Action Step

In order to create desire for your products, you need to believe in the product itself. Your feelings about the product are easily picked up on by your client. So, if you feel anything less than passionate about what you’re selling, your client will know that straight away. You need to ensure that you’re selling a great quality product or service and let your enthusiasm for that shine through in your presentation. If you love it, creating desire in others will be a piece of cake!

Answer These Questions:

• How could you create desire for the product that you sell?
• Are you enthusiastic about the product that you sell? Would you use it yourself?

*Take a look at these sales jobs from Jobboom, a supporter of this site.

Sales Tip #40: presentation secret is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

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.

If you live by price – you will die by price is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

Call on a thousand average people to whom your proposition is salable. You’ll find the same objections on the lips of the majority of them. And these objections, boiled down and standardized, resolve themselves into a very small number.

For instance, in the paint business the standard objections are:

(a) “Too much money tied up in present stock to consider changing.”
(b) “Nobody is asking for your products.”

And really these two objections represent the big buffing points of the paint salesperson today, found in the mouths of the great majority of their prospective buyers.

Now considering the fact that the majority of a salesperson’s calls have the same objections, it is only reasonable to suppose that the same rebuttals or answers should overcome them.

When I say objections, I mean what I say – bona fide objections, not merely excuses for not buying. That kind of objections is a reflection on the salesperson by not yet selling the customer. A real objection can be defined as a valid, existing reason for not taking the products or proposition. When it’s overcome the sale is made.

The effective rebuttal or answer to an objection is one that gets past; it settles it forever. Every salesperson should study and classify the objections met throughout his or her career. Then when these objections are well established in mind, the salesperson should start formulating rebuttals. They can be (the rebuttals) taken from colleagues, common sense, experience, and experiments.

Whenever an answer overcomes one of these standard objections and makes the sale, put that answer down as a standard rebuttal to that particular objection. There’s nothing better than your own success journal. And the first thing you know, your skills toolbox includes a standard, effective rebuttal that will clear the path of every common objection you meet.

It is positively a shame to see salespeople stumble and stammer and “hem and haw” in answering an objection they have been up against forty times before. It is inexcusable.

Further reading:

• If you live by price – you will die by price
• How to win the deal without discounting
• Three Classes of Price Objections
• Six Common Objections and How to Handle Them

What are Sales Objections? is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

It is not true that new products are manufactured to supply the demand.

There is no demand. Both the demand and the goods have to be manufactured. The public has always held fast to its old-fashioned discomforts, until the salesperson persuaded it to let go.

• There was no demand for the Railroad, and for years many people believed that thirty miles an hour would stop the circulation of the blood.
• There was no demand for the Steamboat, and when Brunei drove the first boat by steam on the Thames, he became so unpopular that the London hotels refused to give him a room.
• There was no demand for the Sewing machine, and the first machine that Howe put on exhibition was smashed to pieces by a Boston mob.
• There was no demand for the Telegraph, and Morse had to plead and beg before ten Congresses before he received any attention.
• There was no demand for the Air-brake, and Westinghouse was called a fool by every railroad expert, because he asserted that he could stop a train with wind.
• There was no demand for Gas-light, and all the candle-burners sneered at Murdoch for trying to have a lamp without a wick.
• There was no demand for the Reaper, and McCormick preached his gospel of efficient harvesting for fourteen years before he sold his first hundred machines.

No, it is not true, as learned theorists have said that every great invention springs into life because it is demanded by the nation. It springs into life and nobody wants it. It is the Ugly Duckling. Everybody prefers dollar to it, until a few salespeople take it in hand and explain it.

• When Frederick E. Sickles first exhibited his Steam steering-gear, all the sailors looked upon it with contempt. “Nobody seemed to take the slightest interest in it,” wrote Sickles.
• When Charles T. Porter first showed his High-speed engine in England, it was not taken seriously by anyone. “My engine,” says  Porter “was visited by every engineer in England and by a multitude of engine-users; and yet in all that six months not a builder ever said a word about building neither it, nor a user said a word about using it. I was stupefied with astonishment and distress.”
• When Bell first showed his Telephone at the Philadelphia Centennial, it was endorsed by the greatest scientists of America and England. It was tested and proved. But the average man called it a “scientific toy” and refused to either use it or finance it. Bell preached telephony for years before the public bought it.

When the new product has been perfected and produced, the manufacturer must step back and make way for the salesperson. The salesperson can’t invent. A sales mind is not in-growing but out-growing. They aren’t manufacturers. Whenever they have tried it, the costs go skyward. But they know how to interest and convince the public.

The truth is that we, salespeople, have done more for progress and civilization than anyone imagines.

We have done more than all the colleges to develop the peasantry of Europe into enterprising American citizens.

We have transformed the “Man with the Hoe” into the person with the computer.

We have given to general public the radiator for the fireplace, the automobile for the push-cart, the computer and voice recognition for the quill pen.

We have put more comforts into everyone’s homes than the king used to have in his palace.

The main thing in selling is to make people want to buy. A selling atmosphere must be created, and if you fail to do that – you will not sell. Simple as that. The professional salesperson makes the customers realize they want what is being offered.

Continue reading in depth on creating the demand: Are You an Order Taker or an Order Maker?

Make People Want to Buy is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

What is the mission of your presentation?

To create desire for your products. That’s all. And the minute that is accomplished, the order is yours for the taking.

Your presentation must be organized, well thought out, with a beginning, middle, and an end. Don’t take any chances in your presentation. Know what you are doing.

