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”

Differentiate Prospects from Suspects is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

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. 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 (Trigger Events, anyone?). 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.

——————

• Would you like to sell more and earn more?
• Find new clients easier than ever before?
• Increase your business?

Subscribe to my weekly sales tips newsletter (www.weeklysalestips.com).

The Four Major Steps in Sales is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

Are you suited up, trained and ready to get out there and win?

Success in this world is fundamentally a matter of selling, of using its principles whether in business, society, or politics, and applying them properly and effectively.

During my workshops and seminars I am regularly being asked for my opinion on what is needed to be successful in sales. Here is a short list of things that every salesperson needs to do regularly, day-by-day, week-by-week, to ensure the continuous success in sales.

1. Never ever stop learning
2. Stay positive
3. Take time off
4. Stay in control of your emotions
5. Work with decision makers exclusively
6. Set your selling quota
7. Stay committed
8. Put the rubber on the road, not on the carpet
9. Stick to the system
10. Watch your language, appearance, and behavior
11. Get organized
12. Set small goals
13. Prepare a “to do” list each day
14. Cultivate contacts
15. Contact three past buyers a day
16. Contact three prospects a day
17. Become the number one communicator in your office
18. Increase your personal association with top performers
19. Know the nuts and bolts of the business
20. Improve your attitude to yourself, your company, and its products
21. Ask yourself, “Is this what you want?”

Let me ask you again – are you suited up, trained and ready to get out there and win?

21 Ideas for a Successful Career in Sales is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

Class 1. The simplest business sale is one in which the customer is so anxious to buy at a specified price that he comes to the salesperson and voluntarily offers her the proper amount of money for the products. As an illustration, take the ticket seller in the box office of a theatre. A line of customers is waiting. Each customer is ready to pay for his ticket as soon as it is given to him. There is only one requirement of the salesperson here – the requirement of accuracy in handling a transaction the details of which are simple and usually so well known by the buyer as to require no selling talk whatever.

Class 2. The customer is not anxious as in the previous case, but is perfectly willing to buy at a given price of any salesperson who may happen to ask for his business. Take as an illustration another kind of ticket seller. Suppose a concert is to be given and a number of people are engaged in contacting potential clients for the sale of tickets. Mr. Smith, a prospective customer, is perfectly willing to buy a ticket to the concert from the first person who asks him.

The salesperson must have knowledge or activity, in addition to meeting the requirement of accuracy as in the first case. For instance, suppose a young student selling tickets for a concert is anxious to sell more than his competitors, but perhaps is not conveniently situated so that he can personally visit as many prospective buyers as others can. He picks up a phone and calls up twenty or thirty people, securing their pledges to buy tickets of him. Thus by directing mental activity, he achieves more than his competitors who use mere physical activity visiting customers in person.

In this second class, the requirements are:

1. Accuracy, as in Class 1, and
2. Energy

In both cases the so called salespeople are merely order-takers.  (Read my previous article Are you an Order Taker or an Order Maker?)

Class 3. Sales of Class 1 and Class 2 are so simple in their requirements that they need no special attention here. In the first class, the customer is anxious to buy. In the second class he is willing to buy. In Class 3, however, we have an entirely different situation — the customer is neither willing nor unwilling to buy, the matter never having been brought to his attention. Often such customers can use the products or services offered and will buy if the right impression is made. They do not have to be convinced of the value of the products through features and benefits, and the salesperson may so impress such customers with his personality that he can secure the order easily.

For instance, take the same simple illustration of the concert tickets. Two people with these tickets for sale reach the customer at exactly the same time. The customer has not considered the matter yet, but needs no further discussion to bring him to a favorable conclusion. Neither one of the sales people has to argue about the value of the tickets. It is merely a question of which one can make the best impression upon the customer.

A forceful personality is an important requirement of the successful salesperson. While it is desirable for one to have a good proposition, a well-known company, and skill in presentation, there are many cases in which these things do not count so much as personality alone. Personality gives strength to the salesperson’s presentation and inspires in the customer confidence in the company for which the salesperson works. This ought not, however, to discourage anyone from the pursuit of selling products, for there is nothing vague or mystical about a convincing personality; nothing that can’t be acquired through effort and study. Remember – you can improve your personality and make it more effective for the career in selling.

If you have any doubt that this can be accomplished, please consider the following statements before yielding to your doubts:

1. Personality depends upon the development of the physical, intellectual, inspirational, and moral qualities.
2. All these can be improved.
3. The word physical does not refer merely to the height, weight, or strength of a person. It embraces also his general state of vigor and his personal appearance, both of which can be improved by following the common laws of health and cleanliness.
4. By “the improvement of the intellectual person,” reference is made especially to the salesperson’s mastery of the details of his own business, which can be secured through study.
5. The inspirational qualities are those by means of which one inspires himself to greater effort and gathers inspiration from others.
6. The moral elements of personality in the salesperson are the ones that inspire confidence, and these can be acquired by clean living and right thinking.

