Selling Skills

Communicating to Persuade

Selling
Selling is a fair exchange, for satisfaction of mutual needs. You and your organization satisfy the customers need for a product or service. In turn you get business and profit which is what your organization needs

Sales Professional
Specialized training Special Skills Plan their work Satisfying customer needs

Benefits of Sales career

High earnings Promotional opportunities Recognition Entrepreneurship

Why Sales Pro Fail

Lack of initiative Poor planning and organization Inadequate product knowledge Lack of enthusiasm Lack of customer orientation Lack of training Lack of personal goals Inadequate knowledge of the market Lack of knowledge of the company

Steps to Sales Success

Set objectives. You will know the direction you have to follow Estimate resources you have to achieve objectives Determine a course of action and set a time table Armed with facts make clear decisions and follow them. Constantly evaluate yourself and your progress Take corrective measures Be Motivated. Use your imagination and initiative to get things done.

Skills Required for Success

Strong communication ability Strong listening ability Ability to probe Validating motivators and creating YOU Appeal Objection handling Closing the sale Working with team members as a team player

Why Customers Buy ?

The buying process of a customer can be classified into the following: I DENTIFY THE NEED TO BUY D EVELOPS ALTERNATIVE
OPTIONS

E VALUATES VARIOUS
OFFERINGS

A PPROVES & BUYS

The buying process of a customer can be classified into the following:

I - IDENTIFY THE NEED TO BUY
Expects fair treatment & respect Implied / Explicit Needs

D - DEVELOPS ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS

Look for various features Looks for Options

E - EVALUATES VARIOUS OFFERINGS

Raises Queries & Objection

A APPROVES & BUYS

Wants to get the best deal Wishes to be convinced of his choice

Is there a Sales Process ?

SALES PROCESS - ODPEC

Presale preparation Actual Selling (Open Develop Sales Propose Solution Eliminate Doubts Close) Post sale follow up

Presale Preparation What it is

CPAC Prospecting Customer Research

CPAC
C Company
a. what business the company is in b. what are the products c. what is the companys standing in the market for each of its products. d. where are its factories and offices located e. what is its organizational structure, policies and procedures.

CPAC
P - The Products that you sell
a. b. c. d. e. f. what the product is P A C C its features (both physical & technical) if necessary, how it is manufactured the price of the product the availability of the product the terms of sales of the product

CPAC
A- Applications of each product C - competition
Stage II Prospecting Prioritizing your prospects 1. The A - Category Prospects - large companies 2. The B - Category Prospects - medium companies 3. The C - Category Prospects - small companies

Stage II Prospecting
Prioritizing your prospects 1. The A - Category Prospects - large companies 2. The B - Category Prospects - medium companies 3. The C - Category Prospects small

Stage III Customer Research

potential buyers for your products the nature of these buyers decision makers competition issues that may be of interest to the prospects

Actual Selling - ODPEC

Opening a Sale
Four Guidelines a. Introduce yourself and your organisation b. State the purpose of your visit c. Introduce your product or service d. Above all make a good first impression through your appearance and conduct.

Objectives of Opening
Make your client comfortable Attempt to create an interest in your Company / product. Build a Rapport

Developing the sale

1. Qualify your customer: Find your MAN (a person with Money, Authority and Need) 2. Identifying his buying criteria: Use BSA Technique B- Background information - To discover potential problem areas. S- Specific Problems - Use Open and Closed probes A- Agreement to need Use closed probes.

B - Back ground Information

Ask questions that get background about the customer. Use Open Probes Sir, I believe you are planning to renovate your office could you give me some idea of the furniture you are planning to have

S- Specific Problems
Use Open and Closed probes To go deeper into each of the potential problem areas to try and discover a need for your Product. You should try to maximize the Pain that the problem causes to the customer, so that he is ready to buy a Solution.Considering the amount you had pent last time it must have been very frustrating to see all the furniture become so shabby so soon

A- Agreement to the need

Use closed probes.

From this find out his high priority and Low priority need. Both you and customer must Agree to this need.

