three main goals.  Seems simple enough. 

Consultative selling, solution selling, SPIN selling, value based selling, trusted advisor, buying facilitation, B2B, M2M, etc., whatever the current popular variation, nearly everyone in sales is pursuing those three main goals.  Most salespeople and their managers accept it as the only way to sell. It is also accepted as the only way to measure and market the effectiveness of their training.

So, why is the failure rate so high?  Why are there so many new, and supposedly better, variations of a system that is generally accepted as the only way?  Why does it need so many modifications?

We have discovered that there are only two groups of people that do not embrace the sales methods used by most salespeople: 

  • Top producers, the ones that make up the top one or two percent of salespeople
  • Prospects and customers – including salespeople when they are not selling

This discovery is a result of 40 years of research, consisting of in-person direct observation of hundreds of top producers in multiple industries while they were prospecting and selling.   We found that over 80 percent of these top producers did not follow the universally accepted selling models.  Also, they did not accept or work towards the popular and accepted goals of selling.  They used a sales  process that formed the basis of what is now known as High Probability Selling (HPS).   

Most salespeople will continue to stay with what is popular. However, if you believe that popular doesn’t necessarily equal best, then High Probability Selling might be for you.

Listen and Learn

We teach High Probability Selling and Prospecting.  You can listen to a recording of one of our Participative Learning Sessions by clicking here.

You can contact us by clicking here… even if you disagree.

Or call us at 800-394-7762 (disconnected in 2015 – see updated contact page). 

If you want to learn the process and mindset of top producing salespeople, you want to learn more about High Probability Selling.

Until Next Time…Sell Well

High Probability Selling

Copyright 2007.

 

Tags: How+to+sell, The+secret+to+selling, Selling+and+Persuasion

How Successful People Make Decisions

by Carl Ingalls and Paul Bunn

A colleague here in our office recently shared the following strategy for succeeding in business:

“If you want to be successful in business, do business with successful people.”

How we communicate with them is a significant element of that strategy. We’ve developed a table comparing sales communication methods that are more consistent and less consistent with the way successful people make decisions. You can see the table here at our website.

 

If you want to learn the process and mindset of top producing salespeople, you want to learn more about High Probability Selling.

Until Next Time…Sell Well

High Probability Selling

Copyright 2007.

 

Tags: How+to+sell, The+secret+to+selling, Selling+and+Persuasion

So You Think You Lost the Sale?


Losing a sale is something that we’ve all experienced.  Sometimes it feels like the prospect’s mind seemed to change for no apparent reason, sometimes you had a sense that there was something negative in the mind of your prospect, but you just couldn’t figure it out. Perhaps, worse than the actual event is the discouragement you feel when you cannot determine why you lost this sale.  Then, you are left to worry about when and how you will lose the next one.

You may have analyzed these sales situations and re-examined your sales process over and over again. Were there other competitors that were being considered?  Did they decide to stick with an existing supplier?  Was the prospect just looking for a "free" education?  Was there an undisclosed decision-maker who vetoed you?  Did you miss an incomplete answer or partially ignore an objection?  Did the prospect just decide not to decide?

Reviewing a lost sales opportunity and your sales process is a good idea. However, by the time you realize that you won’t get the sale, it’s usually too late to learn the real reason.  At that point, most customers don’t want to reveal all of the details of their decision.

The time to find out why a sale is not going to go through is early in the sales process, when you’re meeting with the prospect.  Discover it in the moment. Then, you have the time to respond, and to choose your best course of action.

Of course, the idea of a lost sale implies that there was an opportunity there at one point and that you, the salesperson, somehow lost it.  In most of these cases there really was not much chance of making the sale in the first place.  The key is making that determination as soon as possible, before you spend more time, effort and resources.

For over forty years, we have observed hundreds of top-performing salespeople, in the field, while prospecting and on appointments.  The way that they solve this problem is to simply ask a complete set of direct, pertinent questions about the most common end-of-the-sale "deal-killers." They do that very early in the sales process.

Asking questions is not a new sales concept. The critical differences are in the type of question, the purpose of each question, how the questions are delivered and the how responses are handled. These questions are part of a pre-planned sequence, which is part of a mutual discovery and commitment process.

Discover what the customer wants and doesn’t want to see in your proposal, before you prepare it.  Discover whether there are other decision makers, influencers, or competitors.  Find out what may be happening in the background that could keep them from doing business with you.  These are all legitimate questions.

Attempting to close a sale without this information is the kind of strategy that creates anxiety and stress.  Success comes down to asking the right questions and acting on the answers in a way that improves your sales productivity.  These types of questions create a series of "opt-in or opt-out" discussion points for the prospect and the salesperson. Invest your time, energy and resources where you will get the best return on those investments.

Many salespeople are unwilling to ask the "hard questions."  However, you will gain the respect of most prospects when you do.  For the top producers we’ve observed, asking those questions is one of the primary reasons they are so successful.  You might often think you lost a sale when, in the same circumstances, a top producer will know it was not a real sales opportunity in the first place.

For more information on how to do this, click here.

 

If you want to learn the process and mindset of top producing salespeople, you want to learn more about High Probability Selling.

Until Next Time…Sell Well

Paul Bunn – High Probability Selling

Copyright 2007.

 

Tags: How+to+sell, The+secret+to+selling, Selling+and+Persuasion