Sell the way the buyer wants to be sold

Once again I chose not to buy a service from a senior salesperson (in this case the owner of the business, you can't get much more senior than that) who was too simple minded to listen to what I wanted. Rather she chose to focus on what she wanted to tell me about her. I honestly could have cared less. I needed to have about three criteria met in order to continue the conversation. Her exact response was "Why don't you call back when I can tell you everything I need to before we get to your questions."

That is the perfect example of what we call SALES INSANITY.

The simplest way to sell more products to more people faster is this: Let them tell you or teach you how they want to be sold. Then, feed them the information they need in the format they want it and let them sell themselves.

Doesn't sound too tough does it?

But it is.

And thousands of of perfectly good sales are sent to a premature death. And thousands of salespeople shake their heads and say "That was a bad prospect, they just don't get it."

If people tell you they want to understand how your fees work before they go any further, you get to ask them one or two more questions prempted with, "to answer that question, I need to ask you two questions (or whatever the right amount is) in order to give you the best information and then I'll give you a ball park estimate."

Then do it and answer.

If they say ok, thanks and want to go, you get to start a new line of questioning, like, was that beyond what you expected and if so, please share what you were hoping to know because there is significant information that can impact price, if we can spend a couple of more minutes together, we'll know if there is a way to make this work for you or not.

Not that tough a plan. Listen along the way, don't spend all their time talking about yourself and how thrilled people are to have the priveledge of working with you. Give them relavent examples of success that could apply to their situation, one or two bullet points and then get them talking again.

Then feed their information, pain and concerns back to them with your solutions wrapped around them and you have the basis for a great selling situation.

Or, you can stay focused on you and how important you are and how lucky they are to be talking to you . . . for the 2 seconds it takes for them to say "Bye" and hang up so they can call your competition.