(Earlier this week my latest book Selling IS Better Than Sex became available on Kindle too - get your copy today!)

Did you know that 40% of sales forces will miss their quotas this year; four out of ten salespersons will lose their jobs this year; and over 25% of sales people do not sell enough to cover their cost?

If you are a novice sales rep, seasoned sales veteran or non-sales-savvy entrepreneur, looking for customers… YOU NEED TO READ “TRIGGER EVENTS”

Consider that salespeople require answers to these fundamental questions:

* How am I going to find my next customer?
* How can I differentiate prospects from suspects?
* Can I avoid the uncertainty and inefficiency of cold calling?
* How can I determine my customer’s needs and wants without assuming?
* How can I know if my customer is ready to buy?
* How can I get to presentation and closing faster?

You are not alone here. The issue of getting new customers is a problem in every industry. The problem is that many salespeople are trying to find answers to these questions through methods that were effective in the past but are not suited for today’s buyers – who are skeptical of businesses, resist being sold to and know how to use technology to gain advantages over salespeople.

The book “Trigger Events – How to Find Your Next Customer” is a perfect example of how a major shift can result from using something that’s right there in front of us – in this case, events that create buyer needs.  Get your Kindle copy today!

This book introduces a revolutionary sales paradigm that is fully grounded in today’s realities. It not only answers these fundamental questions (by the way, you can eliminate cold calling altogether) it provides a salesperson with a set of tools that creates the ability to appear in front of a customer with precise knowledge of the customers needs at exactly the time (or even before) the needs are realized by the customer.

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

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If you prefer printed version, get the soft-cover book Trigger Events today and start selling to new customers tomorrow! Price is only $17.95 and shipping costs are included in the price (North America only)!

Trigger Events also available on Kindle! is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8

So what does it all mean?

The 21st Century changes the rules of engagement. Business world is changing daily, and if you are not at least trying to keep up with the changes, you are becoming the dinosaur of sales. Read more about selling in 21st Century.

Did you know 4.0 is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

Imagine that you will be having a baby in two weeks. While turning around in your home, what will you see? You are missing the crib, blankets, diapers and everything else that is needed for the new addition to your family. Won’t you need everything right away? You have an immediate need and must take care of it. This is a trigger event.

If we transfer this to a business environment, you will understand what trigger events means for any existing business. A trigger is a need to buy, an event that pushes you to buy the product right now. Not six months or a year down the road, but now.

This is true for the biggest corporations in the world and the small businesses oriented locally (70 percent of all U.S. businesses are so called mom-and-pop shops). The advantage of dealing with small businesses is that they are faster in reacting when an event is triggered and changes that create a need have happened.

Without the trigger you don’t really have a need to buy someone’s product now. Some studies show that companies with a trigger event buy 400 percent more often than ones without these kinds of events.

Many businesses are putting the cart before the horse, creating the product or service for which there is no market. They fail as suppliers because they take their customers wants and needs for granted, not surveying the market and not taking the necessary steps to understand why somebody is buying and who is on the market today.

Searching for trigger events is the first step forming three main keys of every sale that are:

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

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. You need to have 360 degree view of your prospects.

What is their business situation, what are their business issues and challenges, pain problems, internal issues, changes, motivations? And then add yourself to the equation – how can I put customers in the market? How can I make customers realize that they are on the market with trigger events happening?

Keep following my blog, in my next posts I will talk more about internal and external trigger events and how to use them to find your next customer to sell more.

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

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

Prospecting: Intro to Trigger Events 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

The problem:

There has been a revolution in everything in our society except in sales. “New” sales books are still talking about the same tips, tricks and techniques that were working in the last century. Certainly selling has the look of 20 or 30 years ago, features and benefits are still the main topic at every sales training, and management is pushing the same old ideas about cold calling, pipeline volume, and counting every activity (volume vs. relationship).

But selling itself is changing. The whole business environment is more dynamic; your customers are better informed and prepared. They know more about you and your products then you will expect. They are more educated; they are searching for information by themselves; and they are looking to providers to understand the buyer’s situation, needs and business. If they know so much about you, how can you try to sell them the same product or service without knowing their business situation or their needs?

Sales can’t continue to resolve 21st century situations in the business world using last-century tips and tricks. Tomorrow’s sales challenges can’t be met using last-century’s understandings and strategies. Those skills and information are not wrong; they are simply incomplete for today’s market, and that is why Sales 1.0 does not work anymore. This old model is too slow, too unpredictable and too expensive for today’s businesses.

The solution:

The 21st Century changes the rules of engagement. New knowledge and skills are needed and also a new definition of sales to help you in your search for your next customer, to accelerate revenue growth, and to give you a competitive advantage. In today’s fast-paced world of information, customers don’t want to be talked to; they want to be involved, engaged and connected.

Sales 2.0 is about aligning and combining the Web 2.0 technologies with the sales processes to have more effective customer communications and to increase productivity and effectiveness. Sales 2.0 will help you sell more at a lower cost. And that is all that counts in sales. Sales 2.0 combines the science of selling with the art of selling.

Register today for the webinar:  Sales 2.0 vs. Sales 1.0

What you will learn…

• Why Sales 1.0 is too slow, too unpredictable and too expensive?
• How to move from sales-centric approach to customer-centric approach?
• How to make buyers come to you?
• How to build a huge Rolodex?
• How to warm up your cold calls?
• 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?
• How to network more efficiently (with two mouse clicks)?
• How to identify your most promising leads and give them top priority?
• How to create the value for your customers?

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

Register today for the webinar:  Sales 2.0 vs. Sales 1.0

Other registration options:

1. Visit http://sales20.eventbrite.com/ to register and pay online
2. To register by phone call us at 416-840-4982 OR 1-866-876-4761
3. Send us an email: registration@scienceandartofselling.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Customer Support Hours are 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM EST Monday through Friday.

Sales 2.0 vs. Sales 1.0 is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY

Years it took to reach a market audience of 50 million:

• Radio – 38 years
• TV – 13 years
• Internet – 4 years
• iPod – 3 years
• Facebook – 2 years

It is estimated that a week’s worth of the New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century (I’ve used this info in my book “Trigger events” in 2007!)

There are 31 Billion searches on Google every month. In 2006, this number was 2.7 Billion. To whom were these questions addressed B.G.? (Before Google)

So what does it all mean?

The 21st Century changes the rules of engagement. Business world is changing daily, and if you are not at least trying to keep up with the changes, you are becoming the dinosaur of sales. Read more about selling in 21st Century.

“Wanting connections, we found connections — always, everywhere, and between everything. The world exploded in a whirling network of kinships, where everything pointed to everything else, everything explained everything else …” – Foucault’s Pendulum, Umberto Eco, 1988 (My favourite author!)

Did you know? is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

They know the number one mistake salespeople make is delaying or neglecting their own ongoing sales education.

That’s why I am recommending an excellent sales advice book written by 50 leading experts. It costs a whopping 25 bucks, so the publisher has thrown in 3 grand in complimentary sales tools for you from top sales and business growth leaders, including my Cheat sheet – Correcting Your Weak Points (don’t guess about when to close – get the figures).

I think you’ll find this well worth investigating.

See it here.

What if I told you … is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer