The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Majer

On March 25 I am holding a webinar titled: Find Buyers Who Are Ready to Buy…Now!

Learn to Identify the Trigger Events That Motivate Prospects to Buy

“I have lot of business in my pipeline, but very few deals are closing.” Adding prospects to a sales pipeline is easy … but if they aren’t ready to buy, you’ll waste precious time that could be better spent pursuing accounts that are ready to sign. Although the economy is in strife, people are still buying. The key is to identify which prospects are ready to buy now.

In this webinar, you will learn how to:

• Use trigger events to select the right prospects to pursue
• Identify prospect needs before you ever contact them
• Recognize the difference between internal and external trigger events
• Leverage trigger events to increase your sales effectiveness

By learning where to find and how to use trigger events, calls you will make in the future will never ever be cold!

Suggested Attendees: All sales people, sales managers, and small business owners

Register here: http://triggereventswebinar.eventbrite.com/

As an added bonus, you’ll receive my e-Book, “Trigger Events,” a $13.95 value.

More about the e-book Trigger Events - click here.

The average salesperson is overly eager to begin actual selling, and in this ambition he or she is encouraged by the average sales manager.  In selling, as in many other activities of life, it often is true that less haste makes more speed. It does not pay to rush the preparation steps, for the result is bound to be a lot of stumbling afterward.

The importance of the preliminary preparation of the salesperson in knowledge of his products or services has already been emphasized in the preceding posts on this blog. Now we are to realize that knowledge of his territory and of his prospective customers is equally necessary.

Many salespeople consider prospecting in a very narrow way. They are on the lookout for the names of people who might buy, but do not realize the broader aspect of prospecting. They do not seek comprehensive knowledge of conditions in general throughout their industries or territories, but only “hot tips” that are likely to lead to orders.

I frequently meet salespeople who regard systematic prospecting as the sales manager’s job. These people think the company should comb the field with marketing messages and keep the salesperson supplied with prospects to follow up and sell.

Let us realize the wider salesperson meaning of prospecting, and appreciate that prospecting is the salesperson’s job -  practically all of the responsibility rests on him for doing it well. We get the right idea if we understand that the salesperson should comprehend for whom he is working primarily — himself.

Don’t start your selling cross-eyed. The business in which you are engaging is your business. Attend to it yourself if you would have it taken care of in the way that will be best for you. The company risks very little on you, compared with what you have to lose. Therefore make your investment of yourself wisely, with forethought and care to insure the highest degree of effectiveness in your sales efforts.

Do not think of what you do as temporary or a makeshift. Search for the materials with which to build your business permanently. Act from the start of your connection with a company as if you expected to spend all your life in that relation, developing from year to year. You may have other plans in view, but conduct yourself as you would do if the company was really your own.

Aimless, hit-or-miss prospecting is never very systematic effective. The salesperson must determine exactly what he or she wants to know. If you are just looking for the names of buyers, you will find your prospecting like bacon, with a streak of fat and a streak of lean. But if you systematically seek fundamental knowledge of your industry or territory, and are motivated by a definite purpose all the time, you will accumulate a fund of facts that will enable you to do most of your prospecting inside your own mind.

You won’t need tips. You will know the conditions in your field which influence buying, and at the right time will be guided by your knowledge to the very places where business is to be had.

Don’t let your internet presence have an effect on your sales.  Make sure you have the right website hosting service.

You’ve probably heard of my book, “Trigger Events - How to Find Your NEXT Customer.” It’s the book that helps sales people easily differentiate prospects from suspects, gives them a new set of tools to find new customers who are on the market today, and makes them successful by using 21st century resources to close more sales.

You don’t have time to read the book. You want the important information in that book, and you want it now.

Now there’s a new, better way to absorb the secrets of sales success  from the book:

“Trigger Events - How to Find Your NEXT Customer” Audio Book!

You need this audio book if:

• You’ve never heard of the book.
• You’ve got the book but haven’t read it.
• You’ve read it, but didn’t master the material, and haven’t received the wealth and success you want.

Just released on October 10th! If you order now, you will save $10 on the full price of the audio book plus the shipping cost ($6.50) is on us on every order received before October 31st!

Regular Price: $29.95

Special Price: $19.95

The problem:

Consider these questions…

• What is the Holy Grail of Sales and how can YOU use it to sell more?
• How can you KNOW where to focus your selling activities right now?
• Where and how can you find customers who are in the market TODAY?
• How can you be in front of your customers at the exact time when they are in the market?
• What is the curse of the sales job and how can you overcome it?
• How can you use online and offline resources of trigger events to close more sales today?
• Why it is not enough to simply know how to sell; why do you have to deeply understand how your customers buy?
• How can you easily differentiate prospects from suspects, save your time and sell more today?
• How can you find the perfect timing to contact your prospects and sell?
• What is the importance of uncovering customers’ needs and wants before you speak with them?
• How can you win the deal and not even touch the topic of discounting of your product or service?
• How can you make customers realize that they are on the market with trigger events happening?

Grab the most out of each minute! Listen to this audio book during your commute, morning walk/run or while you’re driving to your sales appointments.

If you are in sales, you need this audio book - period. When you start using techniques mentioned in this book and learn where to find trigger events and how to use them, you will be able to get to the proposal itself much faster because you will know that your prospects are already qualified for your product or service, and you will have information about their needs gathered before the meeting or presentation.

Listen to this audio book carefully and it will boost you a step ahead of your competition, who is most definitely not spending enough time learning about the customers before any sales call is made.

When you show your prospects that you actually care and you have done your homework and you know about trigger events happening inside their company, you also show them that you are interested about their issues, and most importantly concerned about their wants and needs. You will create interest in their eyes because you are different from anyone else who contacts them and who is simply trying to sell something without really understanding their needs.

Just released on October 10th! If you order now, you will save $10 on the full price of the audio book plus the shipping cost ($6.50) is on us on every order received before October 31st!

Regular Price: $29.95

Special Price: $19.95

Please spread the word!

We tried our best to make this audio book affordable and useful to every sales person worldwide. Please spread the word about the upcoming Trigger Events Audio Book in your blog posts and tweets. We really appreciate your support.

Tweets (copy and paste):

The Trigger Events Audio Book is available now! - http://bit.ly/3RTefB - Pre-order now! (via @SalesScienceArt)

Get the new set of tools to find new customers who are in the market today! http://bit.ly/3RTefB - Pre-order CD now! (via @SalesScienceArt)

How to be in front of your customers when they are in the market?  http://bit.ly/3RTefB - Pre-order audio book now! (via @SalesScienceArt)

Today I am sharing with you my Daily Sales Tip #21 titled: “Find companies that have immediate wants and needs.”

Subscribe to my daily sales tips and you will receive a free ebook every 30 days, plus extra discounts on my books, CD’s, webinars and seminars. If you would like to stop receiving my tips, you can unsubscribe at any time. Subscribe today by filling the form on the right-hand side. Thanks!

Three main keys of every sale are:

1. Researching and qualifying your customers
2. Being in front of them
3. Being there when they are ready to buy

To start the sales process you need to find out who could be in the market today, and then recognize your selected customer’s wants and needs. Even if your company does not have automated system to generate new leads for you, when you learn more about prospecting, you will be able to find your next customer by your own.

Your mission as a sales person should be to find companies that have immediate wants and needs. This means that something happened or is happening to them - a move, a merger, new investors, etc. You have to look for any event that might create the opportunity for you, or better said you are looking for event that can trigger the sales for you.

Selling itself is changing. Customers are more educated, they are searching for information by themselves, and they are looking from providers to understand buyer’s situation, needs and business. Salespeople need new knowledge about prospecting and new set of tools to be better prepared for challenges that customers are putting in front of us each day.

That is why we created “The Secrets of Prospecting” one-day workshop that goes above and beyond usual sales trainings about prospecting and cold calling – you will learn and practice where to find events that trigger the purchase to happen, directly from the author of the book “Trigger Events”!

After the workshop you will know who to target, why to target and how to target them; how to open the conversation and warm up cold calls; how to create interest in the first few minutes of the conversation and how to successfully follow up.  More about the workshop…

Registration options:

1. Click HERE to fill the form.

2. Visit http://prospectingsecrets.eventbrite.com to register and pay online

3. To register by phone call us at 416-840-4982 OR 1-866-876-4761

If you want to be a successful sales person and to close the deal, very important part is to be in front of your customers at the exact time when they are on the market for goods or services. You can find companies they are on the market now, or you can put them in the market.

The only thing you can accomplish is to lose a precious time chasing prospects who are not interested for your product, or they are not a fit for your products or services at all.

Many unsuccessful sales people spend their time with customers who are not even close to sales process and to buying, but poorly trained sales person still contact them regularly simply because they are in pipeline and they need to fill their day somehow. Talking to that kind of prospects is just a waste of your and their time.

When you are selling you need to differentiate and trigger events will make this possible. You will have tools to create the opportunity for you, and not just in the visible market where customers are actively looking for provider or supplier, but also in the invisible market - you put them in the market, you are making customers realize that they are on the market now. Without trigger events you can’t force customers to meet with you because you will be just one of many sales guys knocking on their door.

