previous

next

ЦШ И1:11 imjjjmmujiГШДД

Is It No, or Is It Know?

Time for a spelling lesson. Its important to understand the difference between no and know. Sales representatives spell no as no, taking the meaning literally as more rejection, another opportunity lost. (But of course you cant lose something you never had.) Conversely, sales entrepreneurs spell no as know: the customer simply needs to know more information before making a positive buying decision. Its not interpreted as rejection but more as an invitation to explain the possible benefits of doing business. By saying know, the customer has not yet seen the value in your offering and needs to know more about your tailored solution. This means going back to feature fishing and scrolling your corporate menu for appropriate features (hot-buttons), then bridging to create a benefit package worthy of consideration. Thats value. Upon hearing a know, you might consider asking the customer: What is the single barrier preventing us from moving forward? A candid response may spotlight a potential objection that when managed effectively produces a yes. Until the customer sees value, youll continue to hear knows.

Remember, earlier in the book I defined selling as the process of disruption. Making a change in suppliers or adding a new supplier to the list is scary at the best of times. Customers experience fear and anxiety just as we do. Your benefit package has to be convincing enough to disrupt customers into change. Customers will continue to say know if there is a bigger yes offered by the competition.

JMJ Hi8H 1мллл1Н1Ы1да

Three Ingredients of a Yes

Just as a good fire needs three ingredients to burn, so does a successful confirmation. Take away any one of the three ingredients and you have no fire, no sale. The three ingredients of a Yes are: rapport, trust, and the power of asking. Just as with the five rights of passage in our definition of selling, you cant take away or fail to establish any one of the three. Unfortunately, many salespeople create rapport and trust comfortably, but fail to ask a direct, honest, confirming question. Sometimes they do ask, but have failed to first create rapport or trust. Would a customer give you a bag of money if he trusted you but you failed to ask? Not likely. Would he say yes if he didnt like you or trust you? Not likely. Its all part of engineering commitment. You start confirming the sale the second you come in contact, by telephone or otherwise, with your potential customer.

I find it amusing to hear the different excuses as to why a customer didnt buy. Sales representatives are the best fire-dancers on the planet. Each probably has 50 excuses, all conveniently memorized, and of course none blame themselves. During my years as a sales manager, I could have written a book on. The reasons why I didnt get the sale. No doubt it would have challenged David Chiltons book, The Wealthy Barber, as an international all-time best seller. I offer only one reason why a salesperson didnt get the sale and ended up in second place. My reason doesnt make me popular but its inarguable: You didnt get the business because you were outsold. Pure and simple. Strip away all the excuses and thats whats left. The customer had a need and a bag of money and decided to give it to your competitor. Why? Your competitor probably offered a better, value-added solution having asked, better, smarter questions.