By Marcus Cauchi Sales Trainer
Post date: 2012-09-07 11:42:28
“Thanks for coming in to see me again John. I wanted to tap your brains to see if you can you fix the unreliability problems we’ve had with the network going down this week? I think it’s because Cosco don’t like talking to Jumper and our customers are throwing a hissyfit.”
“Mr Jones, let me tell you why our solution is perfect for you! The carbungulator on the defibrilator of the Rippitz has ample latency to prevent your sprogwangle from falling over when you have DNS attack on your network.”
“Huh?”
“Yes, it’s true. Our Rippitz ethernet whizzbang is the most redormant. In addition our Saas, CaaS and AaaS can save you squillions of pounds through BPM and hosted CRM.”
“That sounds excellent sonny. Let me have a proposal with your costings. Can you get it to me before the weekend so I can look over it and give me a call in a couple of weeks. I’ll be discussing this with the Head of Janitorial Supplies at the Board Meeting next month and we should know by then where we stand. Thank you and good bye.”
Sin 1: No jargon, ever.
If you want your prospects to not glaze over and to buy from you stop using jargon. It’s neither big nor clever. Why would you use language that your prospect doesn’t understand. Stop making yourself the smartest person in the room. He’ll not thank you for it and you’re about to waste your evening writing a proposal for someone who was NEVER going to buy from you.
Why?
Because ALL RFPs are bogus. Yes I said ALL. I mean all. Why do you need an RFP if it’s a real selling situation? Can you win it? Areyou going to? Why are you writing it then?
I know you’re playing the law of averages. Throw enough s*** and some has to stick. That’s a proper fools game and results in doing shedloads of free consulting.
Sin 2: Failure to Diagnose – the interesting disease. In the example above, do you even know what the real problem is? Have you bothered to diagnose? Did you ask any questions? Did you even listen or did you just leap in trying to solve the symptom? What happens when you have a boil on your bum and the cause is your dodgy liver? If you burst the pimple what happens? It comes back somewhere else because you haven’t fixed the correct end of the problem.
The acronym STFU is especially relevant for most of the boys reading this because you are most often guilty of premature presentation syndrome. Ladies, you’re almost as bad but I give you some credit for having the ability to STFU and listen. They show you a symptom. The light is red but you still plough in because you want to prove how much you know.
Again, don’t try and be the smartest person in the room or else you will waste a lot of time kissing frogs and getting very slimy lips. You will become a professional visitor. If you manage people who go out and try and meet lots of people (anyone with a pulse (optional) who sits still long enough for them to whip out their 12 inches of pure Powerpoint hell.
Be interested NOT interesting. Do this and he will tell you how to sell to him, he will do the presentation for you, he will close himself and he’ll thank you for taking his money. Do what you’re doing and continue racking up debt on your credit cards, get fired or leave your current job within 12-18 months because you can’t make it work and then blame the economy, the company, marketing, the management, finance, your pricing or the competition … but don NOT take responsibility for the fact you aren’t selling.
At best you’re order taking. And only then when you get lucky and people buy in spite of how you tried to sell to them.
Sin 3: Collateral, catalogues, websites are NOT a substitute for selling. They are a cop out. You don’t buy off brochures unless it’s cheap as chips commodity stuff. If your job, livelihood, reputation depended on it you wouldn’t in all likelihood buy from a a piece of paper or off a web page, would you? You might but as a rule, what’s likely to happen? And if it was an important purchase wouldn’t you want someone to help you make sure it was the right purchase. No egg on your face. No embarrassing trips to the headmaster’s office for a caning when the company’s reputation is in tatters or you’re in front of another Parliamentary Select Committee to investigate another bad purchase scandal?
Product knowledge used to early in the sale is LETHAL. If you insist of showing up and throwing up with virtually the same crappy feature and benefit rap that your rivals are doing, you deserve to end up doing the free consulting, used as column fodder and ending up in voicemail jail.
Never ever, ever sell using features and benefits. And only present once, to everyone for a final decision – yes or no and nothing in between.
I know. I know. ….. “Blah blah blah. You have to present! You can’t sell that way! You have no idea what you’re talking about Marcus. I’ve been selling Cloud for the last couple of years and I can tell you we have always done it that way and it works for us.”
Works! Works! Most of you are out there working hard, trying to meet prospects in a crowded competitive market. You end up in beauty parades and in the end it comes down to price more often than not. And your positive prospects who were enthusiastic and loved you (“That’s the best presentation I’ve ever seen John. Send me a proposal so I can show it to my boss. He’ll love this.”) turns into the Scarlet Pimpernel and gives you unlimited access to his voicemail system as he goes into avoiding-you-mode.
When you leave the office leaving him to think about it, the only person thinking about it is ….YOU!
Stop selling like a clown and consider why your prospect will buy from you.
You cannot differentiate in what you sell but you can differentiate in how you sell. If you want to learn how go to http://www.london1.sandler.com/content/show/60095 and click on the Free Stuff to audit yourself and find out just how good a salesperson you really are. I bet you don’t dare even take a peek!