3. Matching buying criteria with product profile

Matching the buying criteria with the strength and weakness of the products.
Remember a. A customer buys that product whose Product Profile matches his buying criteria most closely.

b. Sometimes the strength of a product can become its weakness, depending upon the buying criteria of the customer.

Proposing the Solutions

a. Summarizing the buyers need and buying criteria b. FABing of your product to suggest your product as a solution to the buyers need or problem. c. Demonstrating. Involve the buyer and allow him to feel and use the product. d. Submitting the proposal / quotation

Influencer
- Most buyers are influenced by someone a colleague/ consultant relative or anyone - Never ignore the influencer - Attempt to build up a rapport with this influencer

Eliminating Doubts
Listen to the customer Get clarification regarding the doubt Resolve the doubt Handling Objections(ERA) Determine the Exact Objection Find out which step in the selling process you did not go through properly, and REPEAT the step. - Get the buyers Agreement to fact that the objection has been resolved.

Handling Price Objection

- To handle price objection, either push up the perceived value, or bring down the perceived price. - Break up the price into smaller units to make it low.

Three ways to minimize price resistance

Dont Start With A Lower Level Person In The Organization Willingness To Pay And Ability To Pay Are Two Different Things Shift The Buying Criteria

 Dont Start With A Lower Level Person In The Organization: Never go to a lower level person to begin
with. The lower you go in an organization; the lower is the power to take a decision. The lower (in terms of spending money) is the spending allowance. Moreover the reason for their high-price-resistance is that they are not exposed to high numbers as might their seniors be and hence are not attuned to value-adding ideas. MOST Important Lower level people insist on saving money and that is how they will present your proposal internally whereas Higher level people want to make a profit and will view your price to calculate a justifiable return on investment. Finally the higher you start, the easier it is to get a real decision maker. The only reason salespeople go to a lower-level person is to get an easier level of entry BUT it complicates everything.

Willingness and Ability to Pay are Two Different Things

Nobodys ever willing to pay, nobody ever wants to pay money out, but whether or not they can, is totally different. Most people can. They can find the money if they really want the product badly enough, but whether theyre willing to or not is a different thing. The way that you increase the willingness to pay is by increasing the buying desire, by talking more and more about the benefits of the product or service, because the more the person wants it, the less concern they become about the price. Remember It is absolutely alright to be High Priced. It is absolutely unacceptable to be perceived expensive. Therefore always focus on benefits that increase the return on investment for the client. You should always leave the person with at least three such benefits not more than three because he or she is likely to only remember three. Never less than three because no matter who you are selling to in an organization, this person will still have to sell your offering to others in that organization and is going to need three very compelling reasons to pull it off.

Shift The Buying Criteria

This becomes especially important if you are selling a product that is priced higher than the competition in the market. Shifting the buying criteria means changing the reasons why the prospect will buy. Changing the industry positioning. Few examples from our clients: A leading office automation MNC was positioning its product in the way the industry does Looks, features, reliability, stability, warranties And because everyone else was doing all this too the positioning shifted to price, payment terms. They shifted their positioning to the corporate Are you interested in saving 20-30% in your administrative costs. - How many people do you know who are likely to say No to that question. They then developed a mechanism to prove how their products can do that for their customers. This company has seen a 30% increase in closure rates since then.

Some More Examples

A real-estate company - guarantees that any property they sell to you will be rented within 120 days of your purchase or they will pay the fair market rent for up to two years. They charge a 2% higher commission than the market and Get It. A TV Company recognized that their customer is the retailer and not you and me - and so it offers to buy back any sets not sold by his retailers in the first 180 days at the retail price (not at the factory price) such that the sale happens anyways. Now which TV do you think would the retailer prefer to stock. And which TV do you think would be most easily available in the market for you and me to buy. A car dealer in Bangalore, with doubled his business by offering- no questions asked- a two week, 100 percent money-back guarantee on any new or used car purchase.No dealer had ever offered that. If you were going to buy a car, why in the world would you buy it from another dealer when you might make a mistake and regret it a week later? His volume shot up. He had a small number of people who did bring the cars back. But surprisingly, the vast majority didnt want their money back they wanted to trade up to a larger model or a more luxurious one. So the dealer actually made more profit that he did on the initial sale. These arent extraordinary examples. These are just normal business people shifting the buying criteria. The possibilities are endless.

