When we conduct our sales training, a fast rule we follow is that there are no special skills in closing. In a different article, the Myth of the Perfect Closing Script, I relayed as much. Those closing scripts and closing techniques are a part of a different era, a different environment, and different customer culture.
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A question I often get in my consultation sessions is, “Bob’s not motivated. What’s the best way to motivate Bob to get out there and sell more?”
Well, I don’t know if there’s a best way to motivate sales people because I actually don’t believe motivation is an outward force. It’s not something you do to someone. Motivation comes from within the individual.
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Here’s an interesting point I noticed in my trainings. When it comes to objections, salespeople do their best to avoid them. Overall, sales reps are usually looking to find things that are contribution-biased, things that are in their favor. They really hate to bring up objections. So most sales reps don’t even bother asking for objections. Instead, they hope to avoid them, not realizing that anything they’ve bought in their lives they initially objected to or compared and contrasted, weighing out reasons for buying vs reasons against buying.
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This article on how to close business was originally posted on September 9, 2019 by Lance Tyson in SellingPower
For sales professionals, there is perhaps no single word more enshrouded in mystery than “closing.” If you check out the descriptions for sales jobs, you’ll find that companies are always looking to hire closers. There’s a kind of mythology built around closing that implies a rarefied skill possessed by only a few elite salespeople.
But, in reality, closers are like pixies or leprechauns – they don’t exist. That’s because there’s no special skill required to close business.
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This article on sales objections was originally posted on July 8, 2019 by Lance Tyson in SellingPower
We’ve all had experiences when we felt a sale was going pretty well, and we felt the momentum gaining. Then, out of the blue, brake lights. Everything comes to a screeching halt. A prospect will suddenly tell you that your price is too high, or that they don’t have the budget, or that they aren’t sure your product or solution really has value.
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This article was originally posted on May 1, 2019 by Lance Tyson in SellingPower
I recently made a visit to the orthopedic surgeon to check in on a shoulder issue. I didn’t walk in the door wanting to sign up for surgery.
After spending a bit of time in the waiting room, I was led back to another part of the office, where a nurse practitioner asked me a number of questions about my health, took notes on my weight, temperature, and blood pressure and interviewed me about my health history. They gathered lots of information about me in order to help the doctor accurately evaluate my condition.
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This article was originally posted on March 25, 2019 by Lance Tyson in SellingPower
I’m addicted to my Fitbit. It keeps my diet on track, helps me work out longer and more frequently, and basically keeps me on my game regardless of whether I’m at home or on the road.
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“People are overlooked for a variety of biased reasons and perceived flaws. Age, appearance, personality. Bill James and mathematics cut straight through that.” -Peter Brand, Moneyball
The premise of Moneyball, both the book and the film, was that the method of recruiting baseball talent was stuck in the past. The process used outdated methods and antiquated statistics. Recruiters were using the same methods tied to the same statistics dating back to the early days of baseball. Because the Oakland A’s had a smaller budget for salaries, they were forced to look for players undervalued by the market. When the general manager teamed up with a statistician, they found that certain, previously ignored stats were better indicators of a player’s performance today than the traditional stats used by the bulk of the sports executives and talent scouts.
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Here’s a revelation about the sales process from our Director of Technology, followed by a few ideas on leveraging the power of rapport and becoming a valuable asset.
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In a previous post, we talked about a powerful tool salespeople can use to open their sales calls. That was the Impact Statement. Today, we’re going to look at another tool you can use to take control of your sales calls. This is the Why Speak Statement.
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