A Question Recently Posed to “The Sales Hunter”

“I recently got a job offer as a sales manager at a car dealership and tour/travel agency company. My sales team is small, but experienced. I would like to know whether you have any sales tips in how we may try to reach our segment of the market.”

First off, I’d identify who your target customer is. It’s very easy to start trying to reach out to what you believe are potential customers only to find out there is no chance they’ll ever buy from you. Secondly, I’d find out what it is you do best and what your current customers say they like about doing business with you. Third, match up what your current customers say they like about you with the profile of your perfect customer. Your objective is to find the key benefit new customers would be most drawn to.

After you’ve done the above, develop 3 - 5 “pain questions”. These are questions that are designed to help the targeted prospect begin to see the pain they have and how you are the solution. Example: “What are some of the changes you’ve had to make to compensate for the current price of gas?” or “What’s the best experience you’ve ever had on a tour?” Both of these questions will help get the person talking, which then gives you the opportunity to ask more questions. By doing so, you get the prospect to do all the talking and you learn as much information as possible to work with.

Let me shift gears a bit and talk about finding prospects. Begin by using the second step above as a gate opener to get your customers to give you referrals you can contact. There’s nothing better than a referral, especially one where the person doing the referring makes the initial contact on your behalf. Secondly, target your message very, very, very tight. We’re all inundated with too much information, so we tend to only pay attention to information that hits our personal bull’s-eye. This means you need to do as much profiling as possible of your perfect customer profile and only do those marketing / awareness activities that will hit them. Don’t kid yourself: the vast majority of advertising is wasted and the best is probably very expensive on a per contact basis. But, if you’re hitting the right contact, then the high cost perception suddenly goes away.


Contact Mark Hunter, The Sales Hunter for your next Conference or Sales Meeting. To see and hear Mark Hunter now visit www.TheSalesHunter.com

Sales Training Tip #194: Avoid the Light

When making a sales call, avoid sitting with your back to a window. The bright, outdoor light can often make it hard for the customer / prospect to focus on you.

Contact Mark Hunter, The Sales Hunter, for your next Conference or Sales Meeting. To see and hear Mark Hunter now visit www.TheSalesHunter.com

Consultative Selling Tip: Know your Customer's Customer

Consultative selling is all about knowing how your customer is going to use your product or service and, more importantly, helping them identify previously unknown areas of need they may have. Now, it seems simple, but something get lost in the translation in many companies. This week, I saw that the global giant Unilever is getting out of the household cleaning category in the US (All, Wisk, etc.) by selling off their brands. What I found amazing was an article in Advertising Age talking about how their CEO and other top people had not been in a laundry room in years. It's unbelievable how the top people of a major company could not find the time to know how their customer's really use their product.

With this fact in mind, I guess it shouldn't be surprising that they're selling this business. The key lesson: Make sure you take the time to really know how your customer and your customer's customers use your product or service.

Sales Tip: Phone Sales Tips

This past week, I was working with a salesperson who was trying to break into a major account without much luck. All he had was a single phone number of the "point" person for his company. After trying to reach the person on numerous occasions, he shared with me his frustration. My solution? Instead of calling the same number, try changing the last digit by one, either higher or lower. Doing so would give him a pretty good shot at reaching the person who might be in the office next door or an administrative assistant. In either case, it would increase his chance of getting to talk to someone and could help him determine if the person he had been trying to call was in fact the correct person. Although this is a simple selling skills technique, it's very effective when used properly.

Sales Training Tip #193: Getting Back to the Basics

Don't forget to sell to the outcome / result. It sounds basic, yet we often sell based on the product's features and not on what it will do for the customer. Think about your last sales call. What were you selling to? Do you need to get back to the basics?

Sales Training Tip #192: PMOC

Do you know your customer's PMOC - Preferred Method of Communication? Every client and prospect has one. By using their PMOC (email, voice, voice- mail, telephone, in-person, etc.), you will undoubtedly become more valuable to them.

A Testimony About the Importance of Passion

Recently, I received an email from a young salesperson who can attest to my theory that passion is a lost art. Only 22 years old, he has already assumed the responsibilities of someone twice his age. He wrote, "I have been in sales since I graduated high school . . . and have been the top sales person in both sales jobs I have had and currently have." He has been a corporate account executive for a large cellular telephone company and now has an entire state as his territory for a company in the fuel industry.

How did he achieve so much in such a short time? He attributes his success to his passion: "I seized the opportunity. . .I am so passionate about my product and I have been told by my customers in testimonials and meetings. . .Because I think that having these responsibilties is important, that shows me that self improvement is very possible. I am 22 with the responsibilties of a 40 year old man."

Passion, at any age, can take you places. It's never too late to show it.

A Quote to Ponder

A friend in Lincoln, Nebraska, shared an interesting quote with me recently:

"I am not who I am think I am, I am not who you think I am, I am who I think you think I am".

Sales Training Lessons from Michael Moore and His Movie, Sicko

It's amazing where we can find a sales training lesson. I have yet to see the movie, Sicko, but I have seen a number of reviews, rebuttals, etc. regarding the wide use of facts and figures presented by Michael Moore. Every review uses their own set of facts and figures to knock down the credibility of the movie. After it's all said and done, the only thing to really believe is the realization that you have to question every number or fact presented in the movie or in the media.

The corresponding sales lesson is simple: anytime you're on a sales call, you have to make sure the facts and figures you're using are believable and credible to the customer / prospect. The best way to validate your information is by having a question prepared that you can ask regarding each number or fact you present. In this way, you're getting the customer involved and you're securing their validation before you move on. I've watched too many sales go up in flames because some facts and figures presented early on did not jive with what the customer / prospect was expecting.

Professional Selling Skills Training: Sales Tips and Salesopedia.com

Sales tips and new ideas are essential to keep any salesperson running at full speed. We constantly have to be keep our "tool box" full of new ideas. A great place to find sales tips is at www.Salesopedia.com. This website contains a number of practical ideas you can use, including some of my own! (You didn't think I'd send you to a site that didn't have my stuff now, did you?) Thanks to Clayton Shold and his team for creating a super website for the industry!

Professional Selling Skills Training: Consultative Selling to Morons

Consultative Selling is nothing new, but it's still a challenge when the person you're selling to is a moron. I know that's rough, but you have to admit there are times when the person you're talking to is not the brightest bulb in the pack.

If you're faced with this, do two things:

1. Ask more questions, even if they have nothing to do with what you're selling. Because you want to make sure your questions have a logical flow to allow the customer to stay focused, engage them by asking the questions that have nothing to do with what you're selling early on in the conversation.
2. Ditch the presentation and focus on your visuals / pictures to do the communicating. The worst thing you can do is try to accelerate the close or attempt to manipulate the customer. DON'T, under any circumstance, do either of them.

The great thing about dealing with people who are painfully slow to catch on is that once they buy from you, they will more than likely become customers for life and they won't hesitate to recommend you to others.

Sales Training Tip #191: Keep Your Hands Visible

When you're making a sales call in person, be sure to keep your hands visible at all times. Placing them below the table or desk can come across as being very threatening to an unconfident customer.

Sales Training Tip #190: Google Alerts

Do you have a customer you want to keep track of when they are in the news? Go to www.Google.com/alerts and enter the name of the company. Google will send you an email anytime their search engine picks up the name. This useful information will help keep you "in the know" with your newsworthy clients!

Sales Training Tip #189: PBJ Selling

Have you ever considered that your customer is like a PB & J sandwich. The difference is, in sales, that the PB & J stand for Perception, Belief, and Justification. The perception your customer has of you and your company becomes their belief and justification for why they do or do not buy from you. Ponder how you can correctly communicate who you are the next time you're eating lunch!

Sales Training Tip #188: Vacation Reading

Use your vacation time to do some reading about your industry. Then, when you return, be sure to update your key customers with some of the insights you picked up.

