The cry of “hard times” is heard at all times, and not just in these hard days and that is where you should refresh your knowledge of how to handle objections during your sales process.

“Times are too hard, I can’t afford to buy anything“ – how often have you heard that in the last few months?

This objection is made during the most prosperous times, as well as during periods of financial depression. Customers are confronting sales people all over the world with this before even they had a chance to show them the products, or tell them how they can benefit of them.

It is seldom, however, that the objection is made seriously. Oftentimes prospects don’t have anything else to say. They don’t mention it seriously and don’t expect you to take it seriously.

So what to do?

Pay no attention to the cry of potential new recession!

Don’t forget that you create the value through how you’re selling, not just through what you’re selling. You can create the value in each step of sales process, but the most value can be created early in the process by helping customers to define their needs (use trigger events!).

Here is the list of 10 things to do:

1. Go back to prospecting and find customers who want to buy in any market, and spend your time only with the decision maker.
2. Use open-ended questions, use clarifying questions, and remember that great questions produce great answers.
3. Make it easy for customers to say “yes”.
4. Ask for the order. Ask for the order. Again, ask for the order.
5. Use direct questions such as: “Are we ready to move on this? When can we get started? Shall I write up the order?”
6. Use active listening skills. Ask for the feedback.
7. Remember to read buying signals.
8. Don’t forget to send a thank you note.
9. If you get the sale, send them a note thanking them for their order.
10. If you don’t get the sale, send them a little note thanking them for taking time to meet with you.

It is intelligence that makes times easy, and it is the lack of intelligence that makes times hard. Go back to basics. Invest in your knowledge and sharpen your skills, that is the best way of not buying the cry of “hard times” from your customers.

Going Back To Basics – 10 Things To Do is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

The main description of your position inside the company is to create the value, not just to show your price list. Teaching and educating customers is no longer enough, giving them information about your products or services is no longer necessary. They can get them by themselves, without ever talking to you or your company, and know more about your product and positioning on the market then you.

If they know so much about you, how can you try to sell them the same product without knowing their business situation or their needs?

Remember that customers are sophisticated; they either have or believe they can get product information more reliably on their own. Information is readily available through many different sources, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Internet is full of different forums, blogs, and review or research websites where they can get information about your product easily.

Customers don’t just want a specific product; most of the times they want to solve their pain point or business issues. A customer in today’s competitive sales environment does not expect to educate the sales professional about their business.  Therefore, you must already possess a solid understanding of the customer’s industry, competitors, and business direction.

Developing such a comprehensive view of the customer is a task that requires extensive researching and education to get an overall picture of the customer’s business industry. The modern sales person needs to focus on understanding the customer’s business initiatives, strategic plans, IT environment, and key customer preferences.

If you are still seeing yourself as someone who is there to educate customers, you are living in the past. The time of product-centric sales is gone. Welcome to customer-centric approach in sales.

You need to move away from the focus on presenting your products. Instead a customer-centric approach shows that you recognize and understand your customers’ needs, which is necessary if you want to survive in a 21st Century sales environment.

Your customers are tired of salespeople who come in and are unable to address real business needs, but talk about their company and the hottest feature, or unique one that nobody else has. There are many dimensions that you are selling, and price is only one of them.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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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

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