If you have successfully applied Customer-Focused Selling concepts, up to and including the negotiation of terms, getting a buyer’s commitment should come naturally. You have earned your customer’s trust, helped with recognition of needs, and proved that your solution is best.
As mentioned earlier, your goal is to open the relationship, not to close the sale.
In the Customer-Focused Selling process, I refer to the abilities needed to ask for the agreed-on order as “commitment skills,” not “closing skills.” This is a major technique in sales training.
Closing skills attempt to get the buyers to commit.
Commitment skills are different because there is MUTUAL COMMITMENT at the point of sale: the customer commits to you, and you commit to the customer.
In the final two roles you play in the process–Teacher and Farmer–are focused on the commitments you make to the customer.
Use these tools in your sales manager training. Here are a few non-manipulative ways to ask for commitment:
Ask, “What should be our next step?”
This question is most appropriate for a buyer who has a clear direction of how events should unfold, a lion personality type. This is a simple, honest question that asks your buyer to suggest a commitment to you.
Describe in detail what happens between now and installation, delivery, or commencement of service. If you have an implementation plan, now is the time to share it.
Then, simply ask, “Does that sound acceptable to you?”
Ask, “Would you like to give us a try?”
This commitment question is soft, yet direct, because it asks for a “Yes” or “No” answer.
By now you have come a long way with your prospect. The commitment techniques above are often successful. However, some buyers may still be reluctant. If this is the case, you must deal with the salesperson’s old nemesis–objections.
To learn more about these sales techniques and many others take the time and attend sales seminar.
Recent research has found that the highest producing salespeople are those that work for sales managers with a “hands-on” coaching style. Sales managers that monitor, direct, evaluate and reward their salespeople on a on-going basis; and, these high-performance salespeople were found to have a greater level of commitment to their organizations when they worked for a sales manager with this “hands-on” coaching approach.
Your company can increase sales and reduce sales turnover by installing a culture of coaching within your sales management team.
The role of sales manager just may be the most important job in your company. Sales is the life-blood of every business, and there is a sales manager at the heart of every one of your sales teams.
Has your company provided your sales managers with the skills and tools they need to pump maximum growth and profits out of your sales force?
Many salespeople are not getting inside the buyer’s mind. Too often, salespeople focus on their sales processes and objectives, without carefully considering how people make purchase decisions. Consequently, salespeople proceed too quickly: they push. Buyers hate “pushy” salespeople. Pushy salespeople reap a huge harvest of objections from buyers.
The sales process then becomes a struggle when it might otherwise be a pleasant partnership between two professional business people: a relationship built on mutual respect yielding long-term benefits both ways.
If you change the way you sell to closely conform to how people buy, you will see a reduction in the number of objections from buyers. More than 80% of the objections we experience as sales people focus on the price/value issues involved. Using this technique will greatly benefit your sales training efforts and help your company make more and bigger sales.
If a price objection arises early in the process, respond by asking history, symptom, cause, complication and cure questions. These questions help your prospect recognize the seriousness of ongoing problems, thus increasing the value of your solutions. By becoming a goodDoctor, you prevent price objections.
Price objections occurring late in the sales process are typically caused by fear, or a desire to get a better deal.
Fear is emotional, not logical. Traditional objection-handling techniques don’t work when the prospect is fearful. Better to become the Therapist. Draw out the real fear issues. Get them into the open. Softly and sensitively empathize with the prospect. Allow him or her to work through their own fear.
The desire to get a better deal is natural and understandable. The best way to respond here is to assume the role of Negotiator. Create a win-win agreement!
Finally, another way of responding to price objections, and other objections, is the “verify / feel / felt / found” technique.
This technique has been around for a long time, so avoid using the actual words because you might turnoff the client by appearing to be manipulative. The best sales training techniques will know this. Actually, this way of handling the objection helps both parties discover new issues, or clarify items already covered. Here are the steps you can use:
Ask a question to understand the real objection and derive more information.
Ask if the objection were to be addressed satisfactorily, would the prospect commit? If they say no, then you don’t have the real objection on the table.
Describe a real example of a client who had a similar objection, and the way they finally resolved it.
“Mr. Prospect, I understand your concern. Mary Thompson of Thompson Graphics across town had the same concern when we were talking about a similar system last month. Once she learned about the system’s flexibility she decided to go ahead. She discovered that she could do all the things she needs to do today, and have room to grow.”
It is a good idea to have materials–such as testimonial letters–to substantiate your claims!
This is just one example of the sales techniques salespeople can learn at a good sales training course.
Does your company have one or more sales managers who would benefit by learning new selling skills to develop an elite, hi-performance sales team? If so, it’s time to learn new selling skills.
Customers have higher expectations, and more buying power than ever. They have more options as well. Therefore, companies striving to be the best have made customer satisfaction and retention the cornerstone of their business strategy. To achieve business success, the best companies add to this cornerstone product innovation and quality, and a productive and responsive group of employees who are encouraged to focus on customer service in a vibrant corporate culture.
With radical, comprehensive and pervasive changes in technologies and markets have come changes in the way sales people achieve customer satisfaction. The days of “hit-and-run selling” are over. Sales people must now act as account managers who are responsible for the ongoing quality of the company’s relationships with customers.
The message is clear: to be successful with sales manager training, sales people must get closer to customers, not just during the sales process, but after it, too. By applying the last role, that of a Farmer, you can solidify your customer relationships for years to come.
The number one killer of customer satisfaction is complacency on the part of the seller. The day you take your customer for granted is the day your competitor takes that customer away from you.
Just because you do not hear complaints does not mean your customer is satisfied. According to a recent consumer affairs study, 96 percent of unhappy customers never complain.
To avoid becoming complacent with your customers, stop thinking “account maintenance” and start thinking “account development.” Don’t just hold your ground, move forward. The best way to keep the business is to grow your business.
The requirements for a long-lasting and profitable relationship are mutual trust, understanding and value achieved. If you put extra effort into achieving customer satisfaction by becoming proactive with your customer after making a sale, you will be generously rewarded. And, your career in sales management will be more rewarding and less stressful.
Your role as Farmer entails nourishing the relationship with the customer, sowing new applications for your product, cultivating the account, reaping the fruits of your labor, and planning your next season.
You accomplish these tasks by keeping in mind: your customer wants to realize the results expected, that the product is performing as promised. The customer also expects to be treated in a way that makes them feel as important after the sale as before. And the customer wants to be reassured that he paid a fair price.
Achieving this quality relationship with your customer allows you to grow the account, and it allows you to ask for referrals! To truly understand selling you must understand buying, and that’s why you must get into your customer’s head!
You can increase your sales and enjoy greater customer satisfaction by changing your approach to match your customers’ changing perspective throughout the sale. For more help with sales training, sales management training and becoming a better sales person, you should attend sales training course.
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