The hard edge of selling is getting your customer to commit.
Sure it’s great visiting clients, discovering their needs, preparing great proposals and selling solutions, but if you want to close more sales you need to go one stage further than your current comfort zone.
For example, many sales people are great relationship builders, but they find it difficult to persuade a client to buy from them if the prospective client insists on ‘thinking over the cost’ or says “I need to discuss this with my brother/wife/husband accountant, they have some reservations …”
It’s worth reminding yourself that when a client raises a concern to a proposal it’s usually good news; they are indicating a level of interest, just by asking a question. And once you know the four-stage process for handling any objection, and have assimilated this process into your presentation style, you are guaranteed more sales.
Many of The Sales Training Company’s clients have had the opportunity to have a training session on overcoming client concerns and closing more sales at workshops which include games, exercises, presentations and opportunities for skill practise.
Meantime, the best way of overcoming client concerns is to ensure you know the 10 most common objections raised by clients in your market, and how your company can respond to them. In addition, make sure you are ‘sold’ on your product or service, so your belief in what you sell is obvious to a prospective client. If you’ve ever raised funds for a cause you are passionate about you’ll recognise the truth in this.
Belief shines through
- In fact, you need to have belief in at least three things in order to sell effectively and gain commitments:
- You need to believe in the product or service you represent
- You need to believe in your organisation
You need to believe that you personally are a good practitioner.
In summary, this means that you believe that when customers do business with your organisation, they gain from that experience.
We all know that belief in these things can fluctuate. For example, if your organisation has introduced a product or service that you're feeling uncertain about, you are likely to be reluctant to sell with enthusiasm, as your belief has been compromised. The solution to this dilemma is to get your colleagues or sales manager to do a role play with you, where you play the client and they sell you on this new product or service, and overcome your concerns when you raise them.
Once they have alleviated your concerns (and you'll often have more than any client) then you will have the confidence to do the same.