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?

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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

Professionals are the ones who know how necessary it is to start selling more. And, of course, they are the ones who ultimately earn more.

Action Step

If you want to take your sales career to the next level, take the initiative to improve your skills. Attend a sales seminar, a training course or buy a book that will teach you how to perfect your selling technique. Read as much as you can and talk to like-minded sales professionals. Learn from the best! And just when you think you have learned all that there is to know, go ahead and invest in another course in order to further advance your skills. When you KNOW more, you will BE more, and then you can EARN more.

Answer These Questions:

• When did you last attend a sales seminar? Are you prepared to take the initiative and attend one soon?
• Do you regularly interact with other sales professionals, whether in person or in online discussion groups? Do you know where to look for these groups?
• Are you always ready to take your sales career to the next, best level?

Sales Tip #48: be a sales pro is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

So you are probably asking yourself – how is it that they can make six or seven figures and you are struggling month by month to make ends meet and reach your quotas?

The first and probably the most accurate answer is that they see themselves as professionals.

How can you grow if you don’t adopt new ideas or learn about new things in business and in sales? How can you expect to advance to better, higher paid positions if you stop investing in your knowledge?

In my 20+ years in different roles in sales, I have met many sales people who never bought a book about the sales in their life. They never attended a seminar about sales, which was not part of their company at the time. However, they were always complaining about how companies are not investing enough in their sales force, yet expect them to be perfect and up to date. That is the reason why they don’t want to invest in seminars on their own.

They believe that if their company does not see the value in it, why would they pay for it by themselves? Also they feel they know everything about the sales, so there is no need for spending money on books and seminars, or finding time for reading magazines or specialized websites. Many of those people who don’t learn continuously wonder why they don’t advance in their career or are skipped over again for a promotion.

I am giving you perfect examples of how the amateurs are thinking while blaming everyone around them for being unsuccessful in sales. You are the one who is making the decision. Every morning, when you look in the mirror, are you seeing the reflection of an amateur or professional?

Sales professional is someone who invests in his knowledge, who reads magazines and web portals dedicated to sales people and attends seminars and conferences. A sales person who follows the trends understands how essential it is to improve him personally.Professionals are ones they know how necessary this is to start selling more. And of course – they are the ones who are earning more.

Be different from the 95% of salespeople out there who are not investing in their knowledge, and you will start seeing the change. It will start first inside of you where you will be hungrier for the new knowledge. You will have a better conversation and better approach to your prospects and people around you will see that difference.

Your self-respect that you’ve gained with that new knowledge will make the world your oyster. Don’t wait for your employer to send you to a seminar. Be proactive, for yourself and your career. It will benefit you in the long term – with your career and most importantly you will see the difference in your wallet!

You are asking your clients to make a change, but if you are unwilling to change yourself, how can you ask your prospects to?

Your sales process will also depend on your efforts invested in research and understanding your customer base, your energy and enthusiasm about your product. If you cannot transfer enthusiasm to your prospects, you are in deep problems. When you talking about something people can feel if you are insincere, or you really know what you are talking about.

It is not what are you saying but how are you saying it.

What does it mean to be sales professional? I am not saying that you have to live, eat and breathe sales 24/7 every day for the rest of your life, but to start seeing your sales position as something more, something bigger than 9-5 job.

Whether you love your sales job or not, you have a choice to do it well or not, to be fully involved or back away, and if you have this attitude of choosing to do your work well, you will enjoy your job itself!

You can be very productive once you consciously choose to be in sales, and if you change your approach from “get things done” to actually enjoy what you do, you can get the job well done and be rewarded for your efforts.

Fulfillment in your life comes with doing a great job, whatever you do. And your occupation, in this case sales profession, is just as important to your personal health as the right food for your body.

Invest in your knowledge; put the seeds in the small steps and watering your skills and constant caring about your sales knowledge. And when the time of harvesting comes, you will have the fruits of your efforts in front of you.

To differentiate from majority of people who don’t like what they do, you have to actually enjoy what you do.

Start your day by doing your job the best you can, and try to do it for a week. Then come back next week and do it all over again. The best you can, not waiting for rewards, not asking for rewards. Don’t wait for results to come, just do the job the best you could. When first results came back, when you get positive feedback from your customers, when you close a new deal – ask yourself: What has changed?

You will start loving your job because success will come, first in small steps, but more and more day by day it will grow. Your customers will start seeing you as a knowledgeable person, your colleagues will see you with different eyes, and you will realize that all of that is important, but most important are feelings inside of you that start building – good feelings about yourself.

You will feel worthy, valuable to your customers, colleagues, and you will build that feeling inside of you that you are valuable part of your environment.

And you will start feeling that you are helping others – your colleagues to be better, your customers to find the best solution, and by helping them you are actually helping yourself to become a more valuable member of the community.

Does it make sense?

Natural order of things is in doing your best at what you do best, and the rewards will follow inevitable.

Remember this – you can’t fail how hard you try it.

Sales Amateur vs. Sales Professional is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

Let’s talk further about how to close the deal without discounting.

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?

How to win the deal without discounting is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

It’s a process of continuous improvement and the better you are at it the more you’re able to freely admit it. That’s not to say you can get away with being an arrogant braggart. You need to embrace an air of sophistication that spells quality – and still have that charm that ropes the customers in. You can swagger a little, and it definitely helps to flirt, but don’t put your clients off by being a loudmouth who’s too big for his boots. Be aware of setting yourself up for a dive into mediocrity. When you’re too good, and you know it, you may just become too comfortable with your performance and forget to improve on it. That’s when you’ll find yourself slipping and losing sales.

On the other hand, if you’re battling with selling, don’t ever think that it’s appropriate to place yourself at the mercy of the client in order to get a sale. You must always maintain a high standard of self-respect. There is never a need to compromise on your personal values just so that you can get the deal done. It’s also important to earn the client’s respect before he’ll earnestly take note of what you have to say. Throwing yourself at his mercy only creates the impression that you’ll do anything for the sale – that you’re desperate, you’re easy, you’re begging and pleading. He’ll think he can take advantage of you and negotiate a cheaper price without much of a fight from your side. You’ll simply get used, exploited and tossed aside. That’s not selling! Create an image that you can be proud of – put yourself on display, as if you’re a walking, living, breathing advert in your line of expertise.

If you’re passionate about your sales career you will naturally exude a contagious energy, a zeal for what you strive to accomplish each day. This will attract the attention of those who seek your advice and assistance.  You become successful while remaining professional and uncompromising in your values. If you’re more of a risqué type and you don’t mind being adventurous, you could imagine yourself virtually “seducing” the client… toying with him, teasing him, to attract his (or her) attention. To each his own – it’s about personal preference.

When you’re in sales, people don’t mind hearing you brag about what a success you’ve become and how you’ve managed to refine your skill. It’s not like bragging about sex; nobody’s going to roll their eyes. On the contrary, they may just be waiting for you to finish talking to your current customer so they can be next in line to benefit from your skill. How awesome to have clients lining up to spend time with you! Your reputation is out there flying like a flag for all the world to see and they’re watching it! When you’ve achieved a sales status like this, it’s perfectly acceptable to brag and say, “Yes! I’m that good!” and show off proof of that with a massive stack of new orders.

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The secret of being successful in selling is the ability to transmit your energy and your enthusiasm about your product or service. If you fail to do that, you will not sell. If you want to learn how to transfer your energy into sales enthusiasm to improve your career and life, get my book “Selling Is Better Than Sex” today!

www.SellingIsBetter.com

You Can Brag About It… is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

How can we learn today from this old ideas and beliefs? Please read the quote from the book.

The fundamental qualities of a salesperson are as follows:

• health
• honesty
• knowledge of the business
• open-mindedness
• tact
• courtesy
• loyalty
• initiative
• courage
• enthusiasm
• ambition
• purpose
• a willingness to work and work hard ,and
• good judgment.

I especially like the part about open-mindedness:

No quality in business is more necessary than open-mindedness — a mind that is open to new ideas. An individual who thinks he knows it ALL or knows ENOUGH, is a liability rather than an asset. Such a person cannot be tolerated in any business. The same thing can be said of a person who will not study.

Doctors, lawyers, teachers, preachers, and successful businesspeople do a certain amount of studying every week, no matter what else they have to do. The man who does not realize the necessity of doing this shows by that quality that advancement for him is impossible.

Personally, I consider a week wasted if I didn’t read at least one new book or special report. My goal for this year is to finish 52 sales books in 52 weeks.

Any suggestions?

Qualifications of a salesperson is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer