Make Them Buy Now with Dan Kennedy

As a sales person, you need and want to make sales. It is imperative that you produce, close sales. Sales are the measure of your success and, not to be ignored, how you put food on your table.

There are no secrets to being a successful closer, only common sense attitudes toward work, appearance, and interaction with people.

Regarding work, know your product, be it insurance, call center software or auto parts. If gaining and maintaining that knowledge means taking classes or self-study, take them, or do it. If it means reading brochures about the product, read them. Always keep your knowledge current. Know how to convey that knowledge to your clients.

Dress well and make a good appearance. Clothing should be neat, clean, pressed and reflect a positive attitude toward your work. It need not be expensive and it need not be formal. A suit and tie might not work for someone selling auto parts or farming equipment, but would work well for someone selling call center software or insurance. You need not be handsome or beautiful, but you should be well groomed. Your appearance should show pride and confidence in who you are and reflect respect for your client or customer.

Be consistent in your work ethic. Be on time for appointments or open the store at 8:00 AM if that is what the sign on the door says. If you make a promise, keep it. If reasons that are out of your control prevent you form keeping it, inform your client or customer and make alternate arrangements. If the promise is impossible to keep, explain and apologize. Never make a promise that you do not intend to, or cannot honor, just to close the sale. It will come back to you in unpleasant ways. Deliveries should be on time. Merchandise or product should be what you say it is. If there is a problem, resolve it to the best of your ability, and if at-all possible, the client is satisfied. If the problem cannot be resolved, offer a refund or substitution.

Build a client or customer base. Do what is necessary in your field to gain new clients and, once gained, do what is necessary to keep them.

Keep your inventory current. If something is not selling, perhaps it should not be in your briefcase or store. In a slow economy, you may need to diversify, or perhaps, bring in a few new products with the same level of quality as your other merchandise, but normally sold at a lower price. A seller of high-end furniture survived the Great Depression by bringing in a line of shoelaces and other small personal items to his store.

Know that if you are persistent you will succeed.

Honesty, Openness And Willingness
Honesty, openness, and willingness are not only important to people trying to recover from drug abuse. They are important to salespeople as well! Accurately or not, salespeople have a reputation as being dishonest. Used car salespeople are often the punch line of jokes about dishonesty. People selling medicine and medical supplies are often characterized as snake oil salesmen. In order for salespeople to repair their reputations, they must work to craft a new image.

Potential customers are afraid of what salespeople are not telling them about their products. Do they use toxic chemical in their fertilizer? Are they produced in sweatshops? Are they made with inferior materials? When salespeople are more transparent about their products, more customers will be willing to plunk down their hard earned money. Willingness impacts the issues outlined above as well as many others related to sales. Salespeople must be willing to change, willing to be open and willing to do the things their customers need. Doing these things will increase sales exponentially.

Honesty means being accurate with your prices, accurate with information about delivery times and accurate about what the products can and cannot do. Lying to customers is a short term solution that creates long term problems. Lying, or misrepresenting the facts, to customers may get them to sign the contracts but it leads to a myriad of problems including stopped payments on checks, cancelled orders and a negative view of the company. All these things are bad for business.

If you believe in your product and are confident in its quality, openness is easy. No customer wants to find out the product they purchased was produced with dangerous or inferior materials. It makes it worse if customers think the salesperson knew and obfuscated the truth with double talk and misleading information. Openness builds trust. If you are open with your customer, provide them the information that they should know and admit when you don’t have the information they may need to make an intelligent decision you can build a relationship that will make you more money in the long run.

Being willing to change, willing to do the necessary research to thoroughly understand your product and willing to return to a potential customer with the information they need before asking them to make a decision is important. Using honesty, openness and willingness can lead to a happier customer and a healthier bottom line!

Keys To Creating Customer Loyalty
Focusing on customer service is a key to winning and keeping customers. Customers want to know they are appreciated and are getting good value for their money. Customers also prefer to buy rather than having products sold to them. It’s important to take time to clearly describe the strengths of your products. Developing trust is also very important. Clients are more comfortable buying from someone they trust. Keeping these things in mind will increase your close rate no matter what product you are selling.

Customer service is seemingly a lost art. Many salespeople today act as though they are doing their potential customers a favor by offering them their goods. People want to be treated well. They want to know they are valued and respected. They want to feel their thoughts, ideas, dreams and goals are important. If you want to sell your products and have an interest in making multiple sales to the same client you must take the time to listen to them, understand their needs and let them see that know what their goals are and you are willing to work to make sure they are met.

There is a difference between buying a product and having a product sold to you. Customers may not be able to clearly articulate the difference but they can feel and sense the difference. Using high pressure sales tactics may get the sale closed but it leaves the client feeling violated and uncomfortable doing business with your company. This does not lead to repeat sales. A more effective sales technique would be to show the client how the product you are offering meets their needs and can help them to reach their goals. Then stand back and let them buy. If you take the time to clearly describe the things your product can do it will be easy for the client to realize buying it would be in their best interest.

Trust is one of the most important things when it comes to making a sale. If the client trusts the salesperson it will be easy for them to make a purchase. Honesty engenders trust. Once the client realizes they can trust the salesperson, the sales pitch becomes more powerful. Being honest with the client about what the product can and cannot do allows them to make an intelligent decision and they will more likely to be open to repeat sales.

Quick Tips to Help You Land the Sale
For those working in the Sales industry it can be easy to get frustrated, especially with the state of the current economy. However while people might be tightening their belts more than ever, there are still ways to pull off that sale.

When trying to make a sale you must always keep in mind that your attitude is a major deciding factor. When people see you with your head down, or with a frustrated look on your face they automatically lose confidence in you. You have to remember that you are selling yourself just as much, or possibly more, than you are selling the product. A good smile, and good body language go a long way towards helping you close the deal.

Knowing your product is just as important as keeping a good attitude. Learn your product inside and out, and be prepared to answer any questions that your customer might ask you. Once you know your product well develop at least six key points that you can emphasize. Use these six keys to help the customer focus on the upside.

Keep them saying yes. This can work like a snowball effect. The second the word “no” comes out of their mouth you are starting to lose the sale, so ask questions that you know will have “yes” answers. Take for instance “It saves energy when compared with other leading models, you like to save energy, right?” Every yes will help you build momentum towards your sale.

Keep a sense of urgency going. One way to do this is stress thing like limited time deals, or pointing out that it is quickly going out of stock. This is a well known trick, but still effective. If someone thinks an item is likely to be gone the next time they come around then they are much more likely to take the dive right there.

Last but not least, learn to take an easy “no” and move on. If someone says no at the outset then there is very little chance of changing their mind to a yes. You’re getting paid on your sales, not on the amount of time you spend talking. If you take the easy “nos” then you have that much more time to find a yes. Trying to push someone who isn’t interested will simply waste time.