Handling Price Objections

1.Dont mention the price

First of all, dont mention the price until the customer asks the price. Do not bring up price at the beginning. If a person says, Well, that looks like an interesting product. How much is it? Say, Could I come to that in just a second? Thats the good part. Thats one of the things Id say, Thats the good part. Can I come to that in just a second? I just want to go over one or two more things quickly. And then come to the price. Put the price off and bring the price into the conversation where you want to bring it in. In my sales presentations, I have a specific place where price appears and at that point either the customer says, Oh, by the way, how much is it? or I say, I think youd like to the investment. But it doesnt come up until that point and if it does, I put it off.

2.Talk Benefits
Always focus your presentation on the benefit they receive, not on the money you receive. Talk about what they are getting rather than what youre getting. If the price is coming too often into the conversation you have already made one of the three basic errors mentioned above.

3.Value Balance
Never discuss price without mentioning values and benefits at the same time. If a person says, How much is this machine? never say, This machine is x number of RUPEES What you say is, This machine, including this, this and this, plus these attachments, plus 90 days warranty and a supply of 1000 sheets of paper will cost you ONLY x number of rupees per month. Very important to use the word only. It removes expensive perception. In other words, always precede the price by restating the values that the person is going to get as a result of paying that price. Your job is to increase how much they want, not to argue over the price. A salesperson is not there to tell the prospect how much the product costs. A salesperson is there to engage the customer.

4.Everything is Relative
You can compare the price with more expensive articles. When a person says, That costs too much. A perfect answer is compared with what, Mr. Prospect? Sometimes, they dont understand what youre talking about. They have no idea what things cost. They may not have bought one of these for 5 years and dont realize that the price has gone up 200%. You say, compare it with what? If they say compared with ABCs product. Mr. Prospect, ABCs product in the same line, is 5000 more than ours is. As a matter of fact, heres there recent price sheet. - or whatever. You have to find out what theyre comparing you with. If you say, This is a Mercedes automobile. He says, That costs a lot! Compared to what? Compared to Honda. Thats true. But there are very, very distinct differences why it costs so much more, would you like to know
what they are? So, always compare apples to oranges

5.Stretch the price

Stretch the life price over the life of the product, which is a very, very good way to do it. The person says, God that costs a lot! You say, It costs 50,000 more than the other machine, but Mr. Prospect, this machine has a five year life. That works out to about 10000 a year or more which would is about 800 a month more, for all of the additional qualities, the accessories and facilities that are built into it. Is it worth 800 a month more is basically the question, which comes out to approximately 25 a day or more. Is it worth 25 a day more to have all these features involved? The more you stretch the price over the life of the product, the smaller it appears to be.

6.Never Argue price

The prospect says, thats a lot! You say, Yes, Mr. Prospect, its not cheap. However, there are very good reasons for the price and I would like to explain some of them to you. There are very good reasons why thousands of people have examined this product carefully and compared it with our competitors and decided to pay more and buy this product. Would you like to know what they are? And the person will almost invariably say, Yes, why? Because and these are the benefits and values that you get. Its so logical. Remember at the end of it, it might still seem high but as long as it doesnt seem too expensive, youre ok.

Closing a Sale
- Get the order or ask for the order - Notice the buying signals- Be attentive in listening and observing Are your filing cabinets available for delivery by 15th March

Planning for Negotiation

- identify those part of your offering on which you can negotiate, and the limits of Actual Negotiation - get the list of all terms of sale which the buyer disagrees upon - Do not make concessions very easily, but do not be very adamant about terms which you can negotiate upon. - Do not make the first concession in a major area - while making the concession, make sure you get something in return - Do not panic after the buyers threatens to get concessions from a competitor. - Make the concessions you give, and demands you make, look logical.

Getting the order

- Make sure you get your order in writing. A verbal order is no order. - The order should specify all the terms and conditions you have agreed to