Improve Sales Techniques

Member get member

You've probably seen this with credit card companies - you get rewarded for introducing new members.

In this scheme, usually both parties are rewarded. You are rewarded for the introduction, and your friend or college gets rewarded for joining up.

This can work for any business

Just work out a reward for both parties - whether it's a simple discount or an additional product - and see the sales pile in.

online sales channels

A few weeks ago I finally took the plunge on my website to add an affiliate scheme.

This means, people put a special link on their website that links into mine.

If that visitor then buys from my site the original website owner gets a % of the sale.

I pay 33% of each sale

Why do I do that?

Well, it's unlikely I would have got that sale in the first place. So paying a third of my sales value means I keep 66%

When some people start these schemes they only pay a very small sum. maybe only 10%

But this is not a large enough incentive.

Affiliates are a sales force for your online business and they need to be rewarded as much as normal sales people.

You can also earn money from your website by checking out my scheme

Teneric affiliate scheme here

If you do start one of these schemes for your website it doesn't stop once you have set up your scheme.

You still need to motivate your new sales force with examples of emails they can write to their customer email lists and special offers they can promote.

Telephone sales

I have not tried this at all but I understand from people on my forums that this also works well.

In general, you pay a small fee for experts to make calls on your behalf.

They have the contacts already and you need to provide a script.

The investment always pays for itself so this may be something to consider.

Member get member

This works well offline as well as online.

Many of the credit card companies use this tack. Simply explained, you reward your existing customers for introducing new customers.

Again, it's worth paying well to reward your customers as mini sales people.

If they are a satisfied customer they will tell new prospects great things about your business.

These are the best sales people you can get.

People like unbiased reports of companies they can use.

Come up with an offer (it can be a cash reward, a % off a future sale or a gift of value that your customers want)

Email marketing channel

Not strictly a sales channel but a great way to keep your company in the minds of your customers and prospects.

If you have a website it is vital you capture emails of people who visit.

The chances of people coming back to your site from memory are zero.

Offer a free report or download for people to be motivated to join your list.

You can also buy lists of emails to send messages about your company. This will work for offline and online businesses.

(By the way, I don't sell my email addresses to anyone -- or give them away)

Final thoughts

You need as many sales people as you can find.

Whether you take these ideas or not, anyone you know can be a sales person for your business.

Provide business cards to everyone you know.

You never know when someone may ask one of your friends about a product you may be selling.

Marketing Communications

Of course running a business is hard work. You know about yourselves but probably very few other people do.

If you are thinking of advertising, first think about where your target customers will be visiting to see your ad.

I have put together 5 free marketing ideas that you can use right now, additionally, the total 25 marketing ideas and campaigns can be downloaded now.

Business and marketing plans

The 25 marketing ideas mentioned above 

What next? Action!

With anything in life you need to actually do something. So take one of the marketing ideas or business plans and work on it. Put aside 1/2 day to work through some of these ideas. 

The Major Sales Models:

• SPIN Selling
• Soft Sell
• Consultative selling
• Solution selling
• Strategic Selling
• Reverse Selling
• Open plan selling
• Collaborative Selling
• Customer Focused Selling
• Integrity Selling
• Question Based Selling
• The CRAPS Model
• Coaching a sale
• Helping the buyer to buy

One COULD define selling as an Attitude and a Methodology that leaves behind a trail of Techniques.

The Attitude would be curiosity with a desire to help the customer.

The Methodology could be any of those listed above.

And, by the way, my belief is that if you do not have the Attitude all the techniques in the world will not make you a really good sales person.


In examining these Models or Methodologies certain selling techniques are common to many of them. 


Rapport

Any sale involves first getting the customer to have an open discussion with you. That means you need to build some sort of rapport. 

The customer feels some tension in a sales discussion derived from the belief that you are either going to ask them to spend some money (if they will buy directly) or to do some work (by switching from their current supplier to your company, if they are employed as the buyer for a bigger company).

For a customer to consider doing either of these they need to have sufficient trust in you to enter into a discussion. One-way sales discussions seldom get very far.


So, the first selling technique is Rapport Building.
( See sales rapport in navigation bar to your left.)

Asking Questions

Asking good questions is critical to selling.
About half the selling models listed above focus on asking questions.
It's a pity that so few sales people do it well.

Why do we ask questions?Well, most of the models above would say you ask questions to "uncover a need" or to "find the customer's problem" or to "link into the customer's pain" or to "find the customers Dominant Buying Motive" and they would all be correct but incomplete.

In asking questions far to many sales people stop too early, before they know what the customer is really saying.
It's important that your questions lead you to an understanding of what the customer is talking about.
So, asking questions is critical
(See my Free Articles, on your left, for an article on Sales Questions.)

I mentioned before that most of the models above were incomplete in their motive for asking questions. I say that because they do not refer to finding out about the buyer and how they think and how that relates to how they buy.
You can make sales without knowing this but generally less often and much less often in selling big ticket items.
You need to know your customer.

That's a more advanced selling technique based on persuasion psychology.

Listening

It's no point asking questions unless you listen to the answers.

I noted the comments below on the Internet just this week.

"As a client, some of my best experiences with sales people were with those who honestly listened to my needs, and showed an interest in more than just the business. They came in with a low pressure, open, and honest approach and won my business. I didn't mind setting up appointments for their visits. I looked forward to them. …when competitors called, I quickly told them we were happy with our current vendor - even if they may have been able to give us a better price! That's part of the power of relationship selling!"

Notice it all started with listening another important selling technique.

(See my article on Listening & Selling)

Establish the Value of Your Offer

OK, you've built some rapport while you've asked questions and listened to the answers. You know a bit about how the customer thinks and what they want. Now to sell you have to relate your product to their want as you build the value of it in their mind.

You need to make sure as you establish the value of your offer that you are focused on the customer's DBM.

I have a preferred method of asking questions to uncover the customer's Dominant Buying Motive.

(See Free article # 36)

Once you have the DBM you focus most of your efforts on building value in relation to their DBM.

Building value in your offer is something we'll have to cover in a later issue but it's a very important selling technique.

Objections

At some point during the sales call a customer might start voicing some objections, which may be strong or maybe stalls or maybe just thinking out loud as to how you offer will fit in with their situation.

At that point you need to know how to handle objections.

(See Sales Objections )

Closing

Finally, Closing is a selling technique that many sales trainers promoted for many years as the ultimate technique.

I don't believe that's true.

If you have followed the other selling techniques listed above all that should be needed is to ask for the order, although, it is important to remain calm and confident at this time.

Think about the teller at K-Mart, do they get all flustered after they've scanned in all your purchases or do they just calmly say "cash or credit card?".

There are some closing techniques and some that I especially like related to how the customer thinks but they'll have to wait for another day.

Greasing the Wheel

I'll bet you've never heard this one before.

During my days at my previous business people used to ask me what I did.

My answer was almost always, "I grease the wheels".

What I meant buy that is that I did my absolute best to make it easy for my customer's to buy.

Sometimes that meant calling the customer before reorder time to alert them of favourable market conditions that would make it cheaper for them to place their order now. (Funny, it always worked out more profitable for me too?)

Sometimes it was a matter of looking into the systems at work and removing any potential bottlenecks.

Sometimes it was a matter of putting something in place with a colleague to monitor stocks of a critical product my customer used.

These instances are more related to follow up and after sales service however I also applied the concept to making it easy for a client to order during a sales visit too.

I'm sure you can think of some things if you put your mind to it.