Once a friend of mine was demonstrating a new steam cleaner to an interested contractor. She failed to ground the unit as she usually did. The lesson is still in her mind ten years later: her prospective buyer leaned against the machine, receiving an electric shock that did not hurt him, but it sure killed the potential sale.

Prepare and memorize a standard presentation of your proposition; have it in such shape, like a pilot’s check list, so that your mind is dealing with the person you are talking to. And if emergencies arise, instead of groping for something to say, you have already rehearsed for it.

The best speeches, the greatest orations, the ones that have made history, have in the great majority of cases been prepared beforehand and carefully memorized.

I don’t mean to say that you should write out a presentation or demonstration, then commit it to memory, and try to repeat it word for word. Just know it well. But I do say that you should have a standard practice in presenting or demonstrating your proposition. Again, remember the pilot’s checklist. No matter how many times you’ve flown, no matter how smart and capable you are, following a standard practice will be worth your effort. Let this presentation of yours be born of your experience and that of others in selling your product or service.

Sit down with a pencil and a lot of paper, or behind your computer screen. First, jot down the big talking points of your proposition. Then organize them with a beginning, middle, and an end. Then write out a presentation, putting yourself in the other person’s place, and weighing the effect upon them of every word you’re going to utter. Remember, you’re a salesperson, not an author.

Cut down. Boil down. Eliminate. Abbreviate.

Then when you’re satisfied that you’ve got the shortest, best, most convincing, most complete presentation of your product that you are capable of giving, commit it to memory. Yes, commit it to memory. And if you doubt the effect on others of memorized words, witness the actors who, with the same speeches, make different audiences laugh and cry at the same places in their play night after night after night.

When you are convinced that you have the best presentation you are capable of giving, then memorize it. Take it out on the firing line. Add to it. Take away from it. We can’t all be at our best every day or every hour, but if you get your best possible presentation down on paper and then firmly entrench it in the back of your head, you’ll be certain to make a better average presentation than you ever have before. It will also give you confidence during off days.

What are you doing to prepare yourself for the presentation?

How to Present Successfully is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

Do you add value to your customer’s business? Or are you simply another salesperson to be reluctantly contacted when there’s a need for a new product?

You can stand out from the crowd and flatten your competition by adding extra value to your customer’s business. If you can gain a great understanding of how the customer’s business operates and what his desires are for growth and progress, your number will be the first that he dials when he needs to upgrade or buy something new. By adding value and building a relationship of trust, you can rest assured that your customer will want your advice and will appreciate the expert knowledge that you have to share with him.

Set yourself apart from the rest. Become an asset to your customer’s business and you’ll see the difference it makes to your bottom line.

Do you add value to your customer’s business? is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

Action Step

Be confident in your ability to sell a quality product that is worthy of your effort and support. Increase your knowledge about the product that you sell and become an expert in your own field. This will go a long way in boosting your confidence and you will be able to approach your clients in a calm and professional manner; well prepared to answer their questions and to provide them with excellent solutions. The way you come across to your clients will determine the basis of your relationship with them. And if you are respectable and trustworthy, they will stand by you and depend on your expertise for a long time.

Answer These Questions:

• Are you an expert in your field of sales?
• Do you approach your clients in a professional manner at all times; and do you appear presentable when you meet with them?

Sales Tip #146: be an expert is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

Action Step

You need to be in control of the conversation when it comes to selling. This way you will know when it’s the right time to ask for the order. But you can’t ask for the order until you have educated your client sufficiently about the product and how he will benefit from buying it from you. You cannot sell him your product until you understand his business and his requirements. So, ask the right questions – and then LISTEN! Hear what he has to say and let this lead you into your next question. And then listen some more. Allow him to speak but always be in control over where the conversation is going. You cannot sell your product until you know who you’re selling it to – and why.

Ask questions to control the conversation is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

Action Step

Body language is a quick giveaway when it comes to reading people’s feelings and their state of mind. It’s no use continuing with your presentation if you have not managed to engage a potential customer’s interest. You need to either change your approach or disengage from the conversation completely. Don’t talk for too long. You need to encourage participation from your prospect in order to better address their needs. Make sure that you remain aware of their reactions to your presentation at all times – and respond accordingly.

Answer These Questions:

• Are you adept at reading facial expressions and body language?
• Do you know how your prospects are responding to your presentation?
• Do you make a concerted effort to encourage your prospects to answer questions and provide you with pertinent information?

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Sales Tip #105 is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

A woman walked up to a girl and asked: 

- “Do you handle ladies’ sunglasses?”

– “Yes,” she replied.

- “I would like to see some.”

- “All right. This pair costs $99; this one $249.”

She responded mechanically, pointing to sunglasses of various prices.  I stood and watched the transaction. The customer received absolutely no information regarding those sunglasses. I said to myself, “You can have a vending machine here – you can set up a box and put a credit card in and get the thing you came for, without any information. This is all wrong.”

As an experiment, I took that same young lady to the store manager and I said to him,

- “You are never going to sell much of those sunglasses so long as you put people out there who do not know how to sell. Until you employ salespeople who can talk intelligently, there will not be any increase in your revenue.”

- “How would you do it?”

- “This way: Go into the office and tell the girl everything you know about sunglasses, but don’t talk in technical terms. Don’t tell her how the manufacturing process works in producing a pair of shades. Tell her what it will do for the customer. “

I wanted to make an experiment and kept track of that girl’s sales. She sold 37 per cent more than the others. Pretty soon customers began to ask her questions because they found that she knew something about the merchandise.

Ask yourself – are you selling based on features of your product, or based on benefits your product will provide for your customer?

Remember – features tell but benefits sell.

Benefits Based Selling is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer