Many people struggle with the concept of “selling” if they don’t have a sales and marketing background and are looking for Sales Improvement ideas. But you don’t have to be “salesperson” to sell. So if you are a Lawyer, Engineer, Accountant, IT Professional or a Business Owner who has to bring in new Business this podcast is perfect for you.
Our special guest, Anthony English has a technical IT background, but he who has learnt a different way to “sell” and now teaches IT Professionals (and others) how to sell – calmly and “naturally” with great results by following a simple 5 step formula. So in this interview we pull apart the formulaand get some marketing jewels from Anthony.
So have a listen to “Better Sales without being Sales-y”, with special guest Anthony English and read the summary below. it sounds simple but few people take the time to really follow these 5 steps which can remove the “anxious” feeling we sometimes get when having to make a sales call or have a sales conversation.
1. Find the Right Clients
- This makes it easier to have a conversation rather than a sales pitch.
- You need to want to work with the client as if you don’t enjoy working with them or both parties aren’t satisfied with the end result it will be much harder to maintain that business relationship in the long term
- When looking for the ideal client consider what type of person they are, their age, geography, race, religion. Try to get as clear a picture of who you want to purchase your product or services before you start looking for them
- Another important question to consider is how many clients do you need, how many is essential to sustain your business
- An example of finding the right client could be If say a dentist reached out to you and offered you a root canal surgery and they start listing all their accolades and achievements and high profile clients but you don’t know whether you need any dentist work done so if the dentist had first searched for people who are experiencing discomfort or mouth pain they would be able to have a much better chance of getting the person to agree to have work done
2. See yourself as a solution
- To take the pressure off, just ask the prospect what the business problems they are facing then see how your business can be a solution to those problems
- A problem that IT people, Law firms and Manufacturers face is as soon as the client is interested they start troubleshooting the problem or offering what they think the best fix for your problem is
- If you are meeting with prospects you need to make sure they know you are offering a great solution to their problems, you also need to inform them of the immediate benefits they will receive from using your product or service as well as the impact of not fixing this thing
- A lot of IT companies will say “For a monthly fee we will take care of all your IT problems” but most people cannot clearly identify what their IT issues are
- As an example if you were a web company you might ask simple questions like what do you want to improve with your website? What is the biggest issue for your website currently? What roadblocks are there to solving your issues?
- Its a lot like a claims from any business that says outright we can save you time and money? How do they know they can save you time and money if they don’t know where your time and money is being spent/allocated?
3. Learn the discovery conversation
- Be a conversation starter not a salesperson.
- A discovery conversation is essentially a conversation where you are talking with a prospect or potential client and letting them do most of the talking where you are trying to understand them and their issues
- It’s about asking the prospect where they are with their business now? What are their goals? Where are you headed? Ask them where they’d like to be in 6 months’ time or even a few years’ time.
- A perfect example of a poor discovery conversation is when you go to a medical centre or a doctor and because they are trying to serve loads of people in the day as soon as you get into the room with them they are trying to fix the problem and offer you medication before you have had time to explain what you are sick with. Instead they should take the time to understand your problem.
4. Focus on Client Outcomes
- Focus on their outcomes or the result your product or service will deliver and and not so much on the features of your service
- A common thing that most business professionals do on their LinkedIn page is they will speak about themselves only essentially using their profile as an online CV but that’s not what attracts potential business anymore, you need to change the conversation to be focused on that client rather than yourselves
- One thing that you could do very quickly is to go to your own website. Have a look through and check is it all about you or is it focused on the client. Do they have this problem? Do they identify with this? Is this missing for you? And so rather than focusing on yourself you are making it more client focused and using client-focused language, that’s something you can change really quickly, even on your About Us page. It’s not actually about you It’s about your clients and the solutions you offer to their problems.
- Companies need to shift their internal focus away from the traditional model of spruiking your business or selling yourselves to selling an answer or solution to a problem that your clients face or a challenge they cannot solve themselves.
5. Sell Calmly
- A big step towards being able to sell confidently and calmly is having a clearly defined sales process that you can follow to a tee as having a clear path for all your prospects can put you at ease
- So take the time to “map out” what the steps in your sales process
- Having a strong CRM can also help you sell calmly as with the automation software available you don’t have to panic about sending follow up emails as they can be automated through your CRM
- Having good time Management and planning skills can also go a long way to helping you sell calmly as you if you have your days planned you don’t need to worry as much about missing a meeting or giving a prospect a follow up call
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