When he wrote his ‘must read’ book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Steven Covey reminded us to ‘sharpen the saw’ if we wanted to be effective as a person. In doing so he referred to the need for self-renewal in life generally.
We can apply this principle to the business of selling.
In sales, having a blunt saw results in wasted effort and resources, with sales being lost when they should have been made. This in turn results in decreased profitability and lessening enthusiasm. Unless something is done it can start a serious downward spiral.
Whether you are an employee-salesperson or a business-owner-salesperson, if you think that your ‘sales saw’ has got a bit blunt, here are five ‘back-to-basics’ steps that you can take to help sharpen it.
1) Remind yourself of the benefits that your products provide to your customers
Customers don’t buy products or services, they buy the benefits that a product or service provides. If you have been focusing on your product or service when selling to your customers (and not focusing on the benefits that your product or service provides) you have been compromising your sales results.
An ideal way to fix this is to do (or re-do) a Features and Benefits analysis for each of your major products.
Take some sheets of paper (one sheet per product) and draw a vertical line down each sheet in such a way as to give two columns of about the same size. Head the left column of each sheet Features and the right column Benefits. Under the Features heading list ‘bullet-point’ fashion the various features of the product; then under the Benefits heading describe the benefits that each of these features provide your customers.
Now you can concentrate on talking benefit-speak not product-speak when talking with prospective customers.
2) Remind yourself of what’s so special about you and your business
This is about knowing and promoting the positive points that set you apart from your competitors; these are your Positive Points of Difference.
Customers generally have choices when buying. They can choose from a range of products that meet their requirements and they can choose from a number of suppliers.
You need to be able to give your customers good reasons for dealing with you and you must be prepared to put those reasons in front of your customers in a professional, non-aggressive way.
(Customers will rarely ask “Why should I deal with you and not a competitor?” but they will almost always have the question in mind while talking with you.)
You can now take the opportunity to answer the question (whether they ask it or not) by ‘selling’ your Positive Points of Difference via your standard sales talk.
3) Remind yourself of your Target Market
To my mind there are two aspects to this point. The first is to do with prospect ‘profile’, the second is to do with geography.
Firstly, having reminded yourself about Features and Benefits in Point 1 you should be able to think through and answer the question ‘What sort of people (or businesses) stand to gain most from the benefits my product provides and be most prepared to pay?’
This in turn will help you profile your best prospects and point you towards the section of the overall market that will give you better sales results and improved profitability.
Secondly, are you seeking to serve customers in your suburb, the state, the country or the whole world?
Marketing time and dollars are always in short supply. The clearer the definition of geographic area the easier you will find it to focus those limited resources where they are likely to get best return.
4) Review your Lead Generation methods
The easier it is for you to identify your preferred prospects the easier it is for you to be precise and targeted in approaching them.
For example, if your Target Market is amongst plumbers or printers you can be very precise and targeted because these businesses usually list themselves in various directories. The initial approach to these businesses could be via Direct Mail with a follow-up phone call.
If, on the other hand, your Target Market is amongst DIY home-owners you can’t be very precise because, while they may be more numerous in some suburbs than in others, they generally live amongst non-DIY people.
With these people you may need to adopt a more blanket approach initially, while you build up a list of purchasers for ongoing marketing.
Make sure that your Lead Generation methods continue to be appropriate to your Target Market.
5) Review the questions you ask prospective customers during your sales discussions with them
A vital part of the sales process is that part where you attempt to identify your prospective customer’s Needs and Wants. The only way that you can do this is to, at the right time, ask intelligent questions in a conversational way. These questions need to be well-planned and well-rehearsed.
Make sure that you prepare well. Ask the right questions in the right order (and don’t ask questions that don’t need to be asked.)
Summary
It’s possible for us to get so busy selling that our saw goes blunt without us realising.
The solution, of course, is to set aside regular time for saw-sharpening so that it never gets so blunt that is causes us problems.
(The up-coming post for Friday 10/4 is Keep your eyes on your target market. It's about not wasting your marketing 'shots'.)
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