Professional Selling Skills Training: Consultative Selling is More Than Networking

Consultative Selling is all about dealing with customers. Sales Development is having an on-going process to build your sales volume. Neither of these definitions say anything about networking with your friends in the business. Recently, I've seen several situations where very competent, experienced sales people have had trouble closing sales. The reason for their slump is because of who they're calling on. Veteran sales people often wind up in trouble because of the amount of time they spend talking to their friends in the industry, believing that if they just stay in contact with these people, their numbers will take off. This big mistake is one of the primary reasons why seasoned veterans often finish their careers on a sour note. My advice: stay in touch with the people you know, but, at the end of each week, ask yourself how many new people you've talked with and have been able to add to your prospect list.

Professional Selling Skills Training: Sales Calls and the Myth of Preparation

We all know that sales calls are the lifeblood of anyone in the Sales industry. Sales training programs will tell you that preparation is a key part of any successful sales call. I don't necessarily believe that. I've recently been working with a number of sales people who spend all of their time preparing to make calls, but in the end, wind up making very few. They simply run out of time because they take too long to prepare. One of the things I firmly believe is that there's no better time than right now to make a sales call. In other words, don't put off making one just because you don't have all of your stuff together. If you do, you'll never make the numbers you need. (The only exception I find to this rule is if you're selling to an incredibly narrow customer base. But, don't kid yourself, you're probably not in this situation!)

If you're a supervisor, challenge your sales team to make sales calls even though they may not be fully prepared. Keep in mind that what I am advocating is the need to push ourselves to continuously find ways to eliminate unnecessary time in our sales process.

If you're a salesperson, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the % of phone calls I make where I actually talk to someone? The vast majority of our phone calls wind up in voice mail anyway, so really all we need to make the call is a compelling point of interest to leave on the message.
• Do I have enough questions I can ask the customer in person to get them to reveal some great information that will guide me through the sales process? Your answer must be "yes".

In the end, I believe many people spend a lot of time preparing to make sales calls only to wind up not making them because they're afraid of rejection. If this is the case (and I believe it is 90% of the time), then you need to take a step back to consider the following:

• Do you truly believe in what you're selling?
• More importantly, do you have the passion to sell?

If you can't answer "yes" to both, then you will never be successful and you might as well start looking for another job.

Professional Selling Skills Training: Questions and Consultative Selling

There are so many varied definitions of "consultative selling" that have surfaced over the past several years that it makes me sick.

My definition? Consultative selling is asking questions that allow the customer to reveal their true needs, thus allowing you to work with them to help develop a solution that goes beyond solving their basic needs / pain to, ultimately, achieving a higher level of success or satisfaction. It begins with the questions you ask and the quality of the listening you do. It concludes with you delivering what will exceed the expectations of the consumer, regardless of what you initially expected.

Professional Selling Skills Training: Consultative Selling is Like a PBJ

I'd like to elaborate on my belief that Consultative selling is like a PB & J sandwich. Keep in mind that the PB & J stand for Perception, Belief, and Justification. The customer you're selling to will always develop a perception of you based on what you're saying and how you're saying it. This perception if often formed from things you would never expect. From their perception, they then determine their belief. This is where the customer takes great leaps of faith for reasons beyond anything you might have said or implied. It is not only very difficult to modify, but nearly impossible to correct. Their belief is then used to justify their decision whether or not to buy from you. It is scary to consider that the customer not only bases their decision, but also your livelihood on their shallow perceptions. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happens each and every time you're out making a sales call. Remember, think PB & J: Perception becomes Belief which becomes Justifciation.

Sales Training Tip #187: Sound Like a "Solution-Provider"

When you are calling on a new large client, remember you will always be referred to the person who you sound the most like. If you're selling high-tech products, you'll get referred to the IT department if you sound like a "techie." However, if you sound like a solution-provider, you'll be far more likely to find yourself speaking with the end user.