Here are two examples of trigger events:

• Your research shows some trigger events like hiring new 15-20 sales reps or changes in upper management levels: this clearly sends out messages that the company is in need of new office furniture or new computers with software, or maybe a new benefits plan for employees.
• Thousands of corporate turnarounds occur every year. You may have read about a few of them in your local newspaper, but that’s not enough. There are companies in a turnaround phase that affect sales in your area all the time. I suggest keeping abreast of the New York Times or other newspapers like that in your region. Their business page carries a number of turnaround events throughout the company along with web sites by the large accounting firms and graduate business colleges such as Wharton. Turnaround time means change time: new people, new products, new services, and new sales potential for you.

Customers will be positively shocked with your due diligence and fact-finding mission you accomplished with them. When you contact your prospects and on the first conversation you leave them with impression you know their situation very well — you care to help, and you can add value to them, trust me when I say you are much closer to signing a deal than anybody else.

After discovering trigger events, the next steps are to develop the customer’s perception of your unique value. What can you do for them? How your solution can actually create value to them?

Trigger events will give you the clue about the timing too.

More about Trigger Events here:

Selling in 21st Century

Hit or miss doesn’t work in selling

Get the book “Trigger Events”

By definition, a sale is the act of meeting prospective buyers and providing them with a product or service in return for money or other agreed upon compensation. A sale is an act of completion of a commercial activity. The “deal is closed”, means the customer has consented to the proposed product or service by making full or partial payment (as in the case of installments) to the seller.

Selling is therefore a process in which you need to follow certain steps, one at a time, to reach your final goal – the sale itself.
The same fundamentals that govern the direct sale of tangible goods govern the indirect sales of intangible goods.
Your sales process will also depend on your efforts invested in research and understanding your customer base, together with your energy and enthusiasm about your product.

Sometimes you can skip some steps if the customer is giving you signals to move further, faster. Otherwise, it solely depends on you and your readiness to be prepared before contacting the prospect.

If we simplify the whole sales process we can agree that there are four major steps in sales:

1. opening/qualifying
2. information gathering
3. presentation of your proposal, and
4. closing.

Opening phase is usually a result of a cold call to someone who has not yet heard of you or thought about working with you.

Information gathering is a second step when sales person is asking customers what they do, how they do it, and why they do it that way. Then he/she ask how his company can help them do it better. Usually second step means getting the meeting or presentation opportunity.

Proposal is next step when sales person is giving the presentation based on the gathered information, and giving the recommendation or meaningful solution to solve their pains, issues, or needs.

When customer decides to buy that is a fourth step in sales process and the only step that actually counts - closing the deal. This means they see the value in your solution and you assisted to buyer to make a decision based on information you provided.

When you don’t close the deal you did not completed your process. It is very similar to playing baseball when you get to the third base but never reach home and score; in sales this means you have gone through three steps but on the end you didn’t engaged buyer enough to see the value in your solution.

You didn’t address their needs that will trigger a buy to happen. You have wasted your time and your customer’s time, and there is hardly any chance of getting back to that customer to try to sell again.

More about the lead generation, cold calling, presenting, objection handling and closing techniques you can learn on my regularly scheduling webinars. Feel free to subscribe to my daily sales tips newsletter.

Tomorrow, April 2nd, I am holding a webinar and there are only few more spots available. Title is: Find Buyers Who Are Ready to Buy…Now!

Learn to Identify the Trigger Events
That Motivate Prospects to Buy

“I have lot of business in my pipeline, but very few deals are closing.” Adding prospects to a sales pipeline is easy … but if they aren’t ready to buy, you’ll waste precious time that could be better spent pursuing accounts that are ready to sign. Although the economy is in strife, people are still buying. The key is to identify which prospects are ready to buy now.

In this webinar, you will learn how to:

• Use trigger events to select the right prospects to pursue
• Identify prospect needs before you ever contact them
• Recognize the difference between internal and external trigger events
• Leverage trigger events to increase your sales effectiveness

As an added bonus, you’ll receive my e-Book, “Trigger Events,” a $13.95 value.

Suggested Attendees: All sales people, sales managers, and small business owners

Read more here.

My new webinar is scheduled for April 2nd: Find Buyers Who Are Ready to Buy…Now!

Learn to Identify the Trigger Events
That Motivate Prospects to Buy

“I have lot of business in my pipeline, but very few deals are closing.” Adding prospects to a sales pipeline is easy … but if they aren’t ready to buy, you’ll waste precious time that could be better spent pursuing accounts that are ready to sign. Although the economy is in strife, people are still buying. The key is to identify which prospects are ready to buy now.

In this webinar, you will learn how to:

• Use trigger events to select the right prospects to pursue
• Identify prospect needs before you ever contact them
• Recognize the difference between internal and external trigger events
• Leverage trigger events to increase your sales effectiveness

As an added bonus, you’ll receive my e-Book, “Trigger Events,” a $13.95 value.

Suggested Attendees: All sales people, sales managers, and small business owners

Read more here.