Sales Coach asks, What is Your Process
Published by admin on May 31, 2011As a sales coach I often ask a client, “how do you approach your prospects ?”
I am amazed at how often I find people using old school approaches.
Do you know what I mean ?
You walk in the door, chat up your client for a few minutes – struggling to find some way to get to your sales pitch…
Practitioners of “Old School” sales techniques say, (and this is a direct quote from one of the most oft-quoted, well-known, sales trainers in the industry)…
“Break the ice and attempt to establish some rapport at the beginning of your meeting… Try to establish some rapport. That should set the tone for the entire session…
“Try to determine what he wants. However, if you have a limited product range, you must quickly figure out how to sell the prospect with what you have to offer.”
So you, continue to do your level-best to formulate the “perfect” question to elicit the answer you are looking for.
Worse yet, simply “pitch away.” Hoping they will eventually say, ”Stop! I’m ready to buy.”
Even worse…
You could tell the client about everything they’ll miss out on if they don’t purchase your product or service. The purpose, of course, is to create so much pain that you manipulate your client into a sale.
Unfortunately, you may sometimes get the sale with these tactics, but you have totally eliminated a positive connection. You’ve done absolutely nothing to establish trust or rapport. And, you probably won’t keep the client for long!
Another variation of “Old School” attempts to convince you that the “only” way to sell is with features and benefits.
This is the “technique” that many sales people employ every day. But why?
The underlying reason is that they haven’t figured out that sales is more than just “presenting the options” and letting the customer choose.
This approach assumes that if you can talk long enough, sooner or later your client will give up and say, ”Hey, I want that!”
I call this the “throw enough spagetti on the wall and some will stick” approach.
There is a way for you to get the prospect to tell you exactly what they want and it even shows you exactly WHY they buy.
I’ll get into the method tomorrow.