Charlie Cook sent me this article by email. I think his approach is a valid and very concise way to respond to four of the most common objections you can find in your selling process. Enjoy!
Jorge Pinkus
Your Maximum Success Coach
http://www.JorgePinkus.com
================
You want to increase the flow of sales revenue, but you are stymied by prospects' seemingly endless objections. Prospects say they're not interested. They tell you your price is too high, or this isn't the right time. You've heard all the objections. What can you do to simplify selling sales and get rid of these once and for all?
Plan your marketing and lead prospects to your products and services by making clear paths and removing obstacles. Channel your prospects' attention and interests and you'll eliminate their objections.
Below are the four most common objections and ways to eliminate them.
Lack of Interest
Prospects need to understand what you do before they can become interested in what you have to offer. It is that simple. If you're marketing yourself as a lawyer, coach, accountant or fitness center, you're not telling people why they should be interested. To capture their interest, explain the problems you solve from their perspective.
Lack of Leads
You want people to email you, call you or go to your web site to buy your products and services. But first you have to motivate them to contact you so you can market to them. Once you have their attention, use your conversation, your emails and your web site to ask them what they want and need.
Lack of Credibility
You want prospects to see you as the expert; the person and the firm that has the products and services they can rely on. One of the biggest challenges to attracting new clients is gaining their trust and being seen as the essential expert. Use your articles, ezine, and web site to demonstrate your expertise. Use testimonials from clients to tell prospects about the results you and your products have achieved.
Pricing Objections
Whether it is a $25 subscription or a $50,000 consulting fee, prospects object to price when they don't understand the value of the purchase. Establish a set of questions you can use to help prospects define what they want and what you are providing. When price is put in context, it becomes much less of an obstacle.
Still not converting as many prospects to clients as you'd like? Use questions to find out more about what they want, and what their concerns are. Then address each of these objections up front and remove them as potential sales killers.
Think of your target market as a reservoir of water waiting to be tapped. If you eliminate the barriers between them and you, you could send a steady stream of new clients and customers your way. Now, don't just imagine it, do it.
Start eliminating your prospects' objections and create a clear path for them to become clients and customers. Help your prospects get what they want and you'll be selling more products and services to more clients.
=============
If you liked this article by Charlie Cook, you'll love
each of the 'Insider Secrets' tools in the series,
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Showing posts with label sales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sales. Show all posts
Mar 18, 2008
Does your prospect see the value of your proposition?
I read this article by Alen Majer, where he explains why it's not sufficient that you have a product or service that is of value to your prospect, but you must make a special effort to guarantee that they see it and how they will benefit from it.
Enjoy,
Jorge Pinkus
Your Maximum Success Coach
P.S. Do you have your own domain? Get yours with unlimited email addresses, unlimited email lists, unlimited autoresponders, and much more, at http://www.123-sites.com
=======================
If your prospect does not see the value in your product or service, and if the only difference between you and the competitors is in pricing, you didn't do a good job as a sales person. The main description of your position inside the company is to create the value, not just to show your price list.
Teaching and educating customers is no longer enough, giving them information about your products or services is no longer necessary. They can get them by themselves, without ever talking to you or your company, and know more about your product and positioning on the market then you.
If they know so much about you, how can you try to sell them the same product without knowing their business situation or their needs?
Remember that customers are sophisticated; they either have or believe they can get product information more reliably on their own. Information is readily available through many different sources, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Internet is full of different forums, blogs, and review or research websites where they can get information about your product easily.
Customers don't just want a specific product; most of the times they want to solve their pain point or business issues. A customer in today's competitive sales environment does not expect to educate the sales professional about their business. Therefore, you must already possess a solid understanding of the customer's industry, competitors, and business direction.
Developing such a comprehensive view of the customer is a task that requires extensive researching and education to get an overall picture of the customer's business industry. The modern sales person needs to focus on understanding the customer's business initiatives, strategic plans, IT environment, and key customer preferences.
If you are still seeing yourself as someone who is there to educate customers, you are living in the past. The time of product-centric sales is gone. Welcome to customer-centric approach in sales.
You need to move away from the focus on presenting your products. Instead a customer-centric approach shows that you recognize and understand your customers' needs, which is necessary if you want to survive in a 21st Century sales environment.
Your customers are tired of salespeople who come in and are unable to address real business needs, but talk about their company and the hottest feature, or unique one that nobody else has. There are many dimensions that you are selling, and price is only one of them.
How to win the deal and not even touch the topic of discounting of your product or service?
If you base your offer on your price only, there is a good chance that someone will have lower price than you, or you can end up in the bidding war that distracts from solutions. To avoid that, base your proposal in achieving more goals for your prospects, not just to save money, because every other salesperson will say exactly the same.
Customer wants to see the value not in your product; he wants to get the value from your solution to their business problem. They must perceive unique value from you. If they cannot differentiate you from the competition, there is no reason to buy from you.
Probably you can't differentiate much with your product, I am sure you have some unique features, but your competition has them too. Customers today can easily substitute your product with the one from your competition and still be satisfied.
So how can you differentiate?
That's where trigger events are coming to the game.
Trigger events can help you with recognizing needs and opening the door to have a meaningful conversation with customers who have events happening. Just to be different from the competition is not really important to your customers. What they would like to see is added value.
What creates customer value?
- Skilled sales force
- Sales process itself
- Understanding their business situation today and adapting to their particular wants and needs
If you recognize customers' needs and create the value for them, customers will move from initial meeting to a decision much easier. Communicating the value is a traditional view of selling, but in today's world you can't survive if you are not creating the value for the customer. And make customer realize that they are on the market.
Sales person needs to play a leading role to create the value for his customers. In each step of sales process sales person can create the value, but the most value can be created early in the process by helping customers to define their needs.
This is true especially in consultative sales where sales person can create the value recognizing customer needs with trigger events and helping them to define them better and deeper. Sales professional needs to create the specialized situation and put them on the market even they didn't felt like that before he entered the picture.
If you are just selling your product you are missing the point and you will die by price, as you lived by price. Customers are looking beyond the product; they are looking for the solution to their needs and your understanding of their business situation. Many times that should include help and advice too.
Different customers must be treated differently, what works for one customer may not work at all for another. Knowing about trigger events happening to your targeted prospect (and more different events is always better) you will have a very powerful tool to adjust your sales presentation to their needs, recovered with trigger events.
Concentrate on understanding your customers' business issues, and show them how to solve more than one goal with your product, create a value for them and you will go home with the contract in your pocket, whatever the price is.
Let me repeat it here once more - if you don't show the value you will definitely not win whatever your price is. Even if you have a lowest price on the market, it does not mean much to the prospect, because they don't see the difference between your product and ones from the competition. And many buyers are buying from someone who had crafted a compelling solution to their needs, then comes understanding of their needs, and after that the financial part of the deal.
Your goal as sales professional is to create value through how you're selling, not just through what you're selling. To be a real sales professional ready for 21st century customers, here is no question you need to change your approach, but when and how?
======================
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alen Majer, author of the book "How to sell to Americans"
has written a new book for everyone who is in sales and
struggling with the finding new customers: "Trigger Events
or how to find your next customer.
Alen consults businesses on different topics, from improving
sales processes, developing better relationship with the
customers, to improving internal sales forces skills. He
knows the secret of sales and he is sharing it, and after
15+ years in sales he still believes this is the most exiting,
best payable and most secure job position in the world!
http://www.salestriggerevents.com
http://www.alenmajer.com
Enjoy,
Jorge Pinkus
Your Maximum Success Coach
P.S. Do you have your own domain? Get yours with unlimited email addresses, unlimited email lists, unlimited autoresponders, and much more, at http://www.123-sites.com
=======================
If your prospect does not see the value in your product or service, and if the only difference between you and the competitors is in pricing, you didn't do a good job as a sales person. The main description of your position inside the company is to create the value, not just to show your price list.
Teaching and educating customers is no longer enough, giving them information about your products or services is no longer necessary. They can get them by themselves, without ever talking to you or your company, and know more about your product and positioning on the market then you.
If they know so much about you, how can you try to sell them the same product without knowing their business situation or their needs?
Remember that customers are sophisticated; they either have or believe they can get product information more reliably on their own. Information is readily available through many different sources, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Internet is full of different forums, blogs, and review or research websites where they can get information about your product easily.
Customers don't just want a specific product; most of the times they want to solve their pain point or business issues. A customer in today's competitive sales environment does not expect to educate the sales professional about their business. Therefore, you must already possess a solid understanding of the customer's industry, competitors, and business direction.
Developing such a comprehensive view of the customer is a task that requires extensive researching and education to get an overall picture of the customer's business industry. The modern sales person needs to focus on understanding the customer's business initiatives, strategic plans, IT environment, and key customer preferences.
If you are still seeing yourself as someone who is there to educate customers, you are living in the past. The time of product-centric sales is gone. Welcome to customer-centric approach in sales.
You need to move away from the focus on presenting your products. Instead a customer-centric approach shows that you recognize and understand your customers' needs, which is necessary if you want to survive in a 21st Century sales environment.
Your customers are tired of salespeople who come in and are unable to address real business needs, but talk about their company and the hottest feature, or unique one that nobody else has. There are many dimensions that you are selling, and price is only one of them.
How to win the deal and not even touch the topic of discounting of your product or service?
If you base your offer on your price only, there is a good chance that someone will have lower price than you, or you can end up in the bidding war that distracts from solutions. To avoid that, base your proposal in achieving more goals for your prospects, not just to save money, because every other salesperson will say exactly the same.
Customer wants to see the value not in your product; he wants to get the value from your solution to their business problem. They must perceive unique value from you. If they cannot differentiate you from the competition, there is no reason to buy from you.
Probably you can't differentiate much with your product, I am sure you have some unique features, but your competition has them too. Customers today can easily substitute your product with the one from your competition and still be satisfied.
So how can you differentiate?
That's where trigger events are coming to the game.
Trigger events can help you with recognizing needs and opening the door to have a meaningful conversation with customers who have events happening. Just to be different from the competition is not really important to your customers. What they would like to see is added value.
What creates customer value?
- Skilled sales force
- Sales process itself
- Understanding their business situation today and adapting to their particular wants and needs
If you recognize customers' needs and create the value for them, customers will move from initial meeting to a decision much easier. Communicating the value is a traditional view of selling, but in today's world you can't survive if you are not creating the value for the customer. And make customer realize that they are on the market.
Sales person needs to play a leading role to create the value for his customers. In each step of sales process sales person can create the value, but the most value can be created early in the process by helping customers to define their needs.
This is true especially in consultative sales where sales person can create the value recognizing customer needs with trigger events and helping them to define them better and deeper. Sales professional needs to create the specialized situation and put them on the market even they didn't felt like that before he entered the picture.
If you are just selling your product you are missing the point and you will die by price, as you lived by price. Customers are looking beyond the product; they are looking for the solution to their needs and your understanding of their business situation. Many times that should include help and advice too.
Different customers must be treated differently, what works for one customer may not work at all for another. Knowing about trigger events happening to your targeted prospect (and more different events is always better) you will have a very powerful tool to adjust your sales presentation to their needs, recovered with trigger events.
Concentrate on understanding your customers' business issues, and show them how to solve more than one goal with your product, create a value for them and you will go home with the contract in your pocket, whatever the price is.
Let me repeat it here once more - if you don't show the value you will definitely not win whatever your price is. Even if you have a lowest price on the market, it does not mean much to the prospect, because they don't see the difference between your product and ones from the competition. And many buyers are buying from someone who had crafted a compelling solution to their needs, then comes understanding of their needs, and after that the financial part of the deal.
Your goal as sales professional is to create value through how you're selling, not just through what you're selling. To be a real sales professional ready for 21st century customers, here is no question you need to change your approach, but when and how?
======================
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alen Majer, author of the book "How to sell to Americans"
has written a new book for everyone who is in sales and
struggling with the finding new customers: "Trigger Events
or how to find your next customer.
Alen consults businesses on different topics, from improving
sales processes, developing better relationship with the
customers, to improving internal sales forces skills. He
knows the secret of sales and he is sharing it, and after
15+ years in sales he still believes this is the most exiting,
best payable and most secure job position in the world!
http://www.salestriggerevents.com
http://www.alenmajer.com
Feb 19, 2008
Flexibility: The Tale of Two Pizzas
The Zig Ziglar Newsletter carries this article and I just had to publish it here, since it proclaims one universal truth about servicing customers: give them what they want and they will always come back and recommend you! -- Jorge Pinkus
=========================
Flexibility! A key to developing customers who return!
Recently, I had a pair of experiences that are a perfect illustration of this customer service secret.
My family and I were looking for an early dinner before returning to our church for normal Wednesday activities. There is a family owned pizza restaurant near our house in Frisco. We had been there before and really enjoyed their pizza. It was early, so we were just about the only patrons there.
My son happens to be a fan of cheese pizza and does not care for all of the other toppings. My wife and I prefer a good pepperoni pizza. We approached the counter to place our order. The cook took his place just behind the counter and started flipping the dough, trying to convince us of their Italian authenticity. Politely, I told the young lady working the register (I’ll call her Rose), that I wanted one large pizza. I asked if I could have three fourths of the pizza with pepperoni and one fourth with extra cheese. (I also let her know that I was fine paying for an entire one ingredient pizza.)
Rose looked at me and said that they could only split the ingredients on a half pizza. (The cook was listening to the conversation and was anxious to start building our order.) I restated that I really wanted only a couple of the slices to be extra cheese for my son. I asked, “Can’t you just tell the cook (who was listening to the whole conversation), to leave off the pepperoni on a couple of slices?” Her response was: “No. Our system won’t allow us to do that and it will confuse the cook.”
After an additional unpleasant exchange of comments, we cancelled our order and left the restaurant.
I have spoken to several groups since that day and have used this establishment as the negative example of flexibility. Without naming the restaurant, one person in the audience guessed the location! She had experienced the same poor service and also vowed to never return.
Several weeks later, we were in the same position on a Wednesday night and my wife was hungry for a good pizza. She had seen another local pizza restaurant called “Sal’s” in Plano and we decided to give it a try.
We walked in and were greeted by a friendly young man. (Let’s call him Tony.) It was early and we were again the only people in the place. Tony escorted us to our table and gave us the menu. He took our drink order and then the moment of truth happened…
I asked Tony if it would be possible to get a large pizza with three fourths pepperoni and one fourth just extra cheese. (My wife kicked me under the table, not wanting to go through another unpleasant experience.) Tony smiled and said, “Sure, I don’t see why not.” (My wife breathed a sigh of relief and smiled.)
The experience and pizza were both great and we have recommended Sal’s many times. We would choose their pizza whenever we are hungry for that type of food.
What is the difference between these two experiences?
It is their flexibility and willingness to give the customer what they want.
Organizations need standards, policies, and rules to operate efficiently, but it is critical that all employees utilize some basic common sense when dealing with customer requests.
Your goal should be to satisfy 100% of needs for each customer, within reason.
Also, don’t let your computer system (or whatever other system) dictate what you can deliver to your customer. Learn to deal with exceptions!
Here is another example of this point. There is a phrase that appears on the bottom of many menus that drives me crazy! You can probably guess it. “No Substitutions Please.”
When I see that, I read “Mr Customer, we are not interested in truly meeting your need. Please go elsewhere.” (I’m not talking about asking to substitute a skewer of shrimp for my fries, but for only some comparably priced item on the menu.)
Contrast that with another line at the bottom of a menu I saw just this week: “Anything is possible. Please ask.”
This demonstrates a true desire to give a customer what they want and dramatically increases the chance that your customer will return.
This same concept applies to businesses outside of the hospitality industry. Employees should be trained to ask the question: “How can I satisfy this request?” instead of simply answering, “No, we do not do that.”
Many new product and service ideas come from organizations that listen to their customers and make every attempt to tailor their offering to the specific need. Chances are there are other customers who want the same thing, but have been conditioned not to ask.
Flexibility! Giving your customers exactly what they want will eliminate their desire to go to your competitor!
Take a few minutes and review your systems and policies and ask yourself, “How would I or my employees deal with a request that is slightly different than what we are used to hearing?”
Develop a culture of flexibility and your organization will be one step closer to delivering world class customer service.
=========================
Customer Centered Consulting Group works with organizations of all sizes to improve their effectiveness through enhanced customer service, strong leadership, and simplified processes. For more information, visit: www.cccginc.com.
=========================
Your Maximum Success Coach,
Jorge Pinkus
http://www.123-sites.com
P.D. Get your own webdomain registered, annual hosting, unlimited email accounts, 999 autoresponders, 999 maillists, dozens of scripts installables with one click, and much more for only $99/year. Go here: http://www.123-sites.com
=========================
Flexibility! A key to developing customers who return!
Recently, I had a pair of experiences that are a perfect illustration of this customer service secret.
My family and I were looking for an early dinner before returning to our church for normal Wednesday activities. There is a family owned pizza restaurant near our house in Frisco. We had been there before and really enjoyed their pizza. It was early, so we were just about the only patrons there.
My son happens to be a fan of cheese pizza and does not care for all of the other toppings. My wife and I prefer a good pepperoni pizza. We approached the counter to place our order. The cook took his place just behind the counter and started flipping the dough, trying to convince us of their Italian authenticity. Politely, I told the young lady working the register (I’ll call her Rose), that I wanted one large pizza. I asked if I could have three fourths of the pizza with pepperoni and one fourth with extra cheese. (I also let her know that I was fine paying for an entire one ingredient pizza.)
Rose looked at me and said that they could only split the ingredients on a half pizza. (The cook was listening to the conversation and was anxious to start building our order.) I restated that I really wanted only a couple of the slices to be extra cheese for my son. I asked, “Can’t you just tell the cook (who was listening to the whole conversation), to leave off the pepperoni on a couple of slices?” Her response was: “No. Our system won’t allow us to do that and it will confuse the cook.”
After an additional unpleasant exchange of comments, we cancelled our order and left the restaurant.
I have spoken to several groups since that day and have used this establishment as the negative example of flexibility. Without naming the restaurant, one person in the audience guessed the location! She had experienced the same poor service and also vowed to never return.
Several weeks later, we were in the same position on a Wednesday night and my wife was hungry for a good pizza. She had seen another local pizza restaurant called “Sal’s” in Plano and we decided to give it a try.
We walked in and were greeted by a friendly young man. (Let’s call him Tony.) It was early and we were again the only people in the place. Tony escorted us to our table and gave us the menu. He took our drink order and then the moment of truth happened…
I asked Tony if it would be possible to get a large pizza with three fourths pepperoni and one fourth just extra cheese. (My wife kicked me under the table, not wanting to go through another unpleasant experience.) Tony smiled and said, “Sure, I don’t see why not.” (My wife breathed a sigh of relief and smiled.)
The experience and pizza were both great and we have recommended Sal’s many times. We would choose their pizza whenever we are hungry for that type of food.
What is the difference between these two experiences?
It is their flexibility and willingness to give the customer what they want.
Organizations need standards, policies, and rules to operate efficiently, but it is critical that all employees utilize some basic common sense when dealing with customer requests.
Your goal should be to satisfy 100% of needs for each customer, within reason.
Also, don’t let your computer system (or whatever other system) dictate what you can deliver to your customer. Learn to deal with exceptions!
Here is another example of this point. There is a phrase that appears on the bottom of many menus that drives me crazy! You can probably guess it. “No Substitutions Please.”
When I see that, I read “Mr Customer, we are not interested in truly meeting your need. Please go elsewhere.” (I’m not talking about asking to substitute a skewer of shrimp for my fries, but for only some comparably priced item on the menu.)
Contrast that with another line at the bottom of a menu I saw just this week: “Anything is possible. Please ask.”
This demonstrates a true desire to give a customer what they want and dramatically increases the chance that your customer will return.
This same concept applies to businesses outside of the hospitality industry. Employees should be trained to ask the question: “How can I satisfy this request?” instead of simply answering, “No, we do not do that.”
Many new product and service ideas come from organizations that listen to their customers and make every attempt to tailor their offering to the specific need. Chances are there are other customers who want the same thing, but have been conditioned not to ask.
Flexibility! Giving your customers exactly what they want will eliminate their desire to go to your competitor!
Take a few minutes and review your systems and policies and ask yourself, “How would I or my employees deal with a request that is slightly different than what we are used to hearing?”
Develop a culture of flexibility and your organization will be one step closer to delivering world class customer service.
=========================
Customer Centered Consulting Group works with organizations of all sizes to improve their effectiveness through enhanced customer service, strong leadership, and simplified processes. For more information, visit: www.cccginc.com.
=========================
Your Maximum Success Coach,
Jorge Pinkus
http://www.123-sites.com
P.D. Get your own webdomain registered, annual hosting, unlimited email accounts, 999 autoresponders, 999 maillists, dozens of scripts installables with one click, and much more for only $99/year. Go here: http://www.123-sites.com
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