The requirements of Class 3 are :

1. Accuracy
2. Energy
3. Strong Personality

Class 4. While his personality may gain for the salesperson a meeting with a buyer, there are certain points beyond which mere personality can’t go. Here the salesperson must use, in addition to the requirements already mentioned, a skill in presentation which is based upon his knowledge of the products or services and his ability to convey this knowledge of the products to the mind of the buyer.

The requirements of Class 4 are:

1. Accuracy
2. Energy
3. Strong Personality
4. Presentation

Class 5. This is the hardest class of sale when the customer is absolutely unwilling to buy. After all the powers of energy, personality, and presentation have been brought into play, a final skill is required of the salesperson to enable him to accomplish one of these most difficult sales. This is the art of persuasion.

Suppose you have presented your points with a customer until she is thoroughly convinced of the value of the products, but for some unknown reason she does not buy. In many cases, you must exercise your power of persuasion. Undoubtedly, when buying a shirt or a tie, you have had that peculiar mental impression that you were convinced of the value of the products, but had not yet been persuaded to buy them. This is the frame of mind in which you will find a great many of your customers and the art of persuading without appearing to gush or plead is one of the things you must learn.

The Conclusion

In Class 1 the customer is anxious to buy. The sale is very easy. The only requirement is accuracy.

In Class 2 the customer is willing to buy, but not easily accessible. The sale is easy, but not so easy as before. The requirements are accuracy and energy.

In Class 3, the customer is indifferent. The sale is neither easy nor hard. It requires accuracy, energy, and personality.

In Class 4, the customer is unconvinced. The sale is hard. The requirements are accuracy, energy, personality, and presentation.

In Class 5, the customer is unwilling. The sale is very hard. The requirements are accuracy, energy, personality, presentation, and persuasion.

5 Classes of Sales is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

Consequently, through unorganized, hit-or-miss methods, his cost of selling is high simply because his methods are not as efficient as they should be.

This does not mean you shouldn’t use your instincts and training well. But it does mean that your sales assumptions must be based in a finding of facts, not guesses.

Using the dart game in the sales profession can lead to failure. You have limited time on your sales call to a prospective buyer and your darts must hit their mark. It’s even more crucial when you use the phone for your sales prospecting activities: many telephone sales calls miss their mark as being off-the-shelf calls that aren’t developed with a specific buyer in mind. Dartboard selling is a quick way to go broke.

Top notch salespeople advise that 75% of a successful sale is due to the pre-flight work. You must make sure you know what direction you want to go in, and you have to ask precise questions that will lead you to confirm needs you recognized through trigger events. You must know what direction to fly before your takeoff.

Most sales people out there are making a huge mistake meeting (or talking over the phone) with their clients unprepared. They think it is enough to schedule the meeting and they will work their magic and close the deal. They will try to break the ice with the customer by talking about the stuff in his office. Then the next misstep is to ask a few questions and not even wait for the answers, but to start with the same old sales pitch.

This kind of salesperson knows all the answers and few features and benefits later they will ask for the business. After hearing few “No’s” from customer they may give up and leave the office with the promise of a follow up a few days later. Unfortunately, the down side is that the customer will probably never return their calls.

Big number of sales people doesn’t take the time to have a conversation with their customers, because they assume that every other customer is like all the others. You will discover that your previous assumptions in sales were fatal many times. Keep those times in the past. It was necessary for you to learn a lesson every salesperson needs to learn, and now is the time to grow and develop your skills and knowledge. You will do so in developing your knowledge about trigger events. It is time to replace assumptions with research.

When you start learning how to recognize trigger events, rather than trying to assume or guess at them, will not only enhance your professional sales career and knowledge, but will increase your sales savvy to what the customer needs.

It is mind-boggling to receive a sales telephone call and the caller spits out a menu of mechanical words. The customer isn’t even, it seems, invited to be part of the conversation. It’s all about the need of the seller. Now when you contact your customers with information collected from recognized trigger events, you will have right questions to ask them, and all you need to do is listen to their answers and reshape your presentation accordingly.

Start with understanding customer’s actual situation and have their needs on your mind, but also find the way to put them on the market by making them realize their yet uncovered needs.

I hope you realize how often you barked up the wrong tree in your prospecting activities, talking to companies without the real need, following up and leaving numerous messages to someone who doesn’t see the value in your product. It is time to move on. Of course, at one time when we were starting sales, we all may have wasted our time that way, calling people from the long list of unqualified prospects we got from our manager, simply because they were in our territory or vertical market.

Now you will have a very powerful tool to change your approach to selling.

You have to understand the positioning of the company, what are they needs, does not matter if they are hidden or visible to public eye.

You need to do this ahead of the first contact as part of your trigger events research. You have to know the customer’s situation better than perhaps they know it, because at the time of presentation of your product, you will have their needs on your mind and prepare your sales presentation accordingly to information you hold.

Think value. Give to the customer what they ask for; give them what they need and more, drive the conversation to the customer’s wants and needs.
Impress them with the depth of your understanding of their position on the market and recent events that can trigger buying process, and they will sign on dotted line.

Very often you can hear how selling is a form of art, how sales people need to be creative and use their imagination, but I am not agreeing with that – sales is more science than anything. Yes you can use imagination and creativity, but after using tools available to you. With the proper tools and techniques you’ll replace guesswork with success.

Even if your company does not have automated system to generate new leads for you, when you learn more about trigger events, you will be able to find your next customer by your own. This will send the message to your manager that you care about your job and you really want to develop your career further, without waiting for someone.

Becoming best in team is an achievable goal and your self-confidence is growing as you establish a competitive advantage towards your colleges and towards your competition.

You don’t need to use old sales excuses anymore, like “territory is too small”, “need more training”, “inadequate sales tools”, “marketing provides no leads”, “we are over priced” etc.

Numbers of sales people who lose their jobs or miss their quota each year are not really important to you anymore, because you are more confident that you know what you doing in your sales role and all thanks to getting new customers from trigger events.

Now you are becoming a real Sales Professional. And it is a good feeling having control over your sales career, isn’t it?

——————————————

Get the book Trigger Events today and start selling to new customers tomorrow!

Hit or miss doesn’t work in selling is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

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.

It could be something internal or inside the company, like a new direction from management, a merger or an acquisition, rapid growth, or maybe a new product introduction. And it could mean the company is turning “Green” and needs new and different supplies and services.

It could be external or outside the company, like the new strategies of their competition or new legislation (Sarbanes- Oxley Act). Maybe even a natural disaster, which is a well-known external trigger for many customers.

Generally speaking, trigger events have effects inside the whole company. Suddenly new needs are recognized; previous decisions need to be revisited. Very often, management becomes aware of new priorities and changes the direction of the company.

Trigger events are extremely important when we are in the search mode, looking for our next customer, and when we need to identify our sales opportunities at a particular company from our target list.

Every company has something new happening. Maybe they improved or reintroduced their products or service. There could be new faces in the boardroom or on the sales floor. A new office may have opened up in the Midwest. A new vendor or strategic partner could have been added. Even new money or investor may come into the company.

Most important for a buyer is that the provider understands the buyer’s situation, needs and business.

Every change in the business environment causes a search for new suppliers or new service providers, and your main goal is to be in front of qualified buyers when they are ready to buy.

In these situations, I would say this is almost the perfect position for every sales person. You know there is something happening with the accounts from your list of targeted accounts and you know that as it happens – perfect timing is a key of success many times. This is equally true no matter if it is with small or large companies.

An example of the above is a situation where through your trigger event research you determine that your customer is planning to switch its ordering system to one of the new software solutions. So you know there is something going to happen. Whether the company is large or small, it can be perfect timing for you to be able to provide products and services to them using that kind of ordering/sales process.

How to use that information?

When you get the information related to a trigger event, you need to adjust your approach so the benefits of your products (or services) are closely related to the trigger event, and you are able to show your customers that you can create a value for them early in the buying process.

This is a good way to start working on the relationship and developing the customer’s perception of your value to them. This means when you speak with the decision maker and if you know exactly what this trigger event is about, you will be able to tailor your story and the benefits of your product in a way that sounds appealing and is related to the customers’ growth trigger event.

You need to adjust your presentation in the way to recognize that event and to present your offering in the most effective way.

Questions you will ask on your calls or meetings with prospects will be targeted towards their needs and you will be able to demonstrate your understanding of business situation. That should bring you step closer to get the deal done.

You definitely want to discover their hot buttons and why they could be on the market now for your products or services. Also you should find out why they are qualified now, at this particular moment, and why you should be very active with this prospect.

It is actually very simple – 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 (new CFO, merger and acquisition, bad 3rd quarter…) 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 then anyone else who contacts them who is simply trying to sell something without really understanding their needs.

When you know about different trigger events it will be much easier for you to ask questions that lead to uncovered customer’s needs and buying motives, and to put them in the market even if they feel there are not buying anything now.

If you try to make a sale without necessary information about your customers, you are just shooting blanks in the air, hoping to hit something. With full information about your prospects situation you will be able to sell easier, and that is the main purpose of this article (and my blog) – to help you to find your next customer in a much easier way for you, and yet maintain a professional, knowledgeable approach.

All needs are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.

——————————————

Get the book Trigger Events today and start selling to new customers tomorrow!

What are trigger events and how to use them is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

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.

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

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.

Only a few spots left for my webinar tomorrow! is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

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.

Find Buyers Who Are Ready to Buy…